The French, the Plague Encore, and Jihad: 1798–1801 TWO The French, the Plague Encore, and Jihad 1798–1801 In 1798, when Napoléon Bonaparte’s army landed in Egypt, its declared goal was to liberate the country from the despotic rule of the Ottomans. Granting freedom to the country’s minority of Orthodox Christians, the Copts, was the second task of the French colonial troops. Upon arriving in Egypt, the soldiers advanced from Cairo into the south, Upper Egypt, where the Coptic population was concentrated. As expected, Christian inhabitants received the French with admiring eyes and tender hearts. The Copts provided the French with extensive logistical support until the French triumph over the tyrannical Mamluks—the Turkic ruling elite appointed by the Ottomans. An Egyptologist who accompanied the troops to the south, Vivant Denon, depicted scenes in Qina Province of passionate Copts aiding the French, crying at the sight of their forces leaving for the battlefields. Of one incident, Denon wrote, “I was struck with the sincere interest which the sheik [chief Copt] expressed for our fate, who, believing that we were marching on to a certain death, gave us the most circumstantial advice, without concealing from us any of the dangers to which we were exposed, advised us with great judgment on every particular which could render the encounter less fatal to us, followed us as far as he could, and parted from us with tears in his eyes.”1 Nevertheless, after the French won the wars and established a colony in Egypt, the romantic image of supportive natives awaiting their liberators was soon shattered.
