The Egyptian campaign wasn't a total wash, though. Napoleon saw an opening for his triumphant return, so he abandoned his troops in Egypt and secretly made for France. But by 1798, morale was low and a civil war was raging back home. He took on the Turks in Syria and bombarded the centuries-old walls at the ancient city of Acre. Stranded in Egypt, Napoleon decided to pick more fights with the locals. But while Napoleon was daydreaming of conquest - 'I saw myself founding a new religion,' he later wrote, 'marching into Asia riding an elephant, a turban on my head, and in my hand the new Koran' - the British struck back, destroying the French fleet docked in the Mediterranean.
The French, following Napoleon's ingenious battlefield strategies, crushed the saber-wielding Mamelukes and took Cairo. 'Soldiers,' Napoleon shouted to his troops, 'from the height of these pyramids, 40 centuries look down upon you.'
