[Illustration:  165.jpg MOSQUE OF MUAD AT CAIRO]

The Porte forbade the ambassadors of the Powers to import ammunition into Egypt, for it feared that the viceroy might find a support whose strength it knew only too well.  But the viceroy had no need of this, for his former connections with Europe had put him in a position of independence, whereas the Porte itself was obliged to fall back on this support.  Russia, the one of the three Great Powers whose disposition it was to support the authority of the sultan, lent him twenty thousand bayonets, whilst Ibrahim Pasha made his advance to the gates of Constantinople.

Immediately after the taking of St. Jean d’Acre Ibrahim Pasha, following up his successes, had turned towards Damascus, which town he entered without a blow being struck, the governor and the leading inhabitants having taken flight.  The commander-in-chief established his headquarters under the walls of the conquered country, and then marched in three columns on Horns.  The battle of Horns (July 8, 1832) demonstrated the vast superiority of the Egyptian troops.  On both sides there were about thirty thousand regular soldiers, but the Egyptians were the better organised, the better disciplined, and the more practised in the arts of war.  When it is remembered that at Horns the Turks lost two thousand men killed, and 2,500 taken prisoners, while the Egyptian casualties were only 102 killed and 162 wounded, one is not astonished at the enthusiasm with which Ibrahim Pasha wrote after the battle:  “I do not hesitate to say that two or three hundred thousand of such troops would cause me no anxiety.”

It is not surprising that the beaten pashas were so struck with terror that in their flight they abandoned sixteen more pieces of artillery and all the ammunition they had managed to save from their defeat.  They fled as if they could not put sufficient distance between themselves and their redoubtable enemy.

This battle foretold the result of the Syrian campaign.  The population of Syria seemed to call for the domination of the conqueror; the viceroy protested his submission to the Porte and his desire for peace, and meanwhile Ibrahim Pasha marched forward.

The Porte counted on its fleet to guard the Dardanelles, but it needed an army and a commander to oppose Ibrahim Pasha, who again defeated the Turks at Oulon-Kislak.  He then advanced towards the plains of Anatolia, where he met Rashid Pasha.

It was now December, 1830, and the atmosphere was heavy with a thick fog.  The armies opened fire on each other on December 21st, with the town of Koniah in the background.  The grand vizier was at the head of close on sixty thousand men, while the Egyptian army only comprised thirty thousand, including the Bedouins.  The fighting had continued for about six hours when Rashid Pasha was taken prisoner; the news of his capture spread along the Turkish lines and threw them into disorder, and the Egyptians remained masters of the field, with twenty pieces of mounted cannon and some baggage:  the Turks had lost only five hundred men, while the Egyptian losses were but two hundred.