Wargaming Napoleon’s Campaigns in Egypt and the Holy Land.
By Robert A. Henry

When I first started Wargaming in December of 1973, one of the first Armies I saw and fell in love with was Napoleons Army of the Orient.

This was at Scruby Miniatures in Goshen, California. Many years later, after painting and building wargame armies from Ancients to present day, from 6mm to 25mm, I finally got around to building Napoleons Army of the Orient for myself, not to mention all of the opposing armies it fought.

The campaign began on the 2nd of July 1798. General Bonaparte disembarked a sizeable portion of his famed Army of Italy near Alexandria, Egypt. And three years and one month later the remnant of this French force surrendered to a combined British and Ottoman Army, and the campaign was over.

During this time there were fought some interesting battles and campaigns, and in fact, this period might be called the first “Colonial Expansion Action” in the history of Africa where white men attempted to take over a native empire. Acutely, Napoleon originally felt the conquest of Egypt might lead to the ultimate conquest of India (after the surrender of the Ottoman Empire), which in turn would upset Great Britain so badly that she would leave Revolutionary France to settle affairs with the other European powers.

Strangely enough after Nelson destroyed the French fleet in August 1798 and marooned the French army in Egypt, the British government did not bother or worry about the French army until early 1801. So it is doubtful if Napoleon’s strategy had any effect on the European conflict. Notwithstanding this, the Egyptian and Holy Land campaign leads itself to the wargame table, for during this period the French fought against Mamelukes, Egyptians, Turks, Syrians, Albanians, Arabs, British and Indian troops in one of the most colorful and exciting episodes of “forgotten” campaigns.

This blog will give you information for building the armies of the nations involved and what figures to use as well as a uniform guide for these armies. When I started this project gaming Napoleons Egyptian and Holy Land Campaigns, I had know idea where it would lead, or how much information there was until I started digging. This campaign is not as well covered as later campaigns of Napoleon. But if you dig deep enough the information is out there. I hope the following descriptions will help all those that want to wargame this period.