Battle of Abukir (1799) 1799
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 25 July 1799 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1799 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | Egypt | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Africa | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | French invasion of Egypt and Syria | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Ottoman Empire | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 31.3167, 30.0667 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Abukir (also known as the Battle of Aboukir or Battle of Abu Qir) was fought on 25 July 1799 between the French Army of the Orient under Napoleon Bonaparte and an Ottoman army under Mustafa Pasha during the French invasion of Egypt and Syria. It is considered the first pitched battle with this name, as there already had been a naval battle on 1 August 1798, the Battle of the Nile. (A second pitched battle followed on 8 March 1801.)
No sooner had the French forces returned from a campaign to Syria, than the Ottoman forces were transported to Egypt by an Anglo-Ottoman fleet under Sidney Smith to put an end to French rule in Egypt. Mustafa Pasha was an experienced commander who had fought against the Russians. He knew that cavalry charges against the French squares were futile. So, he sought to avoid them by fortifying his beachhead with two defensive lines. From this beachhead the Pasha could carry out the invasion of Egypt. However, Napoleon immediately saw the flaw in the tactic as it meant that the Ottomans had nowhere to run if routed.
The French attacked the Ottoman positions and quickly broke through the first defensive line before it was fully completed. The second line, however, proved tougher to defeat and the French withdrew for a while.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Abukir (1799) (revision 1373172066), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- Battle of Abukir (1801) 1801 · 1 km
- Battle of the Nile 1798 · 5 km
- Battle of Mandora 1801 · 7 km
- Battle of Alexandria (1801) 1801 · 15 km
- Capture of Alexandria (1798) 1798 · 19 km
- Battle of Alexandria (30 BC) 30 BC · 19 km
Other battles of the French invasion of Egypt and Syria
- Battle of Shubra Khit 1798
- Battle of the Nile 1798
- Battle of the Pyramids 1798
- Capture of Alexandria (1798) 1798
- Battle of Mount Tabor (1799) 1799
- Second Siege of El Arish 1799
- Siege of Acre (1799) 1799
- Siege of El Arish 1799
- Siege of Jaffa 1799
- Battle of Heliopolis (1800) 1800
All 13 battles of the French invasion of Egypt and Syria →
Browse more: battles in Egypt · Africa · Early modern battles