British Military Orientalism: Cross-cultural Contact with the Mamluks during the Egyptian Campaign,1801

Introduction

Nothing can equal the grand and splendid appearance of this cavalry. Their horses are well made, strong, sleek, and plump, very surefooted, stately in their attitudes, and have altogether the most beautiful appearance. The magnificence of the trappings, with which they are covered, is amazing, and the saddles and housings glitter with gold and silver, almost dazzling the eyes of the astonished spectator. ¹

One might easily assume that this comment, written by Captain Thomas Walsh of the 93rd Regiment of Foot, described British cavalry while on parade in one of the victory processions that followed the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Yet Walsh was not referring to a parade, nor was he describing British or even European cavalry. He was recounting the arrival in the British camp of the Mamluks – a military caste of mounted warriors – on 1 June 1801, during the campaign in Egypt. ² Such a description contrasts with the tendency of Britons in this period to express a deeply ingrained conviction in their superiority over the people they encountered in the Near East. Remarkably, Walsh’s description of the former rulers of Egypt was not an anomaly. He encapsulates the opinion of British servicemen towards the Mamluks. This admiration is only present in the writings of military personnel; it is not shared by civilian travellers who published accounts about Egypt prior to 1801.

As Walsh’s comment implies, there was much more to soldiering during the 1801 Egyptian campaign than the experience of battle, but the significance of this operation as an important point of cultural encounter has not been addressed. The two most detailed works on the campaign, Edward Ingram’s series of articles titled ‘The Geopolitics of the First British Expedition to Egypt’ and Piers Mackesy’s British Victory in Egypt, address the geopolitical history and operational history of the campaign, respectively. ³ Recent scholarship on British soldiers’ travel experiences during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars has a strong focus on the Peninsular War 1808–14. Gavin Daly has highlighted the varied and distinctive ways in which British soldiers responded to the landscape, the climate, their living conditions, the local civilization, and the role of women in the Spanish Peninsula. ⁴ Edward Coss similarly focuses on the diet, living conditions, and the social environment of British soldiers in the Peninsula; he provides an insight into their daily lives and the strategies they developed to cope with the stress of war. ⁵ Jennine Hurl-Eamon considers soldiers’ sex lives, both at home and on campaign in the Peninsula. She scrutinizes the soldiers’ ideas of masculinity and how they perceived their duties, which took them overseas and far from their sweethearts. ⁶

Other scholars, such as Neil Ramsey, offer an overview of the glut of military autobiographies published in the years following the Napoleonic Wars. He situates these works in the context of Romantic literary culture and argues that military autobiographies profoundly shaped nineteenth-century Britain’s understanding of war as Romantic adventure. ⁷ Catriona Kennedy, in her survey of the writings of British combatants throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, is one of the few who has considered the campaign in Egypt, albeit briefly. She argues that the officers’ experience of Egypt was shaped by their knowledge of classical history. By contrast, the experience of the common ranks was shaped primarily by the Bible; the expedition became a means of testing the authority of the biblical account. However, due to the broad focus of Kennedy’s work, the number of pages devoted to the experiences of soldiers in Egypt is limited. ⁸

Britain’s involvement in the Iberian Peninsula was undoubtedly the army’s longest and most significant campaign during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, yet the Spanish and Portuguese inhabitants were not the only foreign people British forces encountered throughout this conflict. To attain a more rounded picture of the British army’s attitude to foreign peoples, one must look beyond the Iberian Peninsula, beyond Europe. Operations such as the campaign in Egypt deserve further investigation. At present, the most detailed study of the British army’s encounters in and attitudes towards peoples in Egypt can be found in the essays produced by the collaborative research project ‘Making War, Mapping Europe: Militarized Cultural Encounters, 1792–1920’, which concluded in September 2016. Through a series of interlocking case studies focusing on contact between Western European armies and the peoples and cultures of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East, the project explores the distinctive characteristics of militarized cultural encounters and how they have shaped European identity and perceptions of ‘self’. Several of the essays discuss the British campaign in Egypt, most notably that by Catriona Kennedy. She considers the British understanding, experience, and representation of Egypt’s iconic topography during the campaign. ⁹ While these essays provide a good overview which spotlights the distinctiveness of militarized cultural encounters, they lack the depth of an extended analysis.

Significantly, the British campaign in Egypt has often been overlooked by scholars of orientalism. One of the most important works to date on the relationship between the military and orientalism has been written by Patrick Porter. He emphasizes that war is a potent site of orientalism, and tracks ‘western’ visions of ‘eastern’ warfare from antiquity to the present. ¹⁰ He highlights the distinctiveness of western military views of the ‘east’ and argues that war was a crucial medium through which the calibre of one’s own and other civilizations was judged. However, Porter considers military orientalism a modern phenomenon, and tailors his conclusions towards how ‘eastern’ warriors have shaped ‘western’ armies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There is little comment on how the image of ‘eastern’ warriors had an impact on ‘western’ forces in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Aside from Porter’s admirable contribution, work on this subject is scarce. The vast body of scholarship relating to orientalism produced in the past 40 years has relegated war largely to the periphery. According to historian Douglas Peers, there are several reasons for this, including what he describes as the anti-intellectual traditions of military history and the anti-military traditions of intellectual history. ¹¹ One could argue that the current state of orientalist scholarship has been defined largely by Edward Said’s Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. First published in 1978, it remains difficult to discuss orientalism without reference to it. Said argued, controversially, that orientalism is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies that produced it, which makes much orientalist work inherently political and servile to power. This argument bitterly divided oriental scholars. Since 1978, traditional orientalists such as Albert Hourani, Robert Irwin, and Bernard Lewis have all focused primarily on an intellectual history of orientalism to oppose Said’s views. ¹²

