Ganteaume's expeditions of 1801 Alexandria on 29 June and immediately invaded, rapidly advancing inland and defeating the Mamluk rulers of Egypt at the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July. While the army had pushed inland, the fleet, under Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys D'Aigalliers, had anchored in Aboukir Bay near Alexandria, and was found there in the afternoon of 1 August by Nelson's fleet. Despite the growing darkness, Nelson attacked at once and in the three-day Battle of the Nile destroyed or captured eleven ships of the line and two frigates. Just two ships of the line and two frigates escaped and among the more
Battle of the Nile his ships to Alexandria, and three days later, he issued orders for the fleet to make for Corfu in preparation for naval operations against the Ottoman territories in the Balkans, although Bedouin partisans intercepted and killed the courier carrying the instructions. 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