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Battle of Abukir, 1801: the British landing in Egypt

French Revolutionary Wars · 8 March 1801 · United Kingdom vs French Republic · ~9 min read · Updated October 2026

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Engraving of crowded rowing boats full of British soldiers and sailors under gunfire and smoke, with a large flag in the foremost boat, troops charging up sand hills on the shore and ships at anchor on the right.

Luigi Schiavonetti after Philip James de Loutherbourg, “The landing of the British troops in Egypt on the 8th of March 1801”, engraving, 1804. Rijksmuseum, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

At a glance

United KingdomLieutenant General Sir Ralph Abercromby; Major General John Moore; Admiral Lord Keith
vs
French Republic (Army of the Orient)General Louis Friant, commanding at Alexandria; General Jacques-François Menou, commander in chief
Date
8 March 1801
Location
Aboukir (Abu Qir) Bay, east of Alexandria, Egypt
War
French Revolutionary Wars, the British campaign in Egypt
Strength
British: some 15,000 to 16,000 (Fortescue) or 17,500 (NAM), five to six thousand in the first wave; French defenders: about 2,000 with 10 field guns (NAM) or 12 guns on the heights (Wilson), 1,600 infantry, 200 cavalry and 15 guns (Fortescue), or 2,500 men and 15 guns in Abercromby's dispatch
Losses
British: about 500 (Wilson) to 600 killed and wounded (Moore), or 31 officers and 621 men of the army plus 97 of the navy, over 700 in all (Fortescue, NAM); French: 300 to 400 (Wilson, Fortescue, NAM) or about 400 killed, wounded and taken (Walsh), and 6 to 8 guns
Outcome
British victory; the beachhead was won and the march on Alexandria began
Quick answer

What happened at Abukir on 8 March 1801?

On 8 March 1801 a British army under Sir Ralph Abercromby landed from the boats of Admiral Keith's fleet at Aboukir Bay, east of Alexandria, to drive the French army out of Egypt. French troops under General Friant fired on the boats from the dunes and the castle, but Major General John Moore's reserve stormed the great sand hill at the center of the bay with the bayonet, and by evening the beach was British. It opened the campaign that ended with the French surrender in Egypt.1

Aboukir Bay had already seen two battles in three years: Nelson's destruction of the French fleet in 1798 and Napoleon's defeat of an Ottoman army in 1799. The third, in March 1801, was a British landing from the sea against a defended shore, and it decided the fate of the French army that Napoleon had left behind in Egypt.2

Who won the Battle of Abukir and why?

The British won. Abercromby's army got ashore in the face of about two thousand French soldiers and fifteen guns, because the landing had been rehearsed for weeks, the boats kept their line under fire, and Moore's reserve stormed the central sand hill at once and drove the French from the beach.3

Background

Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798 to threaten Britain's route to India. Nelson destroyed his fleet at the Nile that August, and in 1799 Napoleon slipped back to France, leaving his Army of the Orient behind. After his successor Kléber was assassinated in 1800, the command passed to General Jacques-François Menou.4 › Battle of the Pyramids, 1798

In late 1800 the British government sent Abercromby to Egypt to expel or destroy that army. He had already led a British landing on a hostile shore, at the Helder in Holland in 1799. Nobody could tell him how many Frenchmen he would face. Fortescue, the historian of the British Army, writes that Abercromby could learn only of twelve thousand regulars, half the true figure; Sir Sidney Smith put the French and their auxiliaries at thirty thousand.5

Engraved portrait of an elderly British general in uniform with a high collar and epaulets, his gray hair brushed back, half-length in an oval frame
Sir Ralph Abercromby, commander of the expedition, after the portrait by John Hoppner; he was sixty-six when he led the landing. Public domain. After John Hoppner, National Library of Wales, via Wikimedia Commons.