The objective of this article is twofold. First, it will highlight the importance of the Egyptian campaign as a ‘contact zone’ for the British army. The concept of ‘contact zones’, coined by Mary Louise Pratt in her seminal Imperial Eyes, refers to the space where people geographically and historically separated come into contact with one another and establish ongoing relations. ¹³ Second, it will make a significant contribution towards the current understanding of ‘military’ orientalism. The article will explore how a distinctive ‘military’ orientalism developed among British soldiers in response to an unprecedented level of cross-cultural contact with the Mamluks during the campaign in Egypt in 1801. This will help to return the focus of ‘military’ orientalism to what Edward Said identified as the foundational moment in European orientalism – the French and British expeditions to Egypt, 1798–1801.

A considerable amount was written by British soldiers about the Mamluks during the Egyptian campaign. This includes unpublished letters, diaries, journals, narratives, and war office dispatches and records. In a number of cases, this material provided the foundation for a military memoir published in the years following the conclusion of the campaign. Naturally, memoirs tend to be less factually reliable than documents created during the war and reflect the later cultural climate in which they were written. ¹⁴ The social class of the memoir’s author was vital in determining the date of publication. Most officers had published their memoirs by 1805. In 1803, the Anti-Jacobin Review observed that ‘The public has been so inundated with journals, accounts &c. of Egypt … that there hardly seemed room for any future observations on the subject.’ ¹⁵ By contrast, the first publication of an Egyptian campaign memoir by a lower-ranked soldier was George Billanie’s anonymously published Narrative of A Private Soldier in His Majesty’s 92nd Regiment of Foot, in 1819. The 1820s and 1830s were marked by the publication of narratives by lower ranks, which may partly have been the result of evangelical groups, who encouraged literacy rates among the ranks, but also persuaded soldiers to write their narratives in such a way to promote conversion to Methodism. Neil Ramsey provides another explanation. He argues that the 1819 publication of the first memoir of an ordinary soldier, Journal of a soldier of the Seventy First, was a pivotal moment in the development of military memoirs. It was popular, selling more than 3,000 copies, which helped to redefine the genre around the experiences of the common soldier. The rise of public interest in and the reputation of the common ranks meant soldiers were more willing to write narratives and found more willing audiences and publishers. ¹⁶

Before examining British–Mamluk encounters in detail, it is necessary to explain who the Mamluks were. Egypt had been effectively under their control prior to the French invasion in 1798. The word Mamluk signifies ‘slave’ or ‘bought man’ in Arabic, and in this case the latter is closer to reality as the Mamluks were not slaves in the ordinary meaning of the term. The Mamluks first appeared in Egypt in about 1230, when the Ayyubite Sultan Al-Malik purchased 12,000 youths from the Caucasus to form the elite corps of his army. Within 20 years, the Mamluks had moulded themselves into a formidable fighting force and, after murdering Al-Malik’s successor, established their own dynasty in Egypt. ¹⁷ The Mamluks organized themselves as a military caste of warriors, who replenished their numbers, which fluctuated between 10,000 and 12,000, by purchasing boys from the Caucasus, usually of Georgian, Circassian, or Armenian origin. These boys were usually eight to ten years old, and were immediately subjected to a fierce disciplinary regime aimed at instilling warrior virtues. Once a young Mamluk received a military command, he became a free man. It was these men who formed the Mamluk aristocracy, and they looked down contemptuously on the Egyptians they ruled. There was very little miscegenation; the Mamluks only took wives of Caucasus origin, specifically imported for the purpose. These marriages seldom produced children, owing to high infant mortality and the almost universal practice of Mamluk wives aborting their pregnancies in order to preserve, so they believed, their youth and beauty. Hence the Mamluks remained totally reliant on the importation of youths. ¹⁸

In their official capacity, the Mamluks were vassals of the Ottoman Empire after the conquest of Egypt in 1517. However, in the following centuries, the Mamluks had informally re-established their rule over the country at the expense of the Ottoman pasha in Egypt but had refrained from declaring independence. Preoccupied with defending its borders against the Austrians and the Russians, the Ottoman government had no cause for interference as long as there was a semblance of peace and the tribute was regularly paid. By the end of the eighteenth century this had degenerated into a farcical situation whereby the pasha in Egypt had no real authority and remained under virtual house arrest. ¹⁹

The Mamluks’ constant and relentless combat training from childhood produced gifted warriors, yet the political and social outlook of these men was entirely focused on their internal position within the Mamluk hierarchy. Authority was divided between the Mamluk Shaykh-al-Balad (Governor of Cairo) and the Mamluk Amir-al-Hajj (leader of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, but effectively the commander of the army). In the 1790s, Ibrahim and Murad Bey occupied these two positions, and both constantly vied for ascendency over each other. Any sign of weakness, such as a relaxation of coercive measures, or a more liberal policy, could be capitalized upon by political rivals, or lead to attempts by the Ottomans to re-establish their authority. The Mamluks’ regime kept the population downtrodden and allowed little economic or cultural development. There was no provision for saving water or maintaining the irrigation canals upon which the agriculture depended. After a series of low yearly floodwaters in the Nile delta, hunger and epidemic became frequent occurrences. The Mamluks were not interested in the territory outside their immediate domain, which meant that the fierce roaming Bedouin tribesmen had free rein over the desert regions of the country, hindering the development of trade. Defeat by the French at the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July 1798 effectively ended Mamluk control of Egypt. The Mamluks were reduced to groups of nomadic cavalry which continued to harass French troops until they allied with the British expeditionary force in 1801. ²⁰

Images of Mamluk Despotism

The Mamluks’ mode of rule prior to the French invasion led authors of contemporary civilian travel literature to associate them with eastern stereotypes, particularly ‘oriental despotism’.

