Page "Battle of the Nile" Paragraph 15

Aboukir Bay is a coastal indentation across, stretching from the village of Abu Qir in the west to the town of Rosetta to the east, where one of the mouths of the River Nile empties into the Mediterranean.

In 1798 the bay was protected at its western end by extensive rocky shoals, which ran into the bay from a promontory guarded by Aboukir Castle.

The shoals were also protected by a small fort situated on an island among the rocks.

The fort was garrisoned by French soldiers and armed with at least four cannon and two heavy mortars.

Brueys had augmented the fort with his bomb vessels and gunboats, which were anchored among the rocks to the west of the island in a position to give support to the head of the French line.

Further shoals ran unevenly to the south of the island and extended across the bay in a rough semicircle approximately from the shore.

These shoals were too shallow to permit passage of larger warships, and so Brueys ordered his thirteen ships of the line to form up in a line of battle following the northeastern edge of the shoals to the south of the island, a position that allowed the ships to disembark supplies from their port side while covering the landings with their starboard batteries.

Orders were issued for each ship to attach strong cables to the bow and stern of their neighbours, which would effectively turn the line into a long battery forming a theoretically impregnable barrier.

A second inner line of four frigates was positioned approximately west of the main line, roughly halfway between the line and the shoal.

The van of the French line was led by Guerrier, positioned southeast of Aboukir Island and about from the edge of the shoals that surrounded the island.

The line then stretched southeast with the centre bowed seawards away from the shoal.

The French ships were spaced at intervals of and the whole line was long, with the flagship Orient at the centre and two large 80-gun ships anchored either side.

The rear division of the line was under the command of Contre-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve in Guillaume Tell.