Page "Battle of the Nile" Paragraph 11

On the evening of 22 June, Nelson's fleet passed the French in the darkness, overtaking the slow invasion convoy without realising how close they were to their target.

Making rapid time on a direct route, Nelson reached Alexandria on 28 June and discovered that the French were not there.

After a meeting with the suspicious Ottoman commander Sayyid Muhammad Kurayyim, Nelson ordered the British fleet northwards, reaching the coast of Anatolia on 4 July and turning westwards back towards Sicily.

Nelson had missed the French by less than a day, the scouts of the French fleet arriving off Alexandria in the evening of 29 June.

Concerned by his close encounter with Nelson, Bonaparte ordered an immediate invasion, his troops coming ashore in a poorly managed amphibious operation in which at least 20 drowned.

Marching along the coast, the French army stormed Alexandria and captured the city, before Bonaparte led the main force of his army inland.

He instructed his naval commander, Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys D ' Aigalliers, to anchor in Alexandria harbour, but naval surveyors reported that the channel into the harbour was too shallow and narrow for the larger ships of the French fleet.

As a result, an alternative anchorage was selected at Aboukir Bay, northeast of Alexandria.