This term was inspired by the emerging evidence of decline in the Ottoman Empire from the mid-eighteenth century, and it implied a backward and corrupt society with arbitrary and ferocious rulers, who governed servile and timid subjects. In her research on European attitudes towards the Ottoman Empire, Aslı Çırakman emphasizes the importance of Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws, published in 1748, in formulating this eighteenth-century definition of oriental despotism. Montesquieu argued that despotism was an exclusively oriental form of regime. His thesis was intended to provide a pretext for a critique and proposed reform of the French regime under which he lived, but his interpretation of oriental despotism became the landmark verdict on the nature of ‘eastern’ societies for generations of travel authors in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It was common practice for later observers to filter all their experiences and observations through theories and abstractions that had been inspired by Montesquieu. ²¹ As a result, popular travel authors in both Britain and France shared Montesquieu’s core beliefs concerning eastern despotism and denounced Mamluk rule, emphasizing its cruelty and effeminacy. ²² Authors who differed from this norm were noticeably less popular. ²³

Much of the current literature on the use of oriental despotism draws from the writing of civilian travellers to the east, along with the occasional diplomat, but rarely considers the writing of military personnel. ²⁴ This is surprising because military writings on foreign lands could be markedly similar to civilian travel literature; the former were undoubtedly influenced by the latter. Several military memoirs imitated the writing style and structure of travel narratives and were directed towards audiences with an interest in travel literature. Some even omitted military matters in favour of a more traditional travel narrative. ²⁵ One might argue that military views in Egypt were preprogrammed by civilian travel authors, as many soldiers expressed opinions on the Mamluks that were markedly similar to those of Montesquieu. Preprogrammed perceptions were not unusual in military narratives penned during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As Elodie Duché shows, British captives in France narrated their experiences with comparisons to colonial slavery. Many prisoners had read the narratives of slavery and captivity that had become popular in the eighteenth century and such texts furnished their minds. As a result, these British prisoners compared their conditions in captivity with those of Christian slaves in the Ottoman Empire. ²⁶

According to Captain Thomas Walsh, the taxes levied by the Mamluks ‘often oblige the Fellahs to abandon their houses, and take refuge among the inhabitants of the Desert. Numerous villages, totally deserted, are seen all over Egypt; sad examples of these vexations.’ ²⁷ Francis Maule, a major in the Queens’ Regiment, wrote, ‘Their despotism and tyranny were so dreaded by the Egyptians, that, in the first instance, they hailed the advance of the French army, and were happy at the defeat of the Mamelouks.’ ²⁸ The most vehement critic of the Mamluks among the British forces in 1801 was George Baldwin, who had served as the British consul in Egypt, from 1786 to 1798. Although not a military man, Baldwin’s knowledge of Egypt’s topography and his fluency in Arabic made him an invaluable asset to the expedition. In his Political Recollections, published on his return to Britain in late 1801, he described the Mamluks as

a set of swineherds, vagabonds, any thing; kidnapped in the mountains of Mingrelia, Circassia, Georgia, and brought young into Egypt; sold, circumcised, and trained to the career of glory; their road to honour, apostacy; their title to power, assassination and a contempt of death: no stability, no order, no character among them, but a constant thirst and jealousy of command. ²⁹

Apart from their cruelty, British servicemen commonly accused the Mamluks of effeminacy. This image was conveyed effectively by one staff officer, who wrote, ‘You will be surprised when I tell you that several French soldiers have deserted to the Mamelukes!!! How they can be so base, and so lost to manly feeling, I cannot conceive; for they subject themselves not only to everything that is humiliating, but disgraceful to human nature.’ ³⁰ The language used by the officer clearly alludes to the popular suspicion that the Mamluks practiced homosexual acts, seen at the time as abhorrent to gentlemanly sensibilities. References to homosexual acts among the Mamluks can be found in other memoirs: Thomas Walsh wrote that they were ‘addicted to the most detestable and unnatural crimes, which is extremely prevalent in parts of the Turkish empire’. ³¹ Lt-Col. Robert Thomas Wilson, commander of a detachment of Hompesch mounted riflemen, observed that ‘their habits and customs [were] degrading to manhood’. ³² Such accusations were not completely unfounded; there had been a prevalence of same-gender sex without moral censure in the Mamluk military system in medieval Egypt. ³³ However, the popular oriental stereotype employed by travel writers throughout the eighteenth century, which emphasized effeminacy and debauchery, was certainly exaggerated.

These negative images of the Mamluks implied that colonial intervention in Egypt would be easily possible and both meaningful and beneficial for humankind. Certainly some of the soldiers’ comments can be described as ‘anti-conquest’ writing, a term employed by Mary Louise Pratt to describe ‘the strategies of representation whereby European bourgeois subjects seek to secure their innocence in the same moment as they assert European hegemony’. ³⁴ This line of thought is best encapsulated by George Baldwin. In spite of the damage wrought by the Mamluks on the country, he asserted that Egypt’s pivotal position gave it enormous trading potential. In letters to senior officials in London, he made numerous sweeping statements that described the country as ‘a resort of all traders of the world’, and ‘a common centre of universal commerce’. ³⁵ A letter to Henry Dundas in Autumn 1801 contained a similar message:

