I've been given the impression that the leadership wanted him 'out of the way' or he persuaded people?
Yes I understand they wanted Egypt to then threaten India, but logically it makes no sense.
France was attacked on all sides and they send most of their navy and tens of thousands of soldiers to Egypt? And why did they leave their ships chained to each other at sea instead of towing them onto the land? Did they think the British would never find their ships parked at sea?
Was he supposed to Alexander the Great himself all the way to India?
Shortest Answer
The Directory -- the group of men who ruled France after the end of the Terror -- authorized it, but didn't initiate the idea.
Short Answer
Was the Egyptian expedition the result of . . .
Answer: "Yes". It was all of those things.
Discussion
Talleyrand observes of the French Revolution that
"One must, to recover the true origin and causes of the Revolution, weigh, analyse and judge speculative questions of high policy, and . . .examine the question of the struggle between rational ideas and irrational ones, between the aspirations of "spirit" and those of power"
These criteria serve us well to examine the Egyptian expedition: we've got to look at all sorts of factors, some rational some not, some matters of personality, others matters of statecraft. Indeed the forces gathered at Toulon in 1798 to embark for Egypt did not know where they were going and even when they got there there was a good question as to "why?"
We have to "weigh, analyse and judge" many reasons and abandon any notion of "one reason why Napoleon went to Egypt".
France's "Eastern Strategy"
Where does the idea of an Egyptian adventure come from? From ideas both ancient and more recent in French grand strategy. In centuries past, the Crusader Kingdoms of the Levant were significantly French-- while lost subsequently, this romance of "Outremer" remained; one of the few places not in France itself to which the French felt some historical attachment. France also had a very long history of finding mutual interest with the Ottoman Empire against mutual enemies: in the 16th century they were Venice and Spain, at the end of the 18th century, some in Paris thought a similar arrangement might be arrayed against Britain. Similarly, we even find French diplomacy (later) in Persia, an attempt to find a useful partner who shares an enemy in British India.
After 1763, when France effectively loses control of much of North America, French policy makers -- particularly Choiseul, the Foreign Minister, realize that British naval superiority makes transoceanic empires vulnerable. They respond in two ways: first a campaign to build a navy to rival Britain, which succeeds at a very convenient time for the American revolutionaries, and second a strategy of expansion in the Mediterranean. The substantial costs of supporting the American revolutionaries and building that fleet are one of the sources of financial distress that lead to the calling of the Estates General and the Revolution, but that strategy lives on-- most notably in Foreign Minister Talleyrand.
Talleyrand grew up as a close friend to the Choiseul family; he and Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier were classmates at the College de Harcourt, and his memoirs include a portrait of the Duke de Choiseul and his strategy. Talleyrand participated in the Revolution but then fled it to America (which he disliked) came back to France after the Terror, and on his return gave presentations on what we might call grand strategy. He noted that the United States, despite France's earlier assistance, was more closely tied to Britain and would likely remain so. He also authors an influential essay on the "advantages in gaining new colonies" [1797], a memorial to the Duke de Choiseul, where he observes
M le Duc de Choiseul foresaw in 1769 the separation of America from England . . . sought from then on the ceding of Egypt to France in order to be prepared to replace, with the same products [eg sugar, cotton] those of the American colonies [when we lose them]
So that's the continuity of a grand strategic idea. Talleyrand was a guy who could put an idea into play, but rarely one who could make it happen. Napoleon, on the other hand, was a "make it happen guy" -- and he really liked this idea, for all kinds of reasons.
Napoleon's Ambitions
Why? Well, his "glory" was growing, his soldiers loved him, he loved . . . well he loved himself, and Josephine too -- the sometime mistress of one of the powerful Directors, Paul Barras. And he felt far more at home with his Army than he did with French politics. He was a liminal character, an outsider who identifies more with the triumphs of Rome than the Wars of Louis XIV, as he says
"I am of the race of the Caesars, and of the best of their kind, the founders"
He'd come far, but he was neither comfortable nor were the powers comfortable with him. He mis-stepped by promising his soldiers land, a promise he'd been compelled to walk back by the Directory; leaving him resentful of them, and them resentful of him.
