The Shihabs succeed the Maans as the emirs of Mount Lebanon in 1697.

They originally lived in the Hawran region of southwestern Syria and settled in Wadi at Taim in southern Lebanon.

The most prominent among them is Bashir II, who is much like his predecessor, Fakhr ad Din II.

His ability as a statesman is first tested in 1799, when Napoleon besieges Acre, a well-fortified coastal city in Palestine, about forty kilometers south of Tyre.

Both Napoleon and Al Jazzar, the governor of Acre, request assistance from the Shihab leader; Bashir, however, remains neutral, declining to assist either combatant.

Unable to conquer Acre, Napoleon returns to Egypt, and the death of Al Jazzar in 1804 removes Bashir's principal opponent in the area.

The Near East (1684–1827 CE): Provincial Revolts, Pilgrimage Wars, and the Birth of Reform

Geography & Environmental Context

The Near East comprises Israel, Egypt, Sudan, western Saudi Arabia (the Hejaz), most of Jordan, southwestern Cyprus, southwestern Turkey, and—per our fixed scope—Yemen. Anchors include the Nile Valley and Delta, the Eastern Desert and Sinai, the Levantine coast (Gaza–Acre), the Jordan Valley/Dead Sea, the Hejaz Mountains with Mecca and Medina, southwestern Anatolia (Adana–Antalya arcs), southwestern Cyprus, and the Tihāmah–Yemeni highlands from Mocha to Sanaʽa. River corridors, oases, and pilgrimage routes bound these deserts and littorals to each other and to the wider Ottoman world.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The waning Little Ice Age brought cooler winters and variable floods. In Egypt, low Nile years meant dearth and plague spikes; high floods burst dikes and washed fields. Hejaz and Jordan suffered drought pulses that stressed caravan wells. Yemen’s monsoon-dependent terraces endured irregular rains, while Red Sea coasts faced periodic storms. Earthquakes rattled Cyprus, the Levant, and Anatolia, disrupting urban fabric and ports.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Egypt & Sudan: Nile grains (wheat, barley), flax, sugar, and garden crops sustained Cairo and Alexandria; in Sudan, millet–sorghum belts, date groves, and pastoral corridors linked Sennar and Nubian river towns. After 1820–1821, Muḥammad ʿAlī’s forces conquered Nubia–Sennar, integrating the Blue/White Nile into Egypt’s provisioning sphere.

• Levant & Cyprus: Olives, vines, citrus, and wheat on terraces and plains; port towns (Acre, Jaffa, Larnaca) shipped oil, soap, and grain.

• Hejaz: Oases (Taʾif, Yanbuʿ, Jidda) supplied pilgrims with dates, wheat, and livestock; urban Meccan economies revolved around hospitality and ritual markets.

• Yemen: Terraced grain in the highlands; the coffee complex around Mocha peaked, then faced competition from new global plantings late in the period.

• Southwestern Anatolia: Mixed cereals, cotton patches, and pastoralism around Adana and the Antalya littoral tied uplands to Mediterranean export lanes.

Technology & Material Culture

Irrigation canals, dikes, and water wheels (sāqiya) maximized Nile yields; stone terrace walls conserved Yemeni and Levantine hillsides. Caravanserais and cisterns dotted hajj and trade routes. Urban crafts flourished: Cairene textiles and brassware; Damascene and Gazan soap; Cypriot silks; Yemeni metalwork and coffee ware. After 1798, the French Expedition introduced printing, surveying, and military workshops in Egypt; by the 1820s, Muḥammad ʿAlī pushed ginning presses and irrigation works that foreshadowed the cotton boom.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Pilgrimage highways: Annual hajj caravans from Cairo, Damascus, and Anatolia converged on Mecca. Warfare with the Wahhabi–Saʿūdī alliance (c. 1803–1812) disrupted these routes until Egyptian campaigns (1811–1818) under Tūsūn and Ibrāhīm Pasha restored the Hejaz to Ottoman control.

• Red Sea–Indian Ocean: Suez–Jidda–Mocha trunk linked Egypt and Hejaz to Yemen, India, and East Africa; Mocha coffee and Jidda pilgrimage trade knit together merchants from the Maghreb to Gujarat.