If Egypt could be improved in any proportion to the susceptibility of improvement, I would not hesitate to say that we might reckon upon a circulation of two thousand ships of commerce in one year from Egypt to the ports of England. Do we forget what Egypt was? … If it can be held to England, she may talk of jewels in her crown, but a brighter than this she will not possess. ³⁶

Baldwin’s grim appraisal of the Mamluks and his fanciful speculations on Egyptian trade were likely inspired by a desire to recover his failed investments in Egyptian trading companies. Yet the stubbornness with which he asserted his opinion suggests he genuinely believed what he wrote. Other military personnel, such as Robert Wilson, who lacked Baldwin’s financial attachment to the country, also commented on the commercial promise of a pro-British government in Egypt: ‘Egypt would soon again recover by commerce considerable splendour, if a good government did but direct the resources … to what vast extent would it expand, when cherished and protected by the regulations of an adequate government.’ ³⁷

Martial Images of the Mamluks

The image of the Mamluks as despotic and effeminate contradicts the admiration expressed by Thomas Walsh in the introductory passage, and an explanation is required. The soldiers’ stereotypes were highly conditional and altered according to circumstances and military imperatives. Irrespective of their alleged personal character, there was a widespread British appreciation of the Mamluks’ contribution to the success of the Egyptian campaign. Their praise outweighed their negative assessment of the Mamluks, and this sets military writing apart from civilian travel authors. The differing perceptions of the Mamluks in military and civilian writing reflect the unique conditions to which soldiers were subject on campaign. Before the Mamluks joined the British, the latter had been in desperate need of reinforcements.

After landing at Aboukir Bay on 8 March 1801, the British defeated a large French force on 21 March. General John Hely-Hutchinson, commander of the expedition, then decided to split his army. One half would remain at Alexandria to maintain a siege, and he would lead the other in an advance towards Cairo. By June 1801, many of Hutchinson’s men were suffering from illness and were hopelessly outnumbered. Some 4,000 British infantry faced a 17,000-strong French garrison. Although an Anglo-Indian force was on its way to Cairo from Bombay, under the command of General David Baird, they would arrive too late to affect the outcome of the campaign. Hutchinson was in dire need of cavalry. The British had hoped to obtain 1,200 mounts before the campaign, but had only managed to acquire 450, all of which were small in size and not suitable for a cavalry charge. ³⁸

Aside from this, British cavalry at this point in the wars was largely inferior to that of the French. The training for new British cavalrymen was short, lacked specific doctrine, and did not appreciate the requirements of active service. No instruction was given on scouting and skirmishing before 1805, and these vital skills had to be learned entirely on campaign. New cavalry units required a period of active service before they could be considered anywhere near proficient. Although the army reforms from 1795–1809 substantially improved the effectiveness of the cavalry, they continued to suffer from poor standards of training, organization, and discipline throughout the wars. In the only sizeable clash between British and French cavalry in Egypt, the former was severely bested by the latter. ³⁹

It is unsurprising then that the arrival of the 1,200 Mamluk cavalry in June 1801 resulted in a marked increase in optimism among the British. Lieutenant Aeneas Anderson of the 40th Regiment considered the Mamluks’ arrival in the British camp as ‘a circumstance of great importance, from the superior discipline of that cavalry, their intimate acquaintance with the country, and their powerful influence among the inhabitants’. ⁴⁰ Even the pessimistic and unpopular General Hutchinson wrote an upbeat letter to Lord Hobart, the new secretary of state for war and the colonies, announcing the arrival of the Mamluk cavalry: ‘I am sanguine enough to hope, that the most serious good effects will arise from this junction, as they have a most intimate knowledge of the country, and the greatest influence amongst the inhabitants.’ ⁴¹

The appearance of the Mamluks struck the British and it is easy to see why. They were undoubtedly an impressive sight; picked as boys by experts and trained from childhood, they were invariably large, lean, and muscular. Each cavalryman was a veritable arsenal on horseback, armed with carbines, several pairs of pistols, djerids (a short javelin made of palm branches), and scimitars. The supreme confidence in their own abilities meant that they carried with them a fortune in jewels, clothes, and coins. Over a muslin shirt, they wore layers of bright and brilliant silken vests and caftans, the whole encased in gigantic silken trousers. Their swords, saddles, and pistols were all inlaid with silver and jewels, each alone worth a fortune. The result was that a fully armed Mamluk cavalryman literally glittered in the desert sun. ⁴² ‘Their appearance’, one officer wrote, was ‘truly magnificent; nothing can be more splendid or rich than their dress and appointments … Their swords are of a peculiar good quality and highly valued: some of them at so extravagant a price as 1,000 dollars.’ ⁴³ Robert Wilson became fascinated with the appearance of one particular cavalryman:

… his dark eye was remarkably keen, his face florid, and extremely handsome: his turban and robe were white, edged with gold; a red and gold embroidered pouch was suspended from his shoulders, by a broad gold lace belt: his arms were superiorly fine, his horsemanship and dexterity admirable; indeed every motion was graceful: his modest yet noble mien, a certain expression of sanctity in all his actions, enforced an immediate idea of his pretentions and character. ⁴⁴

The Mamluks’ military spectacle appealed to the British army, which, according to Scott Hughes Myerly, was itself very much a ‘theatrical institution’. Great emphasis and importance was put upon colourful, brilliant clothing, extravagant headgear, and elaborate equipment. Flamboyant uniforms were strongly associated with a soldier’s pride, self-esteem, and sexual appeal. Presenting the correct and proper appearance was frequently a source of personal gratification in the British army, and some became so fixated with the image of themselves and their regiment that they neglected other important considerations, even if these were vital to the army’s success. ⁴⁵ Given that the Mamluks poured most of their considerable wealth into their appearance and equipment, they inevitably found many admirers amongst British servicemen.

