Once Pandora's box was opened, it could never be closed again. The dispute at the French command headquarters in Aswan was merely a minor episode; similar events continued to unfold throughout Egypt.
How to surrender in a manner both reasonable and justifiable had become the focus of everyone's debate. It was not that the French commanders were cowardly, much less that they lacked patriotism.
Senior officers understood Egypt's importance, but that did not mean rank-and-file soldiers could also understand what Egypt meant to France. To most soldiers, Egypt was nothing more than a colony. Losing it meant losing it—nothing too serious.
Since it was doomed to be indefensible, they might as well abandon it. France had lost more than a few colonies already, and many of them had been richer than Egypt. Yet life went on as usual.
With morale utterly gone and strategic supplies running short, this war was impossible to fight.
Under such circumstances, the shrewd senior officers naturally had to consider a way out and strive for as dignified an ending as possible.
Starting in June, the Austrian army slowed its offensive and switched to a prolonged siege, and the situation in Egypt gradually eased as well.
What had initially been a military struggle gradually shifted into a political one. At the negotiating table, the representatives crossed verbal swords, the intensity no less than on the battlefield.
Launching a political offensive had been personally instructed by Franz. As a good emperor who loved peace, he naturally had to minimize casualties as much as possible.
By this point in the war, the Austrian army had likewise suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. By the time the war ended, that figure would climb even higher.
The French army in Egypt was already a turtle in a jar. Time stood