French campaign in Egypt and Syria
Throughout the Napoleonic era there was a special Mamluk corps in the French army. In his history of the 13th Chasseurs, Colonel Descaves recounts how Napoleon used the Mamluks during the French campaign in Egypt and Syria. In the so-called "Instructions" that Bonaparte gave to Jean Baptiste Kléber after departure, Napoleon wrote that he had already bought from Syrian merchants about 2,000 Mamluks with whom he intended to form a special detachment.