Much of the equipment that the Mamluks carried with them was not just for show. Although their mode of warfare was outdated by the nineteenth century, they were extremely adept at their craft. Their skills elicited universal admiration and respect from European observers. This was certainly the case for Cooper Williams, a reverend serving on board the HMS Swiftsure. From the aftermath of the battle of the Nile in August 1798, until February 1799, the Swiftsure took part in the blockade of the Egyptian coast, intercepting any ships and harassing French strongpoints. Their operations kept them in frequent communication with the French, as they negotiated for the exchange of various supplies. On one such occasion, Frenchmen came aboard the Swiftsure, and told the crew of the battles they had fought with the Mamluks. After listening intently, Williams recorded what he had heard about the Mamluk cavalry charge. Small bodies of Mamluk cavalry simply charged at the French infantry that were arranged in massed square formations.

In this desultory mode of attack they were open to every disadvantage: in the first place, they had no covering artillery, but were themselves exposed to that of the French … and on their near approach they were received by a steady fire of musketry … but if, escaping these dangers, they came to close quarters, the bayonets of the French could not protect them from the force and skill of the Mamaluk sabre, which bearing before it every resistance, hewed down all that came within reach. ⁴⁶

A charging Mamluk was unquestionably an imposing sight. At full gallop he would first discharge his carbine and then fire several pairs of pistols at closer range. Next he would fling his djerid, and finally he would charge his foe with scimitar in hand. The Mamluks wielded their scimitars with deadly accuracy and power, capable of decapitating their enemy with a single blow. Some could even wield scimitars in both hands, whilst holding the horse’s reigns between their teeth. ⁴⁷ Although these abilities were rendered obsolete by the French soldiers’ use of cannon and muskets, there remained considerable respect for the Mamluks’ martial capabilities amongst both the British and French military. Williams wrote, ‘The French officers who came to us, reported that the stories we had heard of the skill and power of the Mamaluks with the sabre were literally true, and that if they were disciplined according to European tactics, they would be the finest cavalry in the world.’ ⁴⁸ The image of the Mamluks charging headlong towards an organized enemy, and who, once engaged with their foes, ‘hewed down all that came within reach’, emphasized their bravery, ferocity, and physical strength. The dedication and training required to wield their sabres with such skill was often noted by Williams: ‘The mode in which they are exercised to the use of the sabre is curious; bags stuffed hard with cotton, are placed upright the height of a man, and till a soldier can cut through one of these with a single stroke, he is not accounted a skilful Mamaluk.’ ⁴⁹ Nearly three years later, one British officer on campaign in Egypt wrote in a similar manner about the Mamluks’ swordsmanship: ‘so expert are they in the use of the sword, that one of their common practices is cutting in two a thread suspended without any weight at the end to keep it stretched, and thus afford resistance; infinite skill is required to do this’. ⁵⁰

It should be noted that the British reaction to physical encounters with the Mamluks was not unanimously positive. A great deal depended on the exact nature of an individual’s exposure to Mamluk culture. One officer, writing anonymously, was appalled at the ‘sink of depravity and licentiousness’ on display at Giza, the former headquarters of Murad Bey. There were, he wrote, ‘such scenes of infamy and horror, that really my blood runs cold at the mere recollection of them’. ⁵¹ Such an opinion was rare, however. By 1801, the Mamluks had little control over Egypt; the grievous losses they had suffered fighting the French had not been replenished after the lines of supply to the Caucuses were cut. Therefore, most British servicemen did not witness the Mamluks’ oppression of Egypt first-hand, and had expected little from the Mamluks in the initial stages of the campaign. Contrary to expectation, the Mamluks arrived in the British camp to support the advance on Cairo and provided wonderful displays of swordsmanship and equestrianism to British spectators. These physical encounters did not correspond with what British personnel had read or heard about the Mamluks from earlier civilian portrayals. The positive appraisal of the Mamluks in military writing demonstrates that physical encounters could be more influential on individual opinions than second-hand oral accounts or written records. Such a conclusion suggests that recent literature on European encounters in the Near East during this period, such as the work by Aslı Çırakman and Michael Curtis, may have overemphasized the dominance of pre-existing stereotypes in shaping attitudes towards this region. ⁵²

Most significantly, these comments suggest that British–Mamluk encounters were formative in the development of British ‘military’ orientalism. It seems clear that the martial ability of the Mamluks exonerated them from accusations of cruelty and effeminacy. This supports Patrick Porter’s arguments that once in battle, men of different cultures were judged primarily on their military skill. However, the way in which British soldiers wrote about encounters with the Mamluks, describing their physical prowess and natural affinity for combat, suggests that they helped to develop embryonic ideas of ‘martial race’. This term refers to men who were considered culturally and biologically predisposed to warfare. The importance of the term in British imperial culture has been examined by several scholars, most notably Heather Streets. She argues that after the Indian Mutiny in 1857, concepts of martial race became an influential factor on the British Empire’s recruitment policy towards Indian Sepoys, Punjabi Sikhs, and Nepalese Ghurkhas. ⁵³ Such work often provides little detail on the development of the concept prior to 1857. Although martial race theory had no direct influence on British imperial thinking in the early nineteenth century, the observations made by British servicemen on the appearance and skill of the Mamluks during the campaign provide a comprehensive example of martial race discourse long before 1857. It seems no coincidence that the contradictory images of the Mamluks – the effeminate oriental despot and the primitive, noble, and exotic warrior – were also applied to certain indigenous groups living in British India in the nineteenth century.

