under the bullets, pikes, and scimitars of the defenders, and few
returned alive to the camp. Lannes himself was dangerously wounded,
and saved only by the devotion of an officer.

Both sides were now worn out by this extraordinary siege. "This town
is not, nor ever has been, defensible according to the rules of art;
but according to every other rule it must and shall be defended"--so
wrote Sir Sidney Smith to Nelson on May 9th. But a fell influence was
working against the besiegers; as the season advanced, they succumbed
more and more to the ravages of the plague; and, after failing again
on May 10th, many of their battalions refused to advance to the breach
over the putrid remains of their comrades. Finally, Bonaparte, after
clinging to his enterprise with desperate tenacity, on the night of
May 20th gave orders to retreat.

This siege of nine weeks' duration had cost him severe losses, among
them being Generals Caffarelli and Bon: but worst of all was the loss
of that reputation for invincibility which he had hitherto enjoyed.
His defeat at Caldiero, near Verona, in 1796 had been officially
converted into a victory: but Acre could not be termed anything but a
reverse. In vain did the commander and his staff proclaim that, after
dispersing the Turks at Mount Tabor, the capture of Acre was
superfluous; his desperate efforts in the early part of May revealed
the hollowness of his words. There were, it is true, solid reasons for
his retreat. He had just heard of the breaking out of the war of the
Second Coalition against France; and revolts in Egypt also demanded
his presence.[116] But these last events furnished a damning
commentary on his whole Syrian enterprise, which had led to a
dangerous diffusion of the French forces. And for what? For the
conquest of Constantinople or of India? That dream seems to have