Content warning: depictions of rape and torture

The recent book La campagne d'Egypte (2018) by historian Jacques-Olivier Boudon includes a chapter detailing the violence and war crimes that took place during the campaign of Egypt. Boudon cites the primary sources - letters et memoirs from French soldiers and civilians who participated in the campaign - that mentions the rape incidents, which are also featured in other recent accounts, notably Strathern, 2009 (that you cite) and Dwyer, 2014.

Some context first: in July 1798, French troops led by general Desaix marched across the desert from Alexandria to Cairo under a scorching heat. They were soon exhausted, suffering (and dying) from thirst and diseases, and found themselves in a guerilla war where they were harassed by enemies in hit-and-run attacks. A few times, terrified soldiers woke up at night believing they were under attack and shot at each other in the dark, killing several of their own and losing horses.

According to several testimonies, several straggling French soldiers and civilians were captured by the Bedouins (or "Arabs"). They were at best ransomed and released (after being mistreated and in some cases raped), at worse mutilated, tortured and killed.

Here's a roundup of the most significant ones (mostly drawn from Boudon):

The testimonies

The frankest testimony is found in the diary of Charles Antoine Morand, an officer who served under Desaix and was part of the march to Cairo.

The Bedouins harassed us the whole way, which was only six miles, and killed several men. They were content to rob others. Others that were captured and taken were splendidly buggered [enculés] by the children of Ismail and then sent back; two dragoons of the 20th regiment were submitted to this rude ordeal [dated 2 July 1798]

Morand's testimony is the most direct and credible. This was a personal diary, where he gives the victims' unit, and uses a crude word for the act (rather than an euphemism drawn from classical literature). The word enculés would not have been published outside pornographic books. Morand is more precise (and even cruder) in another part of his diary:

Woe to the unfortunate one who falls into their hands. They strip him and, before giving him death, they satisfy their abominable passion on him. Sometimes, opening the anus with a knife, they seek some horrible pleasure in the bloody wound. Or, inserting a rifle cartridge, they set fire to it before abandoning their victim.

Other members of the expedition also wrote about those incidents.

Diary of gunner Louis-Joseph Bricard:

The Arabs, fearless with bladed weapons, but afraid of the cannon, did not dare to obstruct the march of our troops. But these brigands, mounted on small fast horses, flitted around the columns, stopped and massacred all those who strayed from them. Several who had been caught by these villains had the good fortune to escape and returned to Alexandria in the most appalling state, having for several days satisfied the cruel passion of these monsters. There was even a French woman who was among them.

Pierre Amédée Jaubert, orientalist and translator for Napoléon, in a letter to General Bruix, dated 9 July 1797:

The Arabs and Mamelukes treated some of our prisoners as it is said that Socrates treated Alcibiades. One had to die or suffer it: a grenadier was killed. They had only beaten the women they had taken from us.

Captain Rozis, writing to his friend Grivet from Alexandria on 9 September 1798 (letter cited in Larchey, 1866):

In principle, they [the Arabs, Mamluks, and Bedouins] took very few prisoners, and if any escaped death, they were reserved for their brutal passion.

From another officer, Jean-Gabriel Niello Sargy (memoirs published in 1825):

We soon recognised how dangerous it was to deviate alone from the march of the columns without being escorted; it was to run the risk of being murdered, or of becoming the victim of an infamous passion very much in vogue in that country, especially on the part of the Bedouin-Arabs. Several of our grenadiers had been killed while resisting their violence; others had succumbed. Several Frenchmen, in the city of Alexandria itself, had been kidnapped at nightfall, and had suffered this dreadful fate.

Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Napoleon's secretary, tells in his memoirs published in 1830 how Napoleon interrogated one of the victims:

The next day, a deal was struck with the Arabs for the release of the men they had abducted the day before; they were bought back for a hundred piastres: one of them, who was distinguished from the others by his manners, was summoned by the general-in-chief, who wished to obtain some information about these half-savage hordes. At the first question, how he had been treated, this man burst into tears: "Why are you crying?" He sobbed that he had experienced the treatment so well known in the Orient. "Big fool, you are very sick! You have paid for your imprudence; you should have stayed with your unit. Thank heaven that you are free so cheaply. Come, weep no more, and answer me." The few hours he had spent with the Arabs, and their conduct towards him, had prevented him from making the slightest observation. Nothing could be learned from him.

