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Everybody remembers Napoleon's Russian campaign that sealed his fate. But the first serious defeat of Napoleon happened long before, thanks to the Ottoman Turks, during his siege of Acre (currently in Israel) in 1799. Acre was defended by the famous Ottoman Turkish leader Ahmed the Butcher (also known as Ahmed Jezzar Pasha, or Ahmed al-Jazzar). Ahmed al-Jazzar Pasha defeated Napoleon with the help of his Jewish adviser Haim Farhi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Acre_(1799)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezzar_Pasha
In order to avoid digressing too much, I will postpone explaining how he earned his well deserved title of "butcher", and let me first describe the siege of Acre by Napoleon.
During the siege of Acre, while Napoleon's artillery was bombarding the walls of the city, Ahmed's Jewish adviser and right-hand man Haim had the idea of simultaneously building a second wall just behind the walls of the city. Although Napoleon's cannons did make a few holes in the first wall, it was almost impossible for his cannons to shoot through the same hole to destroy the second wall just behind it. As a result, Napoleon finally gave up and retreated. This was a humiliating strategic massacre for Napoleon, and in France this is considered a very sad event.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Farhi
However, the troops of the capable Jezzar Pasha, refusing to surrender, withstood the siege for one and a half months. Haim Farhi, al-Jazzar's Jewish adviser and right hand man, played a key role in the city's defense, directly supervising the battle against the siege. After Napoleon's earlier conquest of Jaffa, rampaging French troops had savagely sacked the conquered city, and thousands of Albanian prisoners of war were massacred on the sea-shore, prior to the French move further northwards. These facts were well known to the townspeople and defending troops (many of them Albanians) in Acre, and the prospect is likely to have stiffened their resistance.
Now let me explain how Ahmed Jezzar Pasha earned his well deserved title "Butcher". I learned this from the tour guides in Israel when I was visiting the city of Acre. Often, when Ahmed realized that a certain woman was beautiful, he found an excuse to execute her husband. This way, he ended up transferring dozens of attractive "widows" to his palace, where he generously "took care of them." In addition, he was famous for summarily killing or amputating many people even for small crimes, and he displayed their limbs on the walls of the city to make an example of them.On 16 April a Turkish relief force was fought off at the Mount Tabor. By early May, replacement French siege artillery had arrived overland and a breach was forced in the defences. At the culmination of the assault, the besieging forces managed to make a breach in the walls.
However, after suffering many casualties to open this entry-point, Napoleon's soldiers found, on trying to penetrate the city, that Farhi and DePhelipoux had, in the meantime, built a second wall, several feet deeper within the city where al-Jazzar's garden was. Discovery of this new construction convinced Napoleon and his men that the probability of their taking the city was minimal. Moreover, after the assault was again repelled, Turkish reinforcements from Rhodes were able to land.
Having underestimated the stubborn attitude of the defending forces combined with a British blockade of French supply harbours and harsh weather conditions, Napoleon's forces were left hungry, cold and damp. Plague had struck the French camp as a result of the desperate condition of the men, and had by now led to the deaths of about 2,000 soldiers.
Anyway, the success of the Jewish adviser Haim who helped the Turkish ruler Ahmed defeat Napoleon, did not go unnoticed by the Ottoman leadership in Istanbul. His family was ultimately rewarded posthumously. In a tragic incident, Haim's adopted son Abdullah turned against him and killed him in order to confiscate his property. When this happened, his brothers obtained a decree to punish the perpetrator, from the highest echelons of the Ottoman Empire, namely from the Şeyhülislam who was the leading Ottoman Islamic authority.
19th-century cannon, set in the wall of Acre near a sign commemorating Farhi. The Hebrew inscription on the sign reads: Farhi vs. Napoleon. Jezzar's right hand in resisting Napoleon's harsh siege was the Jewish Haim Farhi, senior adviser and minister of finance:Murder
After the death of al-Jazzar in 1804, his son Sulayman Pasha succeeded to the Pashalik of Akko. Under him, the Jews enjoyed, according to one traveller, 'perfect religious freedom', and were relieved of the substantial fines they were frequently compelled to pay under al-Jazzar, and were obliged to pay only the customary kharadj.[13] Sulayman continued working with Farhi and employed him much as his own father had. Sulayman held sway over the region until his death in 1819, when he bequeathed his power to Farhi's adopted son, Abdullah, the orphan of a bey who had died prematurely.[14] However, Abdullah determined to rid himself of his foster-father, Farhi. When Farhi got word of the decision, he refused to flee, believing such an action would imperil his fellow Jews in the kingdom.
On 21 August 1820, soldiers appeared at Farhi's residence in Acre, denouncing him as a traitor. They seized and strangled him to death, and ransacked his house. His family was denied permission to bury his body. The family assets were expropriated and Farhi's body was cast into the sea. The family escaped to Damascus; Farhi's wife, unable to withstand the rigours of the journey, died on the way, in Safed.
Abdullah then compelled the Jews of Acre and Safed to pay in full all the back taxes they would have owed had they not been exempted, through Farhi's good offices, from paying over the years.[14]
Farhi's murder precipitated what one recent historian of the city called "the first, serious ... existential crisis" for Acre.[15]
Retaliation
When word of Farhi's murder reached Damascus, his brothers, Salomon, Raphael and Moise, swore to avenge him. They hired Turkish officers in Damascus and Aleppo to that purpose, wrote to Chalabi Carmona, an influential Jew of Constantinople, to ask the Sultan for justice, and requested a firman to that effect. Carmona obtained from Grand Mufti of Constantinople Sheikh ul-Islam, the supreme religious authority of the Ottoman Empire, a firman requiring the governors of Damascus, Aleppo and two other pashas to lend their troops to the three brothers in their pursuance of justice against Abdullah.[14]
In April 1821 the Farhi brothers arrived with a large army in the Akko Sanjak. They first conquered the Galilee, defeating the armies Abdullah sent to meet them, and appointing new rulers to take away his authority in every region they conquered. When they finally reached Acre, they besieged it for 14 months. During the siege, the eldest brother, Salomon, was poisoned (according to some sources, stabbed) by Abdullah's emissaries, and the surviving brothers, despairing of the siege, withdrew with their troops to Damascus.