Furthermore, slicing through bags of cotton with a single blow, or cutting individual threads of linen from horseback, endowed the Mamluks with a certain romantic and exotic appeal. The image of the Mamluks’ charge in particular can be connected to the romantic sublime. Although the romantic sublime was primarily associated with natural phenomena, such as panoramas from mountaintops, it was also closely connected to war, especially pitched battles. Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Schiller grounded the sublime in the sense of self-preservation, arguing that terror and fear of death are at the bottom of the sublime experience. Obviously, a battle has the potential to be more terrifying than any naturally occurring spectacle. For Kant, in his Critique of Judgement, the figure of the brave soldier, defying the fear of death on the battlefield, is ‘the object of the greatest admiration’. ⁵⁴ It was this heroism that was so admired by British and French troops. When the order to attack was given, the Mamluks simply galloped forward as fast as they could, each man just as keen to be the first into the fray and intent on individual glory. The Mamluks had little conception of an ordered concerted charge that might have broken through the French infantry squares, and were dumbfounded by the seemingly impenetrable lines of bristling bayonets. Their formidable skills and quixotic heroism could not achieve victory against well-drilled European infantry, a fact which contributed towards the Mamluks’ appeal. ⁵⁵ The moment when the Mamluks charged towards the waiting French guns, their armour glittering in the desert sun, and death almost a certainty, was identified as sublime, romantic, and tragic.

Unlike the French, British soldiers had little chance to observe the Mamluks’ effectiveness in combat. Aside from a series of sporadic skirmishes, there was little fighting involved in the latter stages of the campaign. Nevertheless, the Mamluks’ fondness for a game of djerids provided a great spectacle for the British. An equestrian team sport, the objective of djerids is to score points by throwing blunt javelins at opposing teams’ horsemen. During Hutchinson’s visit to the camp of the allied Ottoman army in mid-May 1801, a djerids tournament was held. Solyman Aga, ‘the pride of the Mamelukes’, stole the show. Robert Wilson, watching in the crowd, wrote, ‘the beauty of his countenance, … his excellence in all the martial exercises … excelled beyond competition, and extorted universal admiration’. ⁵⁶ The Mamluks regularly trained in the British camp in preparation for such competitions. Two horsemen would ride at each other at full speed, both throwing javelins in the air at once. They would then throw themselves out of the saddle and hang by the side of the horse to avoid the incoming missile. The skill required to perform such manoeuvres without stirrups amazed the British. ⁵⁷

One could argue that the British fascination with these martial skills comprised a form of nostalgia. Classical Republicanism certainly encouraged this line of thought. Several Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, writers, and philosophes, such as Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith, saw martial virtue as an important unifying force for society. Commercial and industrial expansion, although undoubtedly having some benefits, was thought to facilitate a decline in martial virtue. Hence the Mamluks, a band of brave warriors seemingly devoted to war, came to symbolize the martial traits which Britain had lost. ⁵⁸ On occasion soldiers associated the Mamluks with groups from Britain’s classical past. Watching the djerid tournament and the ‘variety of colours and dresses’ on display, Thomas Walsh likened it to ‘an ancient tilt or tournament’. ⁵⁹ A few weeks later, Robert Wilson found himself discussing campaign plans with a Mamluk. He described this individual as ‘an Ethiopian, of a dark copper colour, with a white stubby beard … [and] a most penetrating look very sensible, enquiring, crafty, and suspicious’. The appearance and demeanour of this Mamluk seemed to Wilson to resemble the Numidian King Syphax who had rebelled against the Romans. ⁶⁰ These classical associations fit a broader pattern in encounters between European and non-European peoples. Recent scholarship on the French army stresses the tendency of officers to interpret areas in northern Africa or even America against the referential backdrop of classical antiquity. Julia Osman highlights that French authors and newspapers from a variety of backgrounds explicitly referred to the Americans as ancients, as the two nations drew closer together during the American Revolutionary War. ⁶¹ Bonnie Effros shows that nineteenth-century French officer-archaeologists who examined Roman remains in Algeria often personally identified with the Romans. This approach enabled the French to portray themselves as a new Rome with a legitimate authority over a conquered Africa. ⁶²

Interestingly, the British made very little effort to recruit the Mamluks for military purposes. Only one letter in the war office refers to an attempt at recruitment. ⁶³ This lack of effort is unusual; Britain certainly had a history of enlisting ethnic groups considered to have great martial prowess. The East India Company recruited Indian sepoys in large numbers from 1750, and 12 West India regiments had been formed in the 1790s to serve in the Caribbean. In Europe the British army had relied heavily on mercenary forces throughout the Revolutionary Wars: regiments were formed comprising of Corsicans, French royalists, Germans, Russians, and Swiss. ⁶⁴ The reliance on white Christian mercenaries to replenish its ranks suggests an unspoken racial preference for European troops in the British army. While scholars have often referred to the successful cooperation between Britain and Portuguese, Spanish, or German forces during the Napoleonic Wars, it is worth reflecting on the recruitment opportunities which never materialized.

