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Romance Of Modern Sieges; Describing The Personal Adventures, Resource And Daring of Besiegers and Besieged In All Parts Of The World

<h2>CHAPTER II DEFENCE OF ACRE (1799)</h2> Jaffa stormed by Napoleon—Sir Sidney Smith hurries to Acre—Takes a convoy—How the French procured cannon-balls—The Turks fear the mines—A noisy sortie—Fourteen assaults—A Damascus blade—Seventy shells explode—Napoleon nearly killed—The siege raised—A painful retreat. Napoleon Bonaparte had crushed all opposition in Central and Southern Europe, but there was one Power which foiled him—Great Britain. The French Government compelled Spain and Holland to join in a naval war against England, but Jervis and Nelson broke and scattered the combined fleets. Bonaparte had conceived a bitter hatred against the only Power which now defied the might of France, and was causing him “to miss his destiny.” “I will conquer Egypt and India; then, attacking Turkey, I will take Europe in the rear.” So he wrote. In the spring of 1798 he set out for Egypt, reducing Malta on the way, and just eluding Nelson’s fleet. He had got as far as Cairo when he heard of Nelson’s victory in Aboukir Bay, where his French fleet was destroyed. But Bonaparte, undaunted, pressed on to attack Syria. He stormed Jaffa, and put the garrison to the sword. Not content with this cruelty, he marched the[Pg 29] townsfolk, to the number of 3,700, into the middle of a vast square, formed by the French troops. The poor wretches shed no tears, uttered no cries. Some who were wounded and could not march so fast as the rest were bayonetted on the way. The others were halted near a pool of dirty, stagnant water, divided into small bodies, marched in different directions, and there shot down. When the French soldiers had exhausted their cartridges, the sword and bayonet finished the business. Sir Sidney Smith, a Captain commanding a few ships in the Levant, hearing of these atrocities, hurried with his ships to St. Jean d’Acre, which lies north of Jaffa, on the north end of the bay which is protected on the south by the chalk headland of Carmel, jutting out like our Beachy Head far into the sea. Sir Sidney arrived in the Tigre at Acre only two days before Bonaparte appeared. On the 17th of March he sent the Tigre’s boats by night to the foot of Mount Carmel, and there they found the French advanced guard encamped close to the water’s edge. The boats opened with grape, and the French retired in a hurry up the side of the mount. The main body of the army, hearing that the sea-road was exposed to gun-fire from British ships, went round by Nazareth and invested Acre to the east. A French corvette and nine sail of gun vessels coming round Mount Carmel, found themselves close to the English fleet, and seven of them were made prizes, manned from the ships, and employed to harass the enemy’s posts. The French trenches were opened on the 20th of March with thirty-two cannon, but they were deficient in balls. The French General, Montholon, tells us how they made the English provide them with cannon-balls. It reminds us of our own plan at Jellalabad. He says that Napoleon[Pg 30] from time to time ordered a few waggons to be driven near the sea, on sight of which Sir Sidney would send in shore one of his ships and pour a rolling fire around the waggons. Presently the French troops would run to the spot, collect all the balls they could find and bring them in to the Director of Artillery, receiving five sous for each ball. This they did, while laughter resounded on every side. The French could afford to be merry. Under Bonaparte they had become the masters of the greater part of Europe. Nothing seemed impossible to them under that military genius. Here they were besieging a little trumpery Syrian town, which they calculated they could take in three days; “for,” said they, “it is not so strong as Jaffa. Its garrison only amounts to 2,000 or 3,000 men, whereas Jaffa had a garrison of 8,000 Turks.” On the 25th of March the French had made a breach in the tower which was considered practicable. A young officer with fifteen sappers and twenty-five Grenadiers, was ordered to mount to the assault and clear the tower fort; but a counter-scarp 15 feet high stopped them. Many were wounded, and they hastily retired. On the 28th a mine was sprung, and they assaulted again; but “the Turks exerted themselves so far on this occasion,” writes Sir Sidney, “as to knock the assailants off their ladders into the ditch, where about forty of their bodies now lie.” Montholon writes: “The breach was found to be too high by several feet, and Mailly, an officer of the staff, and others were killed. When the Turks saw Adjutant Lusigier fixing the ladder, a panic seized them, and many fled to the port. Even Djezzar, the Governor, had embarked. It was very unfortunate. That was the day on which the town ought to have been taken.” Early in April a sortie