• Levantine–Mediterranean ports: Acre, Jaffa, Alexandria, Antalya, Larnaca funneled oil, grain, and cotton to European shippers; French and British consuls multiplied after 1750.

• Nile & Sudanese corridors: River convoys carried grain and troops; post-1821 Egyptian garrisons tied Khartoum/Sennar to Cairo’s revenue system.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

Sunni Ottoman frameworks dominated, but pluralism remained deep: Coptic Egypt; Greek Orthodox and Armeniancommunities in Levantine ports; Jewish quarters from Cairo to Safed; Zaydi imamate culture in Yemen. The hajj was the region’s supreme ritual artery, sustained by waqf endowments and market networks; scholars, Sufi lineages, and artisans circulated with caravans. In Egypt, chronicles and mosque-university life (al-Azhar) debated governance as Mamluk beys contested Ottoman governors; after 1798, the new Arabic press and translation bureaus under Muḥammad ʿAlī seeded a reformist literary public.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Granary provisioning and price controls in Egypt buffered low Nile years; terrace maintenance in Palestine, Cyprus, and Yemen conserved soil and water. Pilgrims and caravaneers relied on zakat-funded wells, cisterns, and rationing. Pastoral groups in Sudan and the Hejaz shifted herds along rain and pasture gradients. After 1811–1818, restored Hejazi security revived water/food provisioning for pilgrims; in Egypt the expansion of controllable irrigation (canals, barrages-in-planning) aimed to tame flood variability and expand cash crops.

Political & Military Shocks

• Mamluk–Ottoman duopoly in Egypt: Factional warfare and tax farming culminated in the French occupation (1798–1801); British–Ottoman forces expelled the French.

• Rise of Muḥammad ʿAlī (1805): Centralization, army reform, and monopolies; massacre of the Mamluks (1811); Hejazi campaigns (1811–1818) crushed the first Saudi state; Sudan conquest (1820–1821) extended Egyptian revenue and slave-soldier recruitment.

• Levantine strongmen: Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār in Acre (late 18th c.) exemplified semi-autonomous Ottoman provincial power.

• Yemen: Zaydi imams held the highlands; Mocha’s fortunes fluctuated with global coffee competition and Red Sea politics.

• European pressure: Consular networks, naval visits, and commercial treaties deepened dependence on Mediterranean markets without formal colonization—yet.

Transition

Between 1684 and 1827, the Near East shifted from a stable Ottoman heartland—sustained by pilgrimage, terraces, and Nile irrigation—to a laboratory of coercive reform and imperial entanglement. Hajj wars and Egyptian campaigns bound the Hejaz back to Istanbul; French invasion jolted Egypt into an era of state-driven modernization; Sudan’s incorporation widened Cairo’s reach; Yemen’s coffee pole waned as global rivals rose. By 1827, caravans and canals still ordered life—yet Muḥammad ʿAlī’s armies, monopolies, and irrigation works signaled a new dispensation in which provincial power, not distant sultans, would set the rhythm of Near Eastern change.

The three-year French occupation had been too short to exert any lasting effects on Egypt, despite claims to the contrary, as historian Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot has written.

Its most important effect on Egypt internally is the rapid decline in the power of the Mamluks.

The major impact of the French invasion of Egypt is the effect it has on Europe.

Napoleon's invasion has revealed the Middle East as an area of immense strategic importance to the European powers, thus inaugurating the Anglo-French rivalry for influence in the region and bringing the British into the Mediterranean.

The French invasion of Egypt also has an important effect on France because of the publication of Description de UEgypte, which details the findings of the scholars and scientists who had accompanied Napoleon to Egypt.

This publication becomes the foundation of modern research into the history, society, and economics of Egypt.

Napoleon, with a very small company, secretly leaves Egypt for France on August 22, leaving his troops behind and General Jean-Baptiste Kleber as his successor.

Kleber finds himself the unwilling commander in chief of a dispirited army with a bankrupt treasury.

His main preoccupation is to secure the evacuation of his troops to France.