So when this idea comes up, it appeals to him. Always a terrific propagandist he was happy to compare his Republican Army to that of Rome's, and a battle across the Mediterranean to the fight against Carthage. Did he actually care? Probably not about the Revolution . . . but about his glory, most definitely. His heroes had conquered Egypt-- Caesar, Alexander. He thought no less of himself. Like Alexander, he enjoys the imperial pomp of the East appealing, and even brings back from Egypt a personal bodyguard, the celebrated Raza Roustam.
At a more practical level-- there's the desire to take the fight to the British. France's armies were dominant in Europe, but their fleet was weak. Where could France find a military engagement against British interests on land? There weren't many choices . . . Egypt was attractive in that respect too.
The Politics of the Directory
The Directors -- they weren't enthusiastic about the project, but it had advantages for them. A dangerously ambitious general wanted to campaign across the Mediterranean. The Directors were in a very weak position to deny Napoleon anything at this point; he'd saved the Directory from the mob -- the celebrated "whiff of grapeshot", and men like Barras or Rewbell couldn't easily control him; so they said "yes", and it seemed a reasonable decision. Perhaps he'd die in Egypt. Perhaps he'd win. Neither would have been terrible outcomes for the Directory . . . so they acquiesced; much easier than saying "no" to Napoleon.
Talleyrand's game is perhaps the trickiest. He outlines a plan to go to Istanbul and negotiate with the Ottomans, to have Egypt ceded to France; the French Army would then be evicting British influence, freeing the Muslim world from Empire. But . . . Talleyrand never goes to Istanbul; he offers excuses but Paris suits him just fine. Did he ever intend to go? Maybe. Talleyrand was politically both a strategist and an opportunist-- he had long term goals but when things changed . . . so did he.
The Ideology of Revolution
The French Revolution had established a foreign policy of seeking to create "satellite Republics" -- they'd already done so in the Low Countries and Northern Italy. Taking the Revolution outside of Europe; that was a dramatic idea that excited at least some of the sometime revolutionaries. Napoleon took care to free Muslim slaves and emancipated Jews . . . intermixed with ambition there was genuine service to the promotion of an ideal of Liberty.One of the most remarkable aspects of this campaign was the enormous body of scientists and artists Napoleon took with him, the Commission of Arts and Sciences, some 151 men, the savants. It's in this campaign that the Rosetta Stone is discovered, and marks the beginning of modern Egyptology. The massive volumes they produced, the Description de l'Egypte produced by hundreds of engravers are highly prized today as some of the finest printed books every published.
It's fair to call this a sincere expression of the values of the Enlightenment; it's interesting to see this spirit of Diderot and the Encyclopedia bunking in with the "man who would be King"; Napoleon's engagement with the values of the Revolution might have been largely situational, he nonetheless served some of its most idealistic aspirations.
Conclusion
So there is no "one idea" behind the Egyptian adventure. There are many ideas, many calculations of advantage. You might compare to Paul Wolfowitz' celebrated comment about the WMD argument for the invasion of Iraq; they might have stated just one-- but that was sophistry; such an adventure serve many interests, with different weights for different players.
The campaign in Egypt ultimately fails-- but Napoleon does not. He returns to France in October 1799, abandoning most of his Army. And demonstrating the reasons that might have given the Directory good reason to prefer him in Egypt, in November 1799 he disposes of the Directory in a coup d'etat, again with the notable participation of Talleyrand (Napoleon does not appear to have been too annoyed by Talleyrand's failure to go to Istanbul as promised).
Interestingly, Egypt doesn't put Napoleon off the idea of overseas adventures-- a few years later he launches the similarly unsuccessful expedition to Saint-Domingue (Haiti) under General LeClerc.