ABSTRACT
It is inconceivable that a British commander could have written thus about his troops before the Egyptian campaign. In those days the army had been dismissed as the laughing-stock of Europe; and in the eyes of Admiral Lord St Vincent the whole infantry of the country was 'totally unfit for a service of hardy enterprise'. After Egypt the soldiers could look the navy in the face again, and had shown the French, Moore told his father, 'that we in red are as stout fellows as our brothers in blue'. And their victory had dispersed the French aura of invincibility, proving that when deprived of superior numbers and unlimited replacements they were not invulnerable; and that 'a Frenchman beat, knows as little, perhaps less how to bear and direct his conduct in adversity as his neighbour'. 'It has been the first fair trial between Englishmen and Frenchmen during the whole of this war', wrote Colonel Paget, 'and you may rely upon it, that at no former period in our history did John Bull ever hold his enemy cheaper.' A few years earlier in Flanders the steady gaze of Colonel Arthur Wellesley had perceived the flaws in the French tactical system against steady troops who were not afraid of them, and in Egypt Abercromby tested the French with steady troops and taught his soldiers that discipline would prevail. 'The French', ran Paget's assessment, 'certainly possess the most enthusiastic bravery, and are capable of the most extraordinary exertions, and to these great qualities are they indebted for their unexampled success, but to no other. Of science, system or discipline I am satisfied that they are destitute.'2
