Desaix’s division, which had secured the beachhead at Marabout and had not taken part in the assault on Alexandria, had afterwards advanced and camped on the outskirts of the city.As early as the evening of July 3, just a day after the fall of Alexandria, Desaix was ordered to set out for Damanhur, forty miles to the southeast, the first stage of the 150-mile march to Cairo. Before he left, Napoleon advised him: “If attacked, screen your cavalry, show the enemy only your infantry platoons. Do not use light artillery. It is necessary to save this for the great day when we shall have to fight four or five thousand enemy horse.”1 At this stage, such advice was superfluous. The unloading of the fleet was still under way in the port, and Desaix was forced to leave with no artillery, and minimal cavalry support. Even this small contingent was in no fit state to embark upon a long march across the desert, let alone take part in a battle; the horses had not yet recovered from their long sea journey, and according to Desaix, in a vain appeal to Napoleon, “we have only two days’ supply of oats for the horses, and no other fodder.”2 The men each had just four days’ supply of dry biscuits, and their individual canteens of water.Initially, the route followed the dried-up bed of the canal linking Alexandria to the Nile.
