By Emily Moran

Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt was short lived, persisting only from 1798-1801. In this short time, Napoleon was able to create an image of himself that spanned for generations past the campaign. Napoleon did this through propaganda via paintings, speeches, sketches, and newspapers. This propaganda depicted Napoleon as an enlightened and liberating figure who colonized Egypt not to destroy Islam but to free the barbaric and oppressed Egyptians from the harsh rule of the Mamluks. The most famous examples of this are the paintings that Napoleon had commissioned after he returned to France. Jean Leon Gerome, who was not alive during Napoleon’s campaign, was one of the artists chosen by Napoleon. Gerome had a love for “Orientalism” and the “exotic and strange” Egyptian people. In 1867 he painted Napoleon Before the Sphinx, which shows Napoleon as the strong liberating Frenchmen, a man uninterested in the exotic nature of the Sphinx. Gerome was also commonly known to parallel his art to Greek mythology. He depicted a mirror between Napoleon and the man who liberated Thebes in an effort to shine light on Napoleon as the hero who brought salvation to the Egyptians. Another 1804 painting by Antoine Jean Gros depicted Napoleon visiting plague victims while in Egypt. Both paintings perpetuate the image of Napoleon as the enlightened liberating Frenchmen; and the Egyptians as “helpless and exotic people,” even in the decades after Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt. 

We also viewed these paintings in our class in the Visualization lab when discussing the idea of Orientalism. Orientalism is the concept that colonial powers created a body of knowledge and power in the form of reductionist stereotypes. These stereotypes, often of Arab and Muslim people, helped to serve imperial ends, and have also continued to evolve since Napoleon’s time and continue to have roots in the present day. The propaganda produced by Napoleon led broad audiences to view him as enlightened and heroic, but also perpetuated the reductionist stereotype of Egyptian people, as well as Arab and Muslims around the world,  as exotic, barbaric, and repressed. 

Insight into the Egyptian perspective of Napoleon’s campaign is chronicled in the events written by ʻAbd al-Raḥmān Al-Jabartī called Napoleon in Egypt: Al Jabarti’s chronicle of the first seven months of the French occupation. This book captures the voices of the invaded, which are often forgotten in history. This chronicle covered the first seven months of Napoleon’s campaign and gave a unique insight into the minds of many Egyptians and how they felt at this time. This chronicle shows Al Jabarti’s emotional response and cynicism toward Napoleon’s efforts to gain favor with the local Egyptians. This account includes one of the most important themes of French rule in Egypt, the military clashes with the Mamluks. The Mamluks were enslaved soldiers of the Ottoman Empire and were in control of Egypt from 1517-1867. Al-Jabarti’s chronicle also describes the French efforts to organize a collaborative government in Egypt. The French successfully created local government councils called Diwan but were unsuccessful in creating a structured government.

Napoleon’s image of the “heroic man of enlightenment” lived on for generations after his campaign in Egypt ended and caused an enduring and reductionist stereotypical view of the Egyptian people. The ‘Frenchification’ of Algeria during colonization lasted for over 100 years and still seventy percent of Algerians speak French as a second language. Similarly to Napoleon’s propaganda, this 'Frenchification’ also led to the harmful rhetoric and false perception of many native Algerians as helpless, repressed or in need of liberation from the French. Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt held a substantial impact on ideals and global power dynamics that continue to be harmful in  a “postcolonial” world. Exploring Napoleon’s boastful campaign in comparison to many Egyptians’ reception of his propaganda shed light on the ways historic rhetoric and many aspects of present day life continue to be entrenched in harmful stereotypes imprinted from colonial figures and messaging.

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