Napoleon\u27s Siege of Acre: A Reevaluation of the Historical and Archaeological Record

The modern port of Akko, Israel, has been essential to movement and trade in the eastern Mediterranean since the Hellenistic period, and used as a harbor since the Neolithic. Its many incarnations and occupations over the centuries are documented by the cultural material laying on and under the bed of the harbor, and it is an area of great fascination for historians and underwater archaeologists. One particular pivotal event in the modern history of the port, however, continues to beguile researchers. Napoleon\u27s failed siege of Acre (modern-day Akko), Israel in the spring of 1799 was a turning point in his eastern campaign. Had he succeeded in gaining control of the port, he would have been well-positioned to challenge Britain\u27s influence in the East. It was only through the assistance of the British naval commander Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith that the city was able to withstand the siege; Smith kept up a constant bombardment of Napoleon\u27s position from his fleet for over two months. Understandably, underwater archaeologists have been eager to discover evidence of the siege in the port, but the task is complicated by the presence of wreckage from naval conflicts of the 1830s and 1840, and also the persistence of certain misinformation about how Smith conducted Acre\u27s defense. Using historical maps, letters, drawings, and other documents, this poster presents a new interpretation of the 1799 siege of Acre, and introduces two recently-discovered shipwrecks, one or both of which may have sank as a result of Smith\u27s strategy. The 1799 siege was critical for both the British and Napoleon. Victory for the British here was key—if Napoleon had taken the port and continued on, Britain would have lost her trade routes through the Middle East and never would have become the dominant European superpower that she was in the 19th and early 20th centuries. My original interpretation regarding Smith’s strategy has the potential to change the way this pivotal moment is studied and understood by archaeologists

“To Cross a Surf Both Alarming and Dangerous”. An Exclusionary Knowledge of Motion in the Madras Surf Zone, 1755–1842

Movement between ship and shore at the English East India Company port of Madras (modern Chennai) was mediated by local boatmen in locally designed and built masula boats from the founding of the city in 1639 through the end of the nineteenth century. Without the masulas and boatmen, Company officials had no alternative methods for landing cargo and passengers and as a result were fully dependent on the continued cooperation of the boatmen. Aware of their linchpin role in the continued operation of Madras as a trade hub, the boat people alternatively supplied and withheld their exclusive knowledge and skill in the surf zone as a means of increasing personal profit and in attempts to improve working conditions. This paper argues that the boatmen’s periodic withholding of expertise and technology allowed the community to assert group agency and limited company control over the system of ship to shore movement

Outfitting the country boats as gunboats: indigenous vessels and the Egyptian campaign, 1798–1802

Napoleon's Egyptian campaign has long been a source of fascination for historians, as it can be considered a turning point in Western Europe's relationship with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. There are aspects of this campaign, however, that have not yet been critically analysed. The role played by the unique physical environment of the Nile and Levantine coast, and the specific vessel technologies that navigating these areas required, has as of yet been ignored in favour of the major naval actions at the Battle of the Nile and the Siege of Acre. Both French and British forces adopted indigenous Nile vessel types, in particular djermes, for use throughout the course of the campaign in response to restrictive Nilotic conditions. This article compiles mentions of the use of indigenous vessels in the historical record of Napoleon's campaign and stresses the importance of incorporating the use of locally developed craft into studies of the Egyptian campaign and other naval campaigns of the period.</p