took place, in which the British[Pg 31] Marines were to force their way into the French mine, while the Turks attacked the trenches. The sally took place just before daylight, but the noise and shouting of the Turks rendered the attempt to surprise the enemy useless; but they succeeded in destroying part of the mine, at considerable loss. The Turks brought in above sixty heads, many muskets and entrenching tools. “We have taught the besiegers,” writes Sir Sidney, “to respect the enemy they have to deal with, so as to keep at a greater distance.” On the 1st of May the enemy, after many hours’ heavy cannonade from thirty pieces of artillery brought from Jaffa, made a fourth attempt to mount the breach, now much widened, but were repulsed with loss. “The Tigre moored on one side and the Theseus on the other, flank the town walls, and the gunboats, launches, etc., flank the enemy’s trenches, to their great annoyance. Nothing but desperation can induce them to make the sort of attempts they do to mount the breach under such a fire as we pour in upon them; and it is impossible to see the lives, even of our enemies, thus sacrificed, and so much bravery misapplied, without regret. I must not omit to mention, to the credit of the Turks, that they fetch gabions, fascines, and other material which the garrison does not afford from the face of the enemy’s works.” By the 9th of May the French had on nine several occasions attempted to storm, but had been beaten back with immense slaughter. On the fifty-first day of the siege the English had been reinforced by Hassan Bey with corvettes and transports; but this only made Bonaparte attack with more ferocity, having protected themselves with sand-bags and the bodies of their dead built in with them. It was a touch and go whether the French would not fight their way in. A group of Generals was assembled on Cœur-de-Lion’s Mount, among whom Napoleon was[Pg 32] distinguishable, as he raised his glasses and gesticulated. At this critical moment Sir Sidney landed his boats at the mole and took the crews up to the breach armed with pikes. The enthusiastic gratitude of the Turks—men, women, and children—at sight of such a reinforcement is not to be described. The few Turks who were standing their ground in the breach were flinging heavy stones down on the heads of the advancing foe, but many of the French mounted to the heap of ruins in the breach so close that the muzzles of their muskets touched and their spear-heads locked. Djezzar Pasha, on hearing that so large a force of the English were fighting in the breach, left his seat, where, according to Turkish custom, he was sitting to distribute rewards to such as should bring him the heads of the enemy, and coming behind our men, the energetic old man pulled back his English friends with violence, saying, “If any harm happen to the English, all is lost.” A sally made by the Turks in another quarter caused the French in the trenches to uncover themselves above their parapet, so that the fire from our boats brought down numbers of them. A little before sunset a massive column came up to the breach with solemn step. By the Pasha’s orders a good number of the French were let in, and they descended from the rampart into the Pasha’s garden, where in a very few minutes their bravest lay headless corpses, the sabre proving more than a match for the bayonet. The rest, seeing what was done, fled precipitately. The breach was now practicable for fifty men abreast. “We felt,” says Sir Sidney, “that we must defend it at all costs, for by this breach Bonaparte means to march to further conquest, and on the issue of this conflict depends the conduct of the thousands of spectators who sit on the surrounding hills, waiting to see which side they shall join.” [Pg 33] With regard to the cutting off of heads by the Turks, one day, when out riding, Sir Sidney questioned the superior metal of the Damascus blade, when Djezzar Pasha replied that such a blade would separate the head from the body of any animal without turning the edge. “Look!” said the Pasha; “this one I carry about with me never fails. It has taken off some dozens of heads.” “Very well, Pasha,” said Sir Sidney. “Could you not give me ocular proof of the merit of your Damascus, and at the same time of your own expertness, by slicing off, en passant, the head of one of the oxen we are now approaching?” “Ah, q’oui, monsieur, c’est déjà fait;” and springing off at a gallop, he smote a poor ox as it was grazing close to the path, and the head immediately rolled on the ground. A Damascus sabre regards neither joints nor bones, but goes slicing through, and you cannot feel any dint on the edge thereof. On the 14th of May Sir Sidney writes to his brother: “Our labour is excessive: many of us have died of fatigue. I am but half dead, and nearly blinded by sun and sand. Bonaparte brings fresh troops to the assault two or three times in the night, and so we are obliged to be