Bourrienne's memoirs (and memory) were heavily criticized at the time for being full of mistakes (a "fact-checking" book was even published, see A.B., 1830) but this particular story was not among those claimed to be fake by his critics.

The story told by Bourrienne is also found in Alexandre Dumas's memoirs (1863). Dumas's father had been part of campaign of Egypt (he left in March 1799 after coming into conflict with Napoléon). The novelist wrote extensively about his father (who died when he was 4). It is likely than Dumas drew from Bourriennes's account and embellished it, but he may also have been in contact with veterans who knew his legendary father well:

About ten men were missing. The Bedouins were in the act of beheading their prisoners, and had already accomplished a third of their task, when they learned that there was a hundred piastres reward for each prisoner brought back alive. As men who put business first, and put commerce above all else, they stopped at once, and contented themselves with indulging in another amusement over their prisoners, less cruel, but more extraordinary, in the eyes of the captives, than that which they had at first feared.

The result was that, when Bonaparte brought these prisoners before him for questioning, he was quite astonished to see them blush, turn away, and stammer like shameful young girls. At last, urged on by the general-in-chief, who, hearing always of the misfortunes that had befallen the captives, wanted absolutely to know what those misfortunes were, an old soldier told him, weeping with anger, that it had happened to him and his companions what would have happened to the angels of the Lord between Sodom and Gomorrah, if they, who had the advantage over our grenadiers of having wings, had not ascended to heaven without losing a moment.

Imbecile! said Bonaparte, shrugging his shoulders, you are very sick. Come, come, thank heaven that you have been paid off so cheaply, and do not cry any more.

In his memoirs (written before 1823), Captain Charles-François François, a veteran of Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, does not mention the rapes suffered by French soldiers during the march to Cairo, but describes another incident where a group of French employees, soldiers, and bakers were killed in El Khanqah north of Cairo, early August 1798. These people had been tasked with setting up ovens to make bread for the army, but were left behind when French troops had to retreat for a few hours. When the soldiers returned, they found that the villagers had massacred those men:

The peasants and Arabs, after having sodomised them, cut off their noses, ears, arms, legs, etc., and even their private parts. Those who escaped death after these operations were forced to heat the ovens they had set up and were put into them by these cannibals. On our arrival, I saw these unfortunate victims roasting in an oven.

Like Bourrienne's memoirs, those of François were criticized for their lack of verisimilude and for plagiarizing previous works (Caron, 1904). François seems to be the only source for the El Khanqah atrocities. Another officer, Jacques Miot, who had been in charge of setting up the ovens, barely mentions the incident in his own memoirs, only saying that the villagers of El Khanqah, described as "looking more like ferocious beasts than warriors", assassinated some workers and destroyed the ovens. Miot spends more time describing how he was attacked by his own camel! In his report to his superiors, Captain Malus is equally brief about the incident. He tells that the villagers had assassinated "our bakers and butchers", and only slightly damaged one oven, which could be quickly repaired. However, he also notes that the troops' morale was "badly shaken" and that "the soldiers were loudly expressing their concern", which could be explained by the horrors they discovered when returning to the village (letter of 6 August 1798, cited in La Jonquière, 1899).

It must be noted that other testimonies about the march do not mention rapes at all. This is the case of the memoirs of lieutenant Desvernois, general Belliard, and engineer Martin. Others only talk of abductions: the soldier Lacuée, in a letter to his uncle, mentions the "poor Desna, taken by the Bedouin more than a month ago" (letter cited in Larchey, 1866). An abduction featured in several memoirs is that of an officer named De Nanots (or Denano, or Delanau, allegedly a nephew of scientist Lacépède), made prisoner by the Bedouins and executed after his captors disagreed about who would get the ransom (Desvernois, Martin, Miot).

-> Part 2