Leaving Dessaix, therefore, once more in command at Cairo, he himself descended the Nile, and travelled with all speed to Alexandria, where he found his presence most necessary.
For, in effect, the great Turkish fleet had already run into the bay of Aboukir; and an army of 18,000, having gained the fortress, were there strengthening themselves, with the view of awaiting the promised descent and junction of the Mamelukes, and then, with overwhelming superiority of numbers, advancing to Alexandria, and completing the ruin of the French invaders.
Buonaparte, reaching Alexandria on the evening of the 24th of July, found his army already posted in the neighbourhood of Aboukir, and prepared to anticipate the attack of the Turks on the morrow.

Surveying their entrenched camp from the heights above with Murat, he said, "Go how it may, the battle of to-morrow will decide the fate of the world." "Of this army at least," answered Murat; "but the Turks have no cavalry, and, if ever infantry were charged to the teeth by horse, they shall be so by mine." Murat did not penetrate the hidden meaning of Napoleon's words, but he made good his own.
The Turkish outposts were assaulted early next morning, and driven in with great slaughter; but the French, when they advanced, came within the range of the batteries, and also of the shipping that lay close by the shore, and were checked.

Their retreat might have ended in a rout, but for the undisciplined eagerness with which the Turks engaged in the task of spoiling and maiming those that fell before them--thus giving to Murat the opportunity of charging their main body in flank with his cavalry, at the moment when the French infantry, profiting by their disordered and scattered condition, and rallying under the eye of Napoleon, forced a passage to the entrenchments.

From that moment the battle was a massacre.

The Turks, attacked on all sides, were panic-struck; and the sea was covered with the turbans of men who flung themselves headlong into the waves rather than await the fury of _Le Beau Sabreur_,[29] or the steady rolling fire of the _Sultan Kebir_.