When Britain rejects the evacuation plan, Kleber is forced to fight.

After Kleber's assassination by a Syrian, his command is taken over by General Jacques-François Menou, who, as a recent a French convert to Islam, becomes known as Abdallah de Menou.

The occupation is finally terminated by an Anglo-Ottoman invasion force.

The French forces in Cairo surrender on June 18, 1801, and Menou himself surrenders at Alexandria on September 3.

The last French forces leave the country by the end of September.

In addition to the upheavals caused by the Ottoman-Mamluk clashes, waves of famine and plague hit Egypt between 1784 and 1792.

Thus, Cairo is a devastated city and Egypt an impoverished country when the French arrive in 1798.

A French invasion force under the command of Napoleon disembarks near Alexandria on July 1, 1798.

The invasion force, which had sailed from Toulon on May 19, is accompanied by a commission of scholars and scientists whose function is to investigate every aspect of life in ancient and contemporary Egypt.

France wants control of Egypt for two major reasons—its commercial and agricultural potential and its strategic importance to the Anglo-French rivalry.

The principal share of European trade with Egypt during the eighteenth century has been handled by French merchants.

The French also look to Egypt as a source of grain and raw materials.

In strategic terms, French control of Egypt can be used to threaten British commercial interests in the region and to block Britain's overland route to India.

The French forces take Alexandria without difficulty, defeat the Mamluk army at Shubra Khit and Imbabah, and enter Cairo on July 25.

Murad Bey flees to Upper Egypt while Ibrahim Bey and the Ottoman viceroy go to Syria.

Mamluk rule in Egypt collapses.

Napoleon's position in Egypt is precarious nevertheless.

The French control only the Delta and Cairo; Upper Egypt is the preserve of the Mamluks and the Bedouin.

In addition, Britain and the Ottoman government join forces in an attempt to defeat Napoleon and drive him out of Egypt.

The British fleet under Lord Nelson annihilates the French ships on August 1, 1798, as they lie at anchor at Abu Qir, thus isolating Napoleon's forces in Egypt.

Sultan Selim III declares war on France on September 11.

The people of Cairo riot on October 21 against the French, whom they regard as occupying strangers, not as liberators.

The rebellion has a religious as well as a national character and centers around Al Azhar mosque.

Its leaders are the ulama, religiously trained scholars, whom Napoleon has tried to woo to the French side.

The populace during this period begins to regard the ulama not only as moral but also as political leaders.

To forestall an Ottoman invasion, Napoleon invades Syria, but, unable to take Acre in Palestine, his forces retreat on May 20, 1799.

The Karamanli regime, however, declines under Ahmad's successors.

Then in 1793, a Turkish officer, Ali Benghul, overthrows the Karamanlis and restores Tripoli to Ottoman rule.

With the aid of the bey of Tunis, Yusuf ibn Ali Karamanli (reigned 1795-1832) returns to Tripoli and installs himself as pasha.

A throwback to the founder of the dynasty, he tames the tribes and defies both the Porte and British naval power to assist Napoleon Bonaparte during his Egyptian campaign in 1799.

Catherine II dies in 1796, and her son Paul (r. 1796-1801) succeeds her.

Painfully aware that Catherine had planned to bypass him and name his son, Alexander, as tsar, Paul institutes primogeniture in the male line as the basis for succession.

It is one of the few lasting reforms of Paul's brief reign.

He also charters a Russian-American company, which eventually leads to Russia's acquisition of Alaska.

Paul is haughty and unstable, and he frequently reverses his previous decisions, creating administrative chaos and accumulating enemies.

As a major European power, Russia cannot escape the wars involving revolutionary and Napoleonic France.

Paul becomes an adamant opponent of France, and Russia joins Britain and Austria in a war against France.

In 1798-99 Russian troops under one of the country's most famous generals, Aleksandr Suvorov, performs brilliantly in Italy and Switzerland.

Paul reverses himself, however, and abandons his allies.

This reversal, coupled with increasingly arbitrary domestic policies, sparks a coup, and in March 1801 Paul is assassinated.

