Battle of Mount Tabor (1799)

• 1. Mount Tabor, April 1799

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  Jean-Baptiste Kléber peered through his telescope, scanning the northern horizon. Some of his soldiers were pointing toward the distance, insisting they could see bayonets advancing toward them. He looked again. He saw nothing. Around him on the plain below Mount Tabor, an Ottoman army of 35,000 men held his force completely encircled. Kléber gave the order: abandon the artillery and the wounded, and attempt a breakout, every man for himself. What had gone wrong to leave 2,000 French troops in that position on the 16th of April 1799? And who, precisely, was moving unseen through the fields just out of range of a general's telescope?

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• 2. Kléber's Gamble

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  While Kléber was stationed in Nazareth, the broader French campaign was locked in a siege of the coastal fortress of Acre. Napoleon, anxious about his strategic position, had been issuing detailed instructions to his subordinates. Kléber chafed at the oversight. Word then arrived of a large Ottoman force encamped near Mount Tabor. That army was under the command of Abdullah Pasha al-Azm, the pasha of Damascus, and it had been sent with one purpose: to march to Acre and force the French to lift their siege. Kléber recognized an opportunity. He wrote to Napoleon describing his intentions, but timed the letter too late for any response to arrive. His plan was to march his division around the northern side of Mount Tabor and launch a surprise attack on the Ottoman camp at 2 in the morning, long before the camp could organize a defense.

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• 3. Dawn on the Plain

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  Kléber badly miscalculated the march. His column did not arrive at the plain below Mount Tabor until 6 in the morning, four hours after his intended target time. The sun had already risen. The Ottoman forces, made up of 10,000 infantry and 25,000 cavalry, spotted the French column at once. With any hope of surprise gone, Kléber settled on a defensive tactic: he formed his men into two infantry squares, the standard protection against cavalry attack. His plan was to hold out until nightfall, then attempt a withdrawal in the dark. As the hours passed, that plan grew less tenable. Ammunition ran low. The men went thirsty and hungry. The Ottomans, sensing the squares could not hold indefinitely, grew more aggressive. Then, from somewhere in the French ranks, a soldier called out that bayonets were advancing from the north.

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• 4. Hidden by the Wheat

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  Wild wheat standing head-high in the fields outside the plain had made Napoleon's relief column invisible from the battlefield. Napoleon had been marching to Kléber's aid with 2,000 men, and the intervening crop had concealed every one of them. When Napoleon arrived, he found himself positioned precisely between the Ottoman army and its camp. He ordered part of his force to form squares and advance toward an embankment. This made them visible at once to both the Ottomans and Kléber's trapped men. A salvo from his artillery made his arrival unmistakable. The Ottoman forces were briefly shaken but were steadied by the sight of their own Mamluk cavalry and Nablus tribesmen continuing to advance. Napoleon pressed further. He sent three squares marching out to place themselves between the Ottomans and the camp. Then he dispatched 300 men directly into the camp with orders to set fire to the tents. Their secondary task was to make a show of seizing supplies and camels. Watching their belongings burn and Napoleon's squares blocking the road back to save them, the Ottomans felt cut off. Their formation fell into confusion, and Kléber ordered his men to charge.

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• 5. Rout at the Jordan

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  Ottoman cavalry broke first, heading for the mountains to the south. The infantry went the other way, scattered toward the Jordan River. Recent rains had raised the water level and turned the riverbanks into a quagmire. Thousands of retreating infantry soldiers died in the mud and the current. When the final toll was counted, an estimated 6,000 soldiers from the army of Damascus had perished. French losses stood at two killed and sixteen wounded. Napoleon's own judgment was stark: had he arrived on the plain just one hour later, those French numbers would have been far more serious. With al-Azm's relief force gone, the threat to the French siege of Acre had been eliminated. Napoleon marched his men back to the coast to continue the investment of that city. A month after the battle, plague spreading among his soldiers forced him to abandon the siege entirely and lead the army back to Egypt.

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