The fleet gathered at the end of December 1800 in Marmaris Bay, on the coast of Asia Minor. There Abercromby rehearsed the landing again and again. Fortescue writes that he remembered the confusion at the Helder and wanted no more of it. The boats would go in three lines, flatboats first, then cutters to support them, then launches with the guns, the soldiers sitting silent with unloaded muskets until they reached the shore.6

Armies and commanders

Some 15,000 to 16,000 British soldiers sailed from Marmaris on 22 February 1801; the National Army Museum puts the whole army at about 17,500. The fleet came in sight of Alexandria on 1 March and anchored in Aboukir Bay the next day. Abercromby and Moore rowed in to reconnoiter the shore, and then a gale blew for several days. In his dispatch Abercromby wrote simply that the weather did not permit any landing before the 8th; the National Army Museum adds that the delay gave the French time to organize.7

Bad news was already waiting in the bay. Two engineer officers sent ahead from Marmaris to survey the beach, Majors McKerras and Fletcher, had gone in too close; at dawn, a few days before the fleet arrived, a French gunboat from Lake Maadie caught their boat, McKerras was shot dead and Fletcher was taken prisoner. A French frigate, the Régénérée, slipped through the British fleet into Alexandria, followed by the brig Lodi, and from that moment, as Wilson remarks, the French could be in no doubt of what was coming.8

Oil portrait of a British general with dark wavy hair in a red coat with gold epaulets and a star, half-length against a dark background
Major General John Moore, who led the reserve up the great sand hill, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence about four years later. National Army Museum. Public domain. Sir Thomas Lawrence, about 1805, via Wikimedia Commons.

Menou himself was at Cairo. At Alexandria General Louis Friant gathered what troops he could and took post on the sand hills above the beach and in the castle of Aboukir. His numbers are given differently: about 2,000 men with 10 field guns in the National Army Museum's account, 2,000 men with twelve guns on the heights besides those of the castle in that of Robert Wilson, an officer of the expedition who published its history soon after, 1,600 infantry, 200 cavalry and 15 guns in Fortescue's, and the fire of fifteen guns and the musketry of 2,500 men in Abercromby's own dispatch. Fortescue and Walsh agree on where the men came from: the 61st and 75th demi-brigades, parts of the 51st and 25th, and the 18th and 20th Dragoons.9

Pen and ink profile portrait of a French general with long hair tied at the back and a high collar, in a round frame on a brown ground, signed Gal Friant below
General Louis Friant, who commanded the French defense of the beach, drawn between 1798 and 1801 by André Dutertre. Musée Carnavalet, Paris. CC0. André Dutertre, Paris Musées, via Wikimedia Commons.

The commanders' decisions

Moore rowed in on 5 March to look at the shore from a bomb vessel. He could see no entrenchments at all, only French pickets along the whole line, and he noted in his diary that the ground was in the enemy's favor, since Friant could keep his men hidden close to the beach. He chose the high central sand hill as the objective: whether it was the left or the center of the French position, whoever held it commanded the ground on either side.10

The plan was simple and carefully rehearsed. On the evening of the 7th two small vessels were anchored to mark the line on which the boats would form, and the troops of the second landing were moved into ships of shallower draught so that they could follow quickly. At the last moment Abercromby, watching from a bomb vessel with Lord Keith, sent General Hope to ask whether Moore would not land a little further south, below the hill, which looked very steep. Moore answered that the steepness was no obstacle and rather in his favor, and Fortescue judges that events proved him right. By Moore's own account Hope also brought word that Abercromby would signal a withdrawal if the fire proved too heavy to bear.11

Friant's choice was to keep his men out of sight and hold his fire. Walsh, who was in the boats, saw not a single Frenchman on the hills or the strand as they rowed in, and Fortescue writes that the enemy, watching for hours, disappeared from view as the boats came on, until they were within range.12

The battle in phases

The bay ran for about two miles from the castle of Aboukir in the north. At its center rose a steep sand hill, which the guns of the castle partly covered, and to the south lay lower dunes, one behind another. Moore chose that sand hill as the target for the right of the attack, on a front of about a mile.13

At two in the morning of 8 March a rocket from the flagship gave the signal, and the first division, the reserve under Moore, the Guards and part of Coote's brigade, between five and six thousand men, climbed into the boats. By half past three they were moving in silence over the five miles to the rendezvous. Each flatboat carried about fifty soldiers, with three days' provisions and sixty rounds of ammunition, sitting with their muskets between their knees, and Captain Cochrane of the navy directed the whole flotilla. Forming the line took hours: the signal to advance came about eight by Moore's and Walsh's accounts and a little before nine by Fortescue's and at nine by Wilson's, and Abercromby's official dispatch to Dundas says the boats did not reach the shore until ten. Gunboats and the bomb vessels Tartarus and Fury fired on the beach, and Sir Sidney Smith's launches carried the field guns.14

