Mameluk de la Garde Imperiale 1804- 1814

Napoleon formed his own Manluk corps, the last known Mamluk force, in the early years of the 19th century, and used Mamluks in a number of his campaigns. Napoleon’s famous bodyguard Roustan Raza was also a Mamluk who had been sold in Egypt.

Throughout the Napoleonic era there was a special Mamluk corps in the Frech army In his history of the 13th Chasseurs, Colonel Descaves recounts how Napoleon used the Mamluks during the Frech 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.