One possible explanation for the failure to consider the recruitment of indigenous peoples in Egypt was that the British had no intention of remaining in the country. The objective for the campaign, set by the cabinet in late 1800, was to remove the French from Egypt. By October 1801, this objective was achieved, and the majority of the British forces were withdrawn. The seven-month campaign was too short for any policy of selection to be considered for the formation of a Mamluks corps. Moreover, by the time the British arrived, the Mamluks were a shadow of their former strength, the majority having been killed or driven away by the French. With more time and greater ambition, the French were more proactive in their recruitment policy in Egypt. In September 1799 they formed a company of Mamluk auxiliaries that became known as ‘Mamluks de la République’. This unit returned to France in 1801 where it was later attached to the Chasseurs-à-Cheval of the Imperial Guard. Impressed by their loyalty and bravery, several French commanders hired Mamluks as bodyguards. Napoleon employed Roustam Raza, who served for almost 16 years from 1799 to 1814. Following the emperor’s example, Napoleon’s stepson, Eugène Beaharnais, and the Imperial Old Guard Marshal, Jean-Baptiste Bessières, also appointed Mamluk bodyguards. ⁶⁵

Although the British commanders never sought to recruit the Mamluks, they did declare a preference for Mamluk rather than Ottoman rule in Egypt. This contradicted the official policy agreed by the British cabinet in October 1800, which had stipulated that Egypt should be returned to the Ottomans. General Hutchinson saw the value of the Mamluks as a cavalry force and gave them ‘the protection and guarantee’ of the British government. A constant theme of Hutchinson’s despatches was the inability of the Ottomans to govern the country, and the proposal for a British-sponsored Mamluk regime in Egypt. ⁶⁶ By October 1801, Hutchinson was expecting to establish the Mamluks in power. He had put the British in an embarrassing position, having promised Egypt to the Mamluks while the cabinet had given similar assurances to the Ottomans. This led to disaster, as British attempts to mediate a compromise between the two parties were unsuccessful. On 22 October the Capitan Pasha, the Grand Admiral of the Ottoman navy, set an ambush for the Mamluk commanders, under the pretext of negotiations on board his flagship. All of the leading beys were either killed or captured, and although Hutchinson secured the release of the Mamluk prisoners, a settlement became impossible. ⁶⁷ As the British army withdrew from Egypt in October 1801, the situation was far from resolved; neither Ottomans nor Mamluks were able to gain ascendency. This chaotic state of affairs was only resolved when the Albanian contingent of the Ottoman army, commanded by Muhammad Ali, mutinied over lack of pay. Being the only fully trained unit in Egypt they quickly seized control of the government and Ali became Pasha of Egypt in May 1805. ⁶⁸

The British response to the murder of the beys demonstrates their strong attachment to the Mamluks, as well as their nostalgia for Mamluk military virtues. Captain Charles Fitzmaurice Hill, an officer in the Anglo-Indian army, was saddened by the loss of these exotic and formidable warriors. They were, he wrote, ‘fine Mamalukes, who behaved so well in their different actions with the French, and who were the greatest friends to our army’. Hill was ashamed that Hutchinson had ‘pledged for their protection’, but had failed to keep them safe:

… the brave Mamalukes heartily acquit us of even being the means of their Beys unhappy fate, and nobly say that ‘The English not being so well acquainted with the treachery of the Turks, were more liable to be deceived but that their Beys should never have trusted them because they knew them better’ nevertheless poor princes! It was the sacred word of Britain, that drew you into destruction – and that word has never been pledged in vain before. ⁶⁹

When the bodies of the dead were secured from the Ottomans, Hutchinson ensured they were ‘interred with minute guns & military honours’. On their release, only one of the Mamluks was still alive, but seriously wounded. He ‘has eight wounds on him’, Hill wrote. ‘General Baird paid a visit to the wounded Bey, who burst into tears directly he saw him.’ ⁷⁰ For the romantically inclined among the British army, this was a tragic end to a formidable warrior people. Others were more ambivalent. Robert Wilson recalled their tyrannical mode of government prior to 1798. Reflecting on his belief that ‘the Mamluks will surely become extinct’, he wrote, ‘Nor should Europe lament their fall. The government of the Mamelukes was unnatural and oppressive.’ ⁷¹ Wilson’s view was rare. Hill admired the resolute defiance of the Mamluks, despite their dwindling numbers. ‘Even the small remains of them only wish for leave to show at, how soon they could clear Egypt of near 30,000 Turks – there is something uncommonly interesting in the fate of these brave fellows, and God forbid, the English should allow them to be swept off by the arm of the Turkish assassin!’ ⁷²

Hutchinson continued to advocate a British-sponsored Mamluk regime in Egypt after returning to Britain in 1801 and enjoyed some success. The public was shocked by the Ottomans’ attempted massacre of the beys and were impressed by the warrior traits of the Mamluks. ⁷³ Hutchinson’s opposition to official policy, and his stubborn backing of the Mamluks after the campaign, testifies to the considerable attachment of some British personnel to these seemingly exotic warriors. Interestingly, there is a complete lack of any notable comment by the lower ranks on the Mamluks, which suggests these warriors appealed primarily or perhaps only to officers. It seems that British officers saw the Mamluks as the Muslim equivalent of the upper-class gentleman officer. A comment by Charles Hill exemplifies this line of thought: ‘Their manners are truly engaging – their disposition proud, generous, nobleminded, and brave, and recalls very much to one’s imagination what the English Barons once were.’ ⁷⁴ Appraisals such as this go back centuries; Bernard Lewis claims that from the fifteenth century onward, Ottoman Muslims were likened to gentlemen of the established Church, and Ottoman Christians were equated to factious nonconformists. ⁷⁵ Moreover, European intellectuals had a habit of comparing their own social and political life with that of Muslims, particularly the Ottomans, during their expansion into eastern Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. British officers who were raised in this intellectual environment would be more disposed to compare and contrast themselves with the Mamluks. ⁷⁶

