With Brueys dead and his vanguard and centre defeated, only two ships of the line and two frigates escaped from a total of 17 ships engaged. At 22:00, the French flagship Orient exploded which prompted the rear division of the French fleet to attempt to break out of the bay. Trapped in a crossfire, the leading French warships were battered into surrender during a fierce three-hour battle, although the centre of the line held out for a while until more British ships were able to join the attack. One cut across the head of the line and passed between the anchored French and the shore, while the other engaged the seaward side of the French fleet. His ships advanced on the French line and split into two divisions as they approached. The British fleet arrived off Egypt on 1 August and discovered Brueys's dispositions, and Nelson ordered an immediate attack.
Commander Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers believed that he had established a formidable defensive position. With the French army ashore, the French fleet anchored in Aboukir Bay, 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Alexandria. He was able to capture Malta and then land in Egypt without interception by the British naval forces. Bonaparte was aware of Nelson's pursuit and enforced absolute secrecy about his destination. He chased the French for more than two months, on several occasions missing them only by a matter of hours. As Bonaparte's fleet crossed the Mediterranean, it was pursued by a British force under Nelson who had been sent from the British fleet in the Tagus to learn the purpose of the French expedition and to defeat it. The British fleet was led in the battle by Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson they decisively defeated the French under Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers.īonaparte sought to invade Egypt as the first step in a campaign against British India, as part of a greater effort to drive Britain out of the French Revolutionary Wars. The battle was the climax of a naval campaign that had raged across the Mediterranean during the previous three months, as a large French convoy sailed from Toulon to Alexandria carrying an expeditionary force under General Napoleon Bonaparte. The Battle of the Nile (also known as the Battle of Aboukir Bay French: Bataille d'Aboukir) was a major naval battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the Navy of the French Republic at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast off the Nile Delta of Egypt from the 1st to the 3rd of August 1798.
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