always under arms. He has lost the flower of his army in these desperate attempts to storm, as appears by the certificates of former services which we find in their pockets. We have been now near two months constantly under fire and firing. We cannot guard the coast lower down than Mount Carmel, for the Pasha tells me, if we go away, the place will fall, so that the French get supplies from Jaffa to the south. I sent Captain Miller in the Theseus yesterday to chase three French frigates off Cæsarea; but, alas! seventy shells burst at the forepart of Captain Miller’s cabin, killing him and thirty-two men, including some who jumped overboard and were drowned.” The[Pg 34] ship got on fire in five places, but was saved. By the 16th of May Bonaparte had lost eight Generals and most of his artillerymen—in all upwards of 4,000 men. The Turks were becoming quite brave and confident. They boldly rushed in on the assaulting columns, sabre in hand, and cut them to pieces before they could fire twice. But they were struck with terror at the thought of the mines which they imagined might blow up at any time, and could not be forced to remain on the walls or in the tower. However, the knowledge which the garrison had of the massacre at Jaffa rendered them desperate in their personal defence. In the fourteenth assault General Kleber led his victorious troops to the breach. It was a grand and terrific spectacle. The Grenadiers rushed forward under a shower of balls. Kleber, with the gait of a giant, with his thick head of hair and stentorian voice, had taken his post, sword in hand, on the bank of the breach. The noise of the cannon, the rage of the soldiers, the yells of the Turks, were all bewildering and awful. General Bonaparte, standing on the battery of the breach, looking rather paler than usual, was following the progress of the assault through his glass, when a ball passed above his head; but he would not budge. In vain did Berthier ask him to quit this perilous post—he received no answer—and two or three officers were killed close to him; yet he made no sign of moving from the spot. All at once the column of the besiegers came to a standstill. Bonaparte went further forward, and then perceived that the ditch was vomiting out flames and smoke. It was impossible to go on. Kleber, in a great rage, struck his thigh with his sword and swore. But the General-in-Chief, judging the obstacle to be insurmountable, gave a gesture and ordered a retreat. After this failure the French Grenadiers absolutely refused to[Pg 35] mount the breach any more over the putrid bodies of their unburied companions. Bonaparte for once seems to have lost his judgment, first by sacrificing so many of his best men in trying to take a third-rate fort; and, secondly, because, even if he had succeeded in taking the town, the fire of the English ships must have driven him out again in a short time. One last desperate throw was made for success by sending an Arab dervish with a letter to the Pasha proposing a cessation of arms for the purpose of burying the dead. During the conference of the English and Turkish Generals on this subject a volley of shot and shells on a sudden announced an assault; but the garrison was ready, and all they did was to increase the numbers of the slain, to the disgrace of the General who thus disloyally sacrificed them. The game was up after a siege of sixty days: in the night following the 20th of May the French army began to retreat. But as they could not carry their guns and wounded with them, these were hurried to sea without seamen to navigate the ships, in want of water and food. They steered straight for the English ships, and claimed and received succour. Their expressions of gratitude to Sir Sidney were mingled with execrations on their General for his cruel treatment of them. English boats rowed along the shore and harassed their march south. The whole track between Acre and Gaza was strewn with the dead bodies of those who had sunk under fatigue or from their wounds. At Gaza Bonaparte turned inland, but there he was much molested by the Arabs. The remnant of a mighty host went on, creeping towards Egypt in much confusion and disorder. Sir Sidney Smith had thus defeated the great General of France, who grudgingly said: “This man has made me miss my destiny.” In the hour of victory Sir Sidney was generous and humane, for he had a good heart, good[Pg 36] humour, and much pity. Nor did he forget the Giver of all victory, as the following extract from a letter testifies: “Nazareth, 1799.—I am just returned from the Cave of the Annunciation, where, secretly and alone, I have been returning thanks to the Almighty for our late wonderful success. Well may we exclaim, ‘the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.’—W. S. S.” <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 37] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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