Chapter 1145: Battle of the Pyramids III
Murad simply could not wrap his head around how a mere ten thousand French soldiers had managed to seal off a front that spanned five kilometers wide.
In his desperation, he ordered his cavalry to form up and launch an assault on the nearest unit of French infantry.
The moment the French Hussars spotted the enemy's approach, the hot air balloon drifting in the sky signaled a warning to the 14th Infantry Regiment.
The French infantry, originally deployed in thin double-row lines, immediately began to shift their formation.
Within minutes, the twenty-five hundred soldiers had transformed into two hollow squares, positioned roughly four hundred meters apart.
Simultaneously, a reinforcement column composed of over a thousand French Cuirassiers and Hussars came galloping to their aid.
This was exactly how Masséna maintained control over such a sprawling battlefield.
Nine thousand French infantrymen were divided into five lines, with a five-hundred-meter gap between each unit. Cavalry filled the spaces between these lines, extending the total width of the formation to five and a half kilometers.
In doing so, they compressed the entire Mamluk army into a narrow corridor between the Nile River and a stretch of small desert.
The moment Murad's cavalry laid eyes on those hollow squares, their morale plummeted.
Though there appeared to be a significant gap between the two squares, they didn't dare attempt to ride through it. Doing so would mean being caught in a crossfire so dense it would turn them into sieves.
If they were caught halfway through and the French cavalry charged in to engage them, they would face total annihilation.
Murad attempted a tentative probe, but before the French Hussars could even reach him, he beat a hasty retreat and veered back toward the north.
To the west of the village of Embabeh, over ten thousand Halqa infantrymen watched with nervous intensity as the seemingly loose French lines drew closer. They gripped their matchlock muskets tightly.
These men were composed of Egyptian freemen and the descendants of Mamluks who lacked inheritance rights. Normally, they served as a second-line auxiliary force for the cavalry, and they had never expected to find themselves participating in such a pivotal decisive battle.
Ibrahim galloped past them from a short distance behind, shouting words of encouragement. "There are fewer than three thousand Frenchmen ahead of us! The Lord will protect us!"
After the French artillery had finished several dozen rounds of suppressive fire, the French infantry lines pressed forward from the front.
While the Mamluk officers were still screaming at their men not to fire too early, the French unleashed their first volley from over a hundred meters away.
The Mamluk positions were instantly bathed in a spray of blood as at least a hundred men were struck down.
At such a distance, the hit rate of a standard flintlock musket was usually less than one percent, and matchlocks were even worse.
How could the French be so terrifyingly accurate?
The Halqa infantry instinctively began to return fire, only to find that the French lines had disappeared.
The French soldiers had scattered, using tall grass and trees for cover as they rapidly reloaded. They seemed entirely unconcerned about their formation breaking apart.
Seeing this, the Mamluk commander, Abdullah, did not hesitate to order a full-scale charge. Faced with such a disorganized enemy line, he believed he could use his superior numbers to crush them in a head-on assault.
However, as the Halqa infantry advanced a dozen or so steps, they saw the French reform into that same loose formation. Then, a blinding flash of concentrated fire erupted in their faces.
This was not a traditional infantry line at all; it was the latest Skirmisher Swarm offensive doctrine.
Every soldier stood at a distance from one another, allowing them to seek cover at a moment's notice while maintaining a synchronized pace to form a flexible, porous line.
In a firefight, the enemy's accuracy against skirmishers who could find cover was drastically reduced, yet the French could still fire upon the enemy's dense, fixed targets.
If the enemy attempted a bayonet charge, the Skirmisher Swarm would instantly coalesce into a standard line to repel the attack.
The tactic sounded simple, but it demanded an incredibly high level of discipline and skill from the soldiers. One mistake, and the formation would truly devolve into a chaotic mess.
Davout, who was directing the front lines, saw the Mamluks advancing and immediately ordered his men to stand their ground and fire.
At the same time, the French horse artillery had already established firing positions on the infantry's left flank.
Caught in the crossfire of rifles and six 12-pounder cannons, the Halqa infantry hadn't even covered forty meters before the ground was littered with their corpses.
No matter how fiercely Abdullah screamed his orders, not a single man dared to take another step forward. On the right flank, hundreds of men began to break and flee.
Davout personally led his skirmishers in a counter-charge.
Ten minutes later, Abdullah’s center collapsed amidst a chorus of agonized screams. Thousands of terrified soldiers fled toward the village of Embabeh.
By then, barely forty minutes had passed since the start of the engagement.
By the time Murad returned with his Mamluk cavalry, Ibrahim's main force had been pinned against the banks of the Nile, facing total destruction.
Horrified, and ignoring the fact that his horses were already exhausted, he ordered a desperate, all-out assault.
But the French Cuirassiers, having already been alerted to the cavalry's movement by the hot air balloon, appeared on their left flank at the perfect moment.
Murat, his saber raised high, was the first to plunge into the enemy ranks...
By dusk, the battle was over.
More than thirteen thousand Mamluk soldiers surrendered. Ibrahim and over a dozen of his primary generals were taken prisoner.
During his final charge, Murad had been struck head-on by a cannonball, which tore him into several pieces.
Lieutenant Colonel Marmont, the French artillery commander, entered the tent where Ibrahim was being held and signaled to a nearby translator. "Tell him that I can give the Mamluks a chance."
Strictly speaking, this was Masséna's responsibility, but as he wasn't particularly fond of such negotiations, he had delegated the task to Marmont.
While Davout was storming Embabeh, Muhammad Ali was personally leading his army in a fierce assault on the defenses to the southeast of Cairo, on the other side of the Nile.
The Mamluk defense line consisted of over six thousand Halqa infantry who were using the civilian houses on the outskirts of the city as cover, constantly leaning out to fire on the attackers.
Fortunately, Muhammad Ali possessed three of the new 6-pounder cannons gifted to him by a certain friend. This allowed him to push forward slowly, though the fighting remained incredibly gridlocked.
One of his Albanian officers looked toward the city of Cairo, which still seemed far away, and decided to advise his commander. "My lord, all our forces are tied down here. If Ibrahim suddenly returns now and attacks us, we will be in grave danger."
Muhammad Ali glanced at him and said calmly, "He won't be coming back."
"What? How can you be so sure?"
Muhammad Ali didn't answer. He simply ordered the officer to intensify the assault.
He followed every event on the European continent with great interest, so he knew exactly how powerful this French army truly was.
The Mamluks couldn't even defeat the Topçus New Army at its peak. How could they possibly stand against the French?
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