Powers watched the struggle with
intense interest. The viceroy protested against bearing the cost of
the war, and demanded the investiture of Syria. Mehemet Ali was then
declared a rebel, and a firman was issued against him, in support of
which excommunication an army of sixty thousand men advanced across Asia
Minor to the Syrian boundaries, while a squadron of twenty-five sail
stood in the Dardanelles ready to weigh anchor.

[Illustration: 165.jpg MOSQUE OF MUAD AT CAIRO]

The Porte forbade the ambassadors of the Powers to import ammunition
into Egypt, for it feared that the viceroy might find a support whose
strength it knew only too well. But the viceroy had no need of this,
for his former connections with Europe had put him in a position of
independence, whereas the Porte itself was obliged to fall back on this
support. Russia, the one of the three Great Powers whose disposition
it was to support the authority of the sultan, lent him twenty thousand
bayonets, whilst Ibrahim Pasha made his advance to the gates of
Constantinople.

Immediately after the taking of St. Jean d'Acre Ibrahim Pasha, following
up his successes, had turned towards Damascus, which town he entered
without a blow being struck, the governor and the leading inhabitants
having taken flight. The commander-in-chief established his headquarters
under the walls of the conquered country, and then marched in three
columns on Horns. The battle of Horns (July 8, 1832) demonstrated the
vast superiority of the Egyptian troops. On both sides there were about
thirty thousand regular soldiers, but the Egyptians were the better
organised, the better disciplined, and the more practised in the arts of
war. When it is remembered that at Horns the Turks lost two thousand men
killed, and 2,500 taken prisoners, while the Egyptian casualties were
only 102 killed and 162 wounded, one is not astonished at the enthusiasm
with which Ibrahim Pasha wrote after the battle: "I do not hesitate to
say that two or three hundred thousand of such troops would cause me no
anxiety."

It is not surprising that the beaten pashas were so struck with terror
that in their flight they abandoned sixteen more pieces of artillery and
all the ammunition they had managed to save from their defeat. They
fled as if they could not put sufficient distance between themselves and
their redoubtable enemy.

This battle foretold the result of the Syrian campaign. The population
of Syria seemed to