The War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802) – Early Allied Successes and French Resurgence

With Napoleon Bonaparte absent in Egypt, Britain, Austria, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire formed the Second Coalition (1798–1802) to counter French expansion. This alliance launched multiple invasions across Europe, including Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, attempting to reverse French gains from the First Coalition War.

Suvorov’s Campaign in Italy – Crushing the French Advance (1799)

• Russian General Aleksandr Suvorov, recalled to service in early 1799, led a brilliant campaign in northern Italy.
• He inflicted several crushing defeats on the French forces, driving them back to the Alps and liberating Lombardy from French control.
• However, his advance stalled as the French consolidated their forces in Switzerland, setting up a critical confrontation.

Setbacks for the Coalition – Defeats in Switzerland and the Netherlands

While Suvorov was victorious in Italy, the Coalition suffered defeats elsewhere:

• Switzerland (Second Battle of Zurich, September 25, 1799):

  • After initial Russian successes, the French under André Masséna decisively defeated the Russian army.
  • Suvorov was forced into a harrowing retreat through the Alps in mid-winter, suffering enormous casualties.
  • This defeat shattered Russian momentum, causing the Austrians to retreat from the Rhine.

• Netherlands (Battle of Castricum, October 6, 1799):

  • The Anglo-Russian expedition to the Netherlands was defeated by the French.
  • The British withdrew, and the Anglo-Russian presence in Holland collapsed.

Russia Withdraws from the Coalition

• The defeats in Zurich and the Netherlands exposed fundamental flaws in the Coalition’s coordination.
• Further tensions with Britain, particularly over the British insistence on searching shipping in the Baltic Sea, led Russia to withdraw from the Second Coalition.
• With Russia gone, Austria was left alone to fight France on the Continent.

Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign and Return to Power (1799)

While the war raged in Europe, Napoleon was leading a French expedition in Egypt, where he faced both the Ottomans and the British:

• Learning of the Ottoman Empire’s declaration of war on France (February 1799), he launched an invasion of Syria to preempt a Turkish attack on Egypt.
• However, his siege of Acre failed, as British-led Ottoman forces under Sidney Smith repelled the French.
• Facing heavy losses, plague, and supply shortages, Napoleon withdrew to Cairo (June 1799), where he repelled a British-Turkish invasion.

While in Egypt, Napoleon received news of political and military crises in France. Recognizing an opportunity, he abandoned his army in Egypt, sailing for France in August 1799.

Upon arriving in November, he used his immense popularity and military support to stage a coup, overthrowing the Directory and establishing himself as First Consul, effectively becoming the ruler of France.

The Collapse of the Second Coalition

• Suvorov’s retreat from the Alps and Russia’s withdrawal left Austria exposed.
• The Austrians abandoned their positions along the Rhine, further weakening the Coalition’s grip on Europe.
• The British and Russians evacuated the Netherlands, ending their land campaign against France.

With Napoleon now in power, the Second Coalition was unraveling, setting the stage for a renewed French offensive under his leadership.

Switzerland becomes a virtual battle-zone between the French, Austrian and Imperial Russian armies in 1799, with the locals supporting mainly the latter two, rejecting calls to fight with the French armies in the name of the Helvetic Republic.

Ottoman Syria is the base from which French-occupied Egypt might most easily be threatened, and Bonaparte resolves to deny it to his enemies.

In February 1799, hoping to prevent a Turkish invasion of Egypt and perhaps to attempt a return to France by way of Anatolia, Bonaparte moves an army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee).

He leads these thirteen thousand French soldiers in the conquest of the coastal towns.

The French army, commanded by General Jean-Baptiste Kléber, finds its passage blocked near the border by a fort at El Arish.

The garrison, some twenty-five hundred determined defenders, refuses to surrender and remains within the fort while the French capture its surrounds and bring up cannon with which to blast open a breach, but the eight-pounders do little damage.

When an impatient Bonaparte arrives to discover the cause of the delay to the advance, he orders heavier guns into action.

After two days of ferocious bombardment, the defenders finally agree to surrender, but their stubborn resistance has cost Bonaparte ten days in which Jezzar has had time to prepare the formidable defenses of the fortress at Acre.