Did Napoleon really fire his guns at the Egyptian pyramids?

Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, which hit theaters on November 22, is one of the most anticipated films of the year. The piece, which stars Joaquin Phoenix as a corporal, focuses on the rise and fall of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The story depicts his ruthless conquest of power through the prism of his passionate and tormented relationship with Josephine, the great love of his life.

However, even if this relationship is at the center of the story, Ridley Scott does not fail to offer us spectacular battle scenes, especially Austerlitz or Waterloo. If the director paid special attention to these sequences, he did not allow certain liberties with historical reality for cinematic purposes.

Napoleon fires red guns

One of the liberties the filmmaker took in particular that made historians jump was firing a cannon at the Egyptian pyramids. 1798 year. Bonaparte, then a general in the French army, commands the troops. He led the battle, nicknamed the Battle of Embabe, 15 kilometers from the Great Pyramid of Giza. The conflict pitted the French army in the East, led by Napoleon, against the “Mamluks”, a militia of freed slaves who had seized power in the country at the time.

The future emperor wins this battle, but none of the cannons reach the pyramids as we see in the movie. These plans are prominently displayed in the trailer released in July. If the munitions of Napoleon’s army had been destroyed against these wonders of the world, there would have been obvious traces of damage. This is absolutely not the case.

Therefore, Ridley Scott took the reasoning of historical reality to give the battle of the pyramids an even more epic scale. Joaquin Phoenix warned:If you really want to understand Napoleon, you need to do your own research and reading. Because with this movie, you get to see that experience through Ridley’s eyes. It’s such a tough world.” he pointed out.