Assassination of Jean-Baptiste Kléber

Background. Kléber had accompanied Napoleon in the French invasion of Egypt in 1798 and, when Napoleon returned to France in 1799, was appointed commander of all French forces in Egypt. In March 1800, though outnumbered, he defeated an Ottoman army at Heliopolis and then returned to Cairo, where he suppressed another revolt against French rule.

The Assassination. On 14 June 1800, Kléber was assassinated in Cairo by Suleiman al-Halabi, a Syrian theology student. The date coincided with the death of Kléber's friend and comrade Desaix at Marengo. The supplied passages do not describe the method of the killing or establish a specific motive for al-Halabi's act.

Aftermath and Context. The assassination left the French Army of the Orient without its commander during the ongoing occupation of Egypt. The French position had already been shaped by the Convention of El Arish, signed by Kléber in January 1800 to allow evacuation, and by his subsequent victory at Heliopolis; the expedition itself ended in French surrender in 1801.