Battle of Mahé Louis in December 1799 had restored absolute British control. The importance of the East Indies to British trade encouraged a number of French plans to threaten the region, of which the most advanced was the invasion, in 1798, of Egypt by a French Army under General Napoleon Bonaparte. Although the campaign saw initial success, the annihilation of the French Mediterranean Fleet by Sir Horatio Nelson at the Battle of the Nile on 1 August 1798 effectively doomed the campaign to failure. Later in the year Bonaparte considered building a squadron at Suez in the Red Sea, but the plans were
HMS Aboukir (1900) to all three ships to a German company and they were subsequently sold again to a Dutch company which began salvaging the wrecks' metal in 2011. HMS Aboukir (1900) HMS "Aboukir" was a armoured cruiser built for the Royal Navy around 1900. Upon completion she was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet and spent most of her career there. Upon returning home in 1912, she was placed in reserve. Recommissioned at the start of the First World War, she played a minor role in the Battle of Heligoland Bight a few weeks after the beginning of the war. "Aboukir" was sunk