As the boats came within range the French opened from the castle and the heights, first with round shot, then with grape. A shell burst in a flatboat carrying men of the Coldstream Guards and sent it to the bottom; few of those weighed down with belts, packs and ammunition could save themselves by swimming. Other boats were hit, and the center of the line swerved toward the left as some stopped to pick up the men in the water.15

Turning point

On the right, Moore's boats held their course for the great sand hill. The 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers and the flank companies of the 40th, with the 28th beside them, jumped ashore and went straight up the slope without stopping to load, drove the 61st demi-brigade on the summit down the far side with the bayonet and took its guns, four by Moore's and Fortescue's count, two by Walsh's. "They never offered to fire until they had gained the summit," Moore wrote. From the first landing to the capture of the hill took no more than about twenty minutes, by Fortescue's reckoning and Walsh's.16

To their left Brigadier General Oakes landed with the rest of the reserve. The 42nd Highlanders formed on the beach as if on parade and drove off a charge of French dragoons, then went forward with the 58th and took three more guns, by Moore's and Fortescue's accounts. The same horsemen fell on the Guards as they scrambled ashore in disorder, until the fire of the 58th checked them. The Royals and the 54th landed just in time to meet a French column marching through a hollow against the Guards' flank, and it fell back. For about an hour and a half the French held on in the rear dunes; then they gave up the field.17

Hand-colored 1801 map of the narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean and Lake Aboukir, from Aboukir Castle and the landing beach on the right to Alexandria on the left, with British positions in red and French in yellow and an order of battle for both armies below
William Faden's Plan of the Operations of the British Forces in Egypt, published in London on 28 May 1801: the landing beach in Aboukir Bay at right, below the castle, and the march along the peninsula to the battle before Alexandria on 21 March at left. Public domain. William Faden, 1801, Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons.

Aftermath

Abercromby came ashore once the beach was won, and the French fell back along Lake Maadie toward the redoubt at Mandora and Alexandria. The castle of Aboukir refused a summons to surrender and was blockaded. Wells dug in the sand near the date palms gave fresh water, a relief to a commander who had expected to draw every drop from the fleet.18

The boats went back for the rest of the army. Wilson, Fortescue and Moore have the rest of the army ashore before night; Abercromby's dispatch says the remainder was landed on the 9th.19

Friant fell back toward Alexandria. On 13 March the British fought again at Mandora, and on 21 March Menou attacked their lines outside Alexandria and was beaten with heavy loss, but Abercromby was struck in the thigh by a musket ball. He hid the wound and stayed in the field until the fighting was over, and he died on 28 March.20

His successor, General John Hely-Hutchinson, marched on Cairo, whose French garrison of some 13,000 men agreed on 27 June to surrender. Menou held out in Alexandria until the end of August.21

Counting the losses

The British count varies with who made it and when. Fortescue gives the army's losses as 31 officers and 621 men killed, wounded and missing, and the navy's as 7 officers and 90 men, more than 700 in all, the same round figure as the National Army Museum. Moore, writing in his diary that week, put the loss at 600 killed and wounded, 400 of them in the reserve; Wilson gives near five hundred. The heaviest losses fell where the fire was thickest, in the boats of the center.22

French losses were lighter: about 300 by Wilson's count, between 300 and 400 by Fortescue's and the National Army Museum's, and about 400 killed, wounded and taken by Walsh's. The guns left behind are counted as eight by Fortescue and Wilson, seven in Abercromby's official dispatch to Dundas (eight in his letter to Lord Elgin), and six guns and a howitzer by Walsh.23

Legacy and memory

Fortescue called the landing perhaps the most skillful and daring operation of its kind ever attempted, and singled out the 42nd, which formed and beat off cavalry after suffering heavily in the boats. The National Army Museum sees the Egyptian victory as the end of France's hopes of a Middle Eastern empire. Moore, who had led the assault, wrote in his diary that the attempt had been daring and carried out with the greatest intrepidity and coolness, against an enemy who had had eight days to prepare on ground made for defense. Wilson thought that, judged on paper, a landing in the face of such a position was nearly impracticable where both sides did their duty, and he gave the French credit for a good defense.24

The campaign was mapped almost at once. A plan of the operations from the landing in Aboukir Bay to the battle before Alexandria was published in London by William Faden on 28 May 1801, within weeks of the fighting, and a copy collected by George III is now in the Royal Collection.25

Notes

A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.