The Impact of the Mamluks on the British Military’s Self-image

A striking aspect to the admiration of the Mamluks was the conviction among some British observers that the Mamluk cavalry was superior to any European equivalent. One of the strongest compliments was written by an officer in the Anglo-Indian army:

These brave handful of gallant cavalry … have ever withstood all attempts of the Turks to extirpate them by fair force of arms, and, must to the British, the French themselves acknowledge, they gave them most desperate battles, they fairly beat their cavalry whenever they met them, but the French infantry & artillery were too hard for them. ⁷⁷

General Hutchinson described them as ‘inferior certainly to none in the world’, ⁷⁸ and another officer wrote, ‘The French confess that their cavalry, which is … decidedly the finest European I ever saw, did not dare meet the Mamelukes with equal numbers.’ ⁷⁹

Such comments contrast with the common tendency of Britons who visited the Near East or India to express a deeply engrained conviction of superiority over the people they encountered. ⁸⁰ The statements of regret among the British army after learning in October 1801 that their withdrawal from Egypt was imminent demonstrates British confidence in their capacity to rule over eastern peoples, not only Indians. George Baldwin thought that ‘the peasant could enjoy the fruit of his labour’ with Egypt under British rule, ⁸¹ and Robert Wilson considered how much ‘happier’ and ‘more advantageous’ it would have been for the Egyptians ‘if Egypt had been constituted an Indian colony’. ⁸² Even Major-General Sir John Moore, contemplating a redevelopment of Alexandria, thought ‘it was in the power of the English to do more in Egypt than it will ever be in that of any other nation’. ⁸³

The statements alleging the superiority of the Mamluks may have served a practical purpose. It provided an image with which Britons could critique their own forces and improve elements in their society. This propensity for Britons to look towards exotic oriental powers in order to critique themselves was not a new development. Europeans had often compared themselves unfavourably with the Ottoman Empire, as it expanded into eastern Europe from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. ⁸⁴ Patrick Porter argues that Europe had a long-standing sense of vulnerability to the ‘orient’, that was expressed in the folklore of famous battles between East and West, such as Thermopylae (480 BC), Constantinople (1453), and Lepanto (1571). ⁸⁵ One may argue the favourable portrayals of the Mamluks merely continued this trend. Indeed, it is possible that representations of the Mamluks served as an implicit criticism of Britain’s own cavalry. This would certainly be justified; as we have seen, the performance of British cavalry throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was at times far from exemplary.

Not all agreed that the Mamluks comprised a superior military force; their martial ability was a debatable topic that was employed to both disparage and champion the British army. For Thomas Walsh, the Mamluks were certainly competent, but inferior to elite European cavalry regiments, particularly those of the British army. ‘The Mamalukes, taken as light troops, or as individual horsemen, are equal, and perhaps superior, to any in the world; but without tactics, and never acting in a body, they cannot be expected to succeed against European troops.’ ⁸⁶ Robert Wilson agreed with this estimation: ‘Individually, without doubt, they are superior to any cavalry in the world; but collectively, British dragoons must, from their physical superiority of strength, weight, and velocity, overpower in a charge more than an equal number of them.’ ⁸⁷ These comments highlight that military organization and discipline were considered the fundamental reason behind Europe’s self-perceived superiority over oriental powers.

The British military’s representations of the Mamluks draw strong parallels with, and were likely influenced by, images of other, supposedly primitive ‘oriental’ warrior peoples. Much like opinions of the Mamluks, the British formed two discrepant views towards native peoples living in British India. The first was that Indian societies were backward, despotic, and corrupt, and should be overthrown in favour of the more sophisticated European model of civilization. The second was that native people enjoyed a primitive but natural, traditional, and martial form of civilization. This style of society had been destroyed in Britain by the development of commercialism and should therefore be preserved and cherished where it still existed. ⁸⁸ This image was most apparent in appraisals of East India Company Sepoys. The impressive conduct of the Sepoys throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars led many British personnel to think of them as bred for war. At the battle of Assaye in 1803, during the Marathas Wars, Wellington wrote, ‘Our troops behaved admirably; the sepoys astonished me.’ ⁸⁹

Conclusion

As this article demonstrates, British soldiers’ appraisal of the Mamluks was highly conditional. It seems that the soldiers arrived in Egypt carrying negative stereotypes about the Mamluks, having most likely been preprogrammed by the portrayals in civilian travel literature. When the Mamluks joined the British forces, and the military value of their superior cavalry to the campaign was recognized, the British were more accepting of Mamluk culture, and forgiving of any perceived flaws in character. The negative stereotypes that soldiers had brought to Egypt were to some extent supplanted by military imperatives. This argument calls into question the assumption, made by recent scholars, that pre-existing stereotypes were always pre-eminent in shaping the attitudes of Europeans towards non-European peoples. ⁹⁰ Instead, it seems clear that the physical encounters between Britons and Mamluks were far more influential on personal opinions than second-hand verbal accounts and written records.

Such a conclusion supports Patrick Porter’s view that war was a crucial medium through which the calibre of civilizations was judged, and that, once in battle, cultural differences tended to fade. Further to this point, one can argue that British–Mamluk encounters served as a formative moment in the development of British ‘military’ orientalism. The way in which British soldiers wrote about the Mamluks is notable: they described their formidable appearance, their natural talent for combat and their quixotic heroism, which inspired a romantic attachment and a nostalgia for the chivalric, martial values thought to have been lost during Britain’s commercial development. These comments suggest that encounters with the Mamluks helped to form embryonic ideas of ‘martial race’ in British minds. This was long before 1857, the point from which Heather Streets and other scholars have argued that martial race began to influence imperial culture. ⁹¹