1799: Egyptians after the Revolt of Cairo
October 27th, 2018 Headsman
Every night we cut off thirty heads, and those of several chiefs; that will teach them, I think, a good lesson.”
-Napoleon to the Directory on October 27, 1799, after crushing the Revolt of Cairo
Napoleon’s private secretary on the adventure in Egypt, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, claimed that Napoleon exaggerated for effect, and the executions were more in the neighborhood of a dozen per night. The beheaded corpses were stuffed in sacks and tossed into the Nile.
Bourrienne’s biography of Napoleon also relates (albeit without a date)
Some time after the revolt of Cairo, the necessity of ensuring our own safety urged the commission of a horrible act of cruelty. A tribe of Arabs in the neighbourhood of Cairo had surprised and massacred a party of French. The general-in-chief ordered his aide-de-camp, Croisier, to proceed to the spot, surround the tribe, destroy their huts, kill all the men, and conduct the rest of the population to Cairo. The order was to decapitate the victims, to bring their heads in sacks to Cairo, to be exhibited to the people. Eugene Beauharnais accompanied Croisier, who joyfully set out on this horrible expedition, in the hope of obliterating all recollection of the affair of Damanhour.
Next day the party returned. Many of the poor Arab women had been delivered on the road, and the children had perished of hunger, heat, and fatigue. About four o’clock, a troop of asses arrived in Ezbekyeh Place, laden with sacks. The sacks were opened and the heads rolled out before the assembled populace. I cannot describe the horror I experienced; but, at the same time, I must acknowledge that this butchery ensured for a considerable time the tranquility and even the existence of the little caravans which were obliged to travel in all directions for the service of the army.
On this day..
- 1937: Nikolai Nikolayevich Durnovo, Slavist - 2020
- Feast Day of the Talavera Martyrs - 2019
- 1938: Chinese soldiers and civilians after the Battle of Wuhan - 2017
- 1905: Ed Lamb, bully - 2016
- 1821: Elizabeth Warriner, Lincoln poisoner - 2015
- 1441: Margery Jourdemayne, the Witch of Eye - 2014
- 1698: Old Believer popes and Princess Sophia's petitioners - 2013
- 1942: Helmuth Huebener, Mormon anti-Nazi - 2012
- 1449: Ulugh Beg, astronomer prince - 2011
- 1659: The first two Boston Martyrs - 2010
- 1666: Robert Hubert for the Great Fire of London - 2009
- 1553: Michael Servetus, but not to defend a doctrine - 2008
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Beheaded,Egypt,Execution,France,History,Known But To God,Mass Executions,No Formal Charge,Occupation and Colonialism,Ottoman Empire,Power,Summary Executions,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1790s, 1799, cairo, napoleon, napoleon bonaparte, october 27, revolt of cairo