  1. The London Gazette Extraordinary, “Copy of a Letter from Sir Ralph Abercromby to the Earl of Elgin, dated Camp before Alexandria, 16th March 1801”; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; National Army Museum, “Egyptian campaign”. ↩
  2. National Army Museum, “Egyptian campaign”; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2. ↩
  3. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore; Thomas Walsh, Journal of the Late Campaign in Egypt. ↩
  4. National Army Museum, “Egyptian campaign”; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2. ↩
  5. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2. ↩
  6. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt. ↩
  7. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; National Army Museum, “Egyptian campaign”; The London Gazette Extraordinary, “Copy of a Letter from Sir Ralph Abercromby to the Earl of Elgin, dated Camp before Alexandria, 16th March 1801”; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt. ↩
  8. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; Thomas Walsh, Journal of the Late Campaign in Egypt. ↩
  9. Thomas Walsh, Journal of the Late Campaign in Egypt; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; The London Gazette Extraordinary, “Copy of a Letter from Sir Ralph Abercromby to the Earl of Elgin, dated Camp before Alexandria, 16th March 1801”; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; National Army Museum, “Egyptian campaign”. ↩
  10. John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2. ↩
  11. John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2. ↩
  12. Thomas Walsh, Journal of the Late Campaign in Egypt; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2. ↩
  13. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt. ↩
  14. Thomas Walsh, Journal of the Late Campaign in Egypt; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; The London Gazette Extraordinary, “Copy of a Letter from Sir Ralph Abercromby to the Earl of Elgin, dated Camp before Alexandria, 16th March 1801”. ↩
  15. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; Thomas Walsh, Journal of the Late Campaign in Egypt. ↩
  16. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore; Thomas Walsh, Journal of the Late Campaign in Egypt. ↩
  17. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore. ↩
  18. Thomas Walsh, Journal of the Late Campaign in Egypt; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore. ↩
  19. Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; The London Gazette Extraordinary, “Copy of a Letter from Sir Ralph Abercromby to the Earl of Elgin, dated Camp before Alexandria, 16th March 1801”; John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore. ↩
  20. The London Gazette Extraordinary, “Copy of a Letter from Sir Ralph Abercromby to the Earl of Elgin, dated Camp before Alexandria, 16th March 1801”; National Army Museum, “Egyptian campaign”; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore. ↩
  21. National Army Museum, “Egyptian campaign”; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2. ↩
  22. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; National Army Museum, “Egyptian campaign”; John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt. ↩
  23. Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; National Army Museum, “Egyptian campaign”; Thomas Walsh, Journal of the Late Campaign in Egypt; The London Gazette Extraordinary, “Copy of a Letter from Sir Ralph Abercromby to the Earl of Elgin, dated Camp before Alexandria, 16th March 1801”. ↩
  24. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2; National Army Museum, “Egyptian campaign”; John Moore, The Diary of Sir John Moore; Robert Thomas Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt. ↩
  25. Royal Collection Trust, “A Plan of the Operations of the British Forces in Egypt from the Landing in Aboukir Bay (RCIN 735088.1)”; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. IV, part 2. ↩

Sources

Frequently asked questions

When did the British land at Aboukir Bay?

On 8 March 1801, after a gale had held the fleet off the beach since it anchored in the bay on 2 March.

Who commanded the British landing at Aboukir?

Lieutenant General Sir Ralph Abercromby commanded the army, Admiral Lord Keith the fleet, and Major General John Moore led the reserve that stormed the sand hill.

How many French defended the beach?

The sources differ: about 2,000 (National Army Museum, Wilson), 1,600 infantry, 200 cavalry and 15 guns (Fortescue), or 2,500 men and 15 guns in Abercromby's dispatch.

How many British were lost in the landing?

Fortescue counts 31 officers and 621 men of the army and 97 of the navy, more than 700 in all; Moore put the loss at 600 killed and wounded and Wilson at near five hundred.

How did the British take the beach?

Moore's reserve rowed straight for the great sand hill, climbed it without loading their muskets and drove the French off with the bayonet, while the 42nd beat off a cavalry charge.

What happened to Abercromby?

He was mortally wounded at the battle before Alexandria on 21 March 1801 and died of his wound on 28 March.

How did the Egyptian campaign end?

The French in Cairo agreed to surrender on 27 June 1801, and Menou gave up Alexandria at the end of August.

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