28 Egypt
a century later had pointed out that a French Egypt
would restore the French Empire in India, and that
Mameluke military power was a myth. It was inevitable,
therefore, that the world war between the French Revo-
lution and the Anciens Regimes should sooner or later
be fought out in this ante-room to the throne of Asia.
The object of Napoleon's Egyptian Expedition (1798)
was professedly to attack the British Empire. It was
described by Napoleon to the Directory as "the left
wing of the invasion of England/' But his real purpose
was to use Egypt as a battlefield from which he might
rebound to an empire of the West, or failing that, as a
base on which to build an empire of the East. His
political prospects in Paris were at this time dubious. The
Directory for their part were only too pleased to let him
use the resources of France on a remote adventure that
would rid the Republic of the inconvenient victor of
Italy and of his uncompliant veterans. Certainly the
equipment of his expedition, which included one hundred
and twenty-two experts and egyptologists, suggests an
empire-building enterprise rather than a mere military
excursus. " L'exp&lition assure la destruction de la
Puissance Britannique dans 1'Inde," wrote Talleyrand to
the Directory (July 10, 1798). But Talleyrand was
probably more concerned with getting rid of Napoleon
than with subverting the British Raj. And though Napo-
leon entered into correspondence with Tippoo Sahib and
the Marattas, who were still fighting us, it is hard to see
how throwing a French force into Egypt without com-
mand of the sea could drive us from India, Our com-
munications went round by the Cape, and our command
of the Mediterranean cut all but casual communications
between France and Egypt, Indeed, the French expe-
dition itself only escaped the thirteen British seventy-