English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I. John Ashton
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Hompesch’s hussars, and its truth has been attested by Dr. Wittman who accompanied the army of the Grand Vizir.’
This Dr. Wittman was the physician to the British Military Mission, which went with that army through Turkey, Syria, and Egypt, and who wrote a narrative of his travels, in which, at p. 128, he says the unfortunates were dragged ‘to the sand hills, about a league distant, in the way to Gaza, and there most inhumanly put to death. I have seen the Skeletons of those unfortunate victims, which lie scattered over the hills; a modern Golgotha, which remains a lasting disgrace to a Nation calling itself civilised.’
Sir Robert Wilson says: ‘Vollies of musquetry and grape instantly played against them; and Buonaparte, who had been regarding the scene through a telescope, when he saw the smoke ascending, could not restrain his joy, but broke out into exclamations of approval; indeed, he had just reason to dread the refusal of his troops thus to dishonour themselves. Kleber had remonstrated in the most strenuous manner, and the officer of the Etat-Major, who commanded (for the general to whom the division belonged, was absent) even refused to execute the order without a written instruction; but Buonaparte was too cautious, and sent Berthier to enforce obedience. … The bones still lie in heaps, and are shown to every traveller who arrives; nor can they be confounded with those who perished in the assault, since this field of butchery lies a mile from the town.’
Combe, of course, does not forget this incident.
Another bloody work ensued
Which the brave Nap with rapture view’d—
He near four thousand prisoners had,
The number almost drove him mad;
Because so many men to feed,
Required a deal of food indeed.
He chid his troops for being so good,
And said such mercy was of no good.
Resolv’d to get rid of his burthen,
(Tho’ Kleber ventur’d to demur then,)
He bade his troops the men surround,
And march them to a rising ground;
The soldiers did as he directed,
And they by Boney were inspected;
It seems our hero was inclin’d
If ’twas his interest, to be kind; Now Nap, among these Captives rude, An aged Janizary view’d; And, with a contumacious sneer, Said he ‘Old man, what brought you here!’ The Janizary, no way frighten’d, Although unconscious how it might end, Replied ‘That question soon I can, Sir, By asking you a like one, answer, To serve your Sultan, you’ll rejoin— And the same answer now is mine.’ This frankness all around delighted, And admiration, too, excited. Behold—our very hero smiled, As if he had been reconciled. That smile, some whispered, is a gracious one, This guess was not, tho’, a sagacious one; The Janizary was not spared, His fellow-prisoners’ fate he shared; But previously brave Nap withdrew, And at a distance had a view; The signal given—none dared to stop— The musquetry went pop—pop—pop. Nap thro’ his spy glass marked the fun, And cried out ‘bravo’ when ’twas done— His soldiers, who the dead surrounded, Humanely stabbed and killed the wounded.
Napoleon now turned his attention to the siege of St. Jean d’Acre, where the garrison had the advantage of European aid, besides which, Sir Sydney Smith cruised about the fort, and Napoleon’s battering-train, which had been captured, was duly pointed at the besiegers. He was, besides, called off to help Kleber, who was in an awkward situation at Mount Thabor, and had been fighting Achmet Pasha, who had a considerably superior force, from six in the morning till one in the afternoon. Not one moment too soon did Napoleon make his appearance; but he turned the tide of battle, and the Turks were defeated with the loss of 5,000 or 6,000 men, and all their stores, &c.
Back they went to St. Jean d’Acre, and did their best at the siege; but it was not to be. Reinforcements were thrown into the town, Napoleon’s army grew smaller, provisions got scarcer, the plague was in their midst; so, sending his sick and wounded to Jaffa, he raised the siege and began to retreat on May 20.
O’Meara tells us Napoleon’s version of the causes which led to this.48 ‘ “The chief cause of the failure there was that Sir Sydney Smith took all my battering-train, which was on board of several small vessels. Had it not been for that, I would have taken Acre in spite of him. He behaved very bravely, and was well seconded by Phillipeaux, a Frenchman of talent, who had studied with me as an engineer. … The acquisition of five or six hundred seamen as cannoniers, was a great advantage to the Turks, whose spirits they revived, and whom they showed how to defend the fortress.
‘ “But he committed a great fault in making sorties, which cost the lives of two or three hundred brave fellows, without the possibility of success. For it was impossible he could succeed against the number of the French who were before Acre. I would lay a wager, he lost half of his crew in them. He dispersed proclamations among my troops which certainly shook some of them, and I, in consequence, published an order, stating that he was mad, and forbidding all communication with him. Some days after, he sent, by means of a flag of truce, a lieutenant, or a midshipman, with a letter containing a challenge to me, to meet him at some place he pointed out, in order to fight a duel. I laughed at this, and sent him back an intimation that when he brought Marlborough to fight me I would meet him. Notwithstanding this, I like the character of the man.” ’
The French reached Jaffa on May 24, and found the hospitals full of wounded and those sick of the plague. Compelled still to retreat, it was necessary to remove the sick; and, to encourage his soldiers in the task, and to show them how little was the risk, Napoleon is said to have handled several of the infected.
CHAPTER XVI.
RETREAT FROM JAFFA—POISONING OF FIVE HUNDRED SOLDIERS—DIFFERENT ENGLISH AUTHORITIES THEREON—NAPOLEON’S OWN STORY, ALSO THOSE OF LAS CASES AND O’MEARA—RETREAT TO CAIRO.
But this retreat became the subject of a dreadful accusation against Napoleon, which must have hit him hard at the time of his projected invasion in 1803—aye, quite as hard as the massacre at Jaffa. It was nothing less than that he poisoned, with opium, 500 of his sick soldiers, before he left Jaffa. There was a solid foundation for this fearful charge, as will be shown hereafter. Combe speaks of it thus—
Another great thing Boney now did,
With sick the hospitals were crowded,
He therefore planned, nor planned in vain,
To put the wretches out of pain;
He an apothecary found—
For a physician, since renown’d,
The butchering task with scorn declined,
Th’ apothecary, tho’, was kind. It seems that Romeo met with such a one, This is a mournful theme to touch upon, Opium was put in pleasant food, The wretched victims thought it good; But, in a few hours, as they say, About six hundred, breathless lay.
The truth of this has never been accurately established, but I fancy, at that time, there were very few Englishmen who did not thoroughly believe it. Sir Robert Wilson wrote: ‘Buonaparte finding that his hospitals at Jaffa were crowded with sick, sent for a physician, whose name should be inscribed in letters of gold, but which, from important reasons, cannot be here inserted; on his arrival, he entered into a long conversation with him respecting the danger of contagion, concluding at last with the remark, that something must be done to remedy the evil, and that the destruction of the sick at present in the hospital, was the only measure which could be adopted. The physician, alarmed at the proposal, bold in the confidence of virtue, and the cause of humanity, remonstrated vehemently, respecting the cruelty, as well as the atrocity, of such a murder; but, finding that Buonaparte persevered and menaced, he indignantly left the tent, with this memorable