In the roughly three centuries between Sultan Selim’s victorious entry into Cairo and that of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798, the regime that the Ottoman sultans imposed on the Arab lands had evolved and adapted to changes brought about by global forces. Istanbul had lost its ability over the course of the eighteenth century to influence who would represent it in much of the empire, but the Ottoman sultans had maintained their legitimacy to rule in the vast lands that stretched from Algiers to Basra. The survival of the empire in the Arab provinces was in part fortuitous as neither a military power nor a compelling political ideology had emerged to break the bond that linked the House of Osman to its Arabic-speaking subjects. Nonetheless, Bulut Kapan Ali Bey’s two invasions of Syria had demonstrated that the empire was vulnerable on its southern flank. The dynasty had dodged a potential disaster in Egypt, but its ability to withstand more formidable challengers was yet to be tested.

Napoleon in Egypt

A European army arrived on the shores of Egypt on 1 July 1798, commanded by the self-styled champion of the Enlightenment’s view of “progress,” Napoleon Bonaparte. The French found little opposition from the mamluk emirs and quickly advanced on Cairo. There on 21 July in the suburb of Imbaba on the western side of the Nile River, the French dealt the “neo-Mamluk” regime in Cairo a blow almost as stunning as the one their erstwhile nominal predecessors had suffered at the hands of Sultan Selim. Despite their victory at the “Battle of the Pyramids,” as French spin masters labeled the clash, the French had not delivered a coup de grace and the surviving mamluk emirs continued a campaign of guerrilla-style warfare from Upper Egypt.