Jezzar Pasha

Jezzar Pasha governed Acre and much of the Levant for nearly thirty years, stopped Napoleon there in 1799, and earned a nickname meaning the butcher. He was a Bosnian who arrived in Egypt as a slave soldier, served the Mamluk beys, and acquired the name after killing a large number of bedouin in reprisal for the death of his patron. He was made governor of Sidon in 1776 and moved the seat to Acre, which he refortified and made the commercial centre of the coast by monopolising the cotton and grain trade with Europe through his own agents, squeezing out the French merchants of the Levant Company. He ruled through a household of slave soldiers and through terror that was theatrical as well as real - mutilation was his standard punishment and several of his own officials ended without noses or eyes. When Bonaparte marched north from Egypt in 1799, having taken Jaffa and massacred its garrison after they surrendered, he besieged Acre for two months. Jezzar held it with the walls, his own troops, and decisive help from Sidney Smith's Royal Navy squadron, which cut the coast road, captured the French siege artillery at sea and landed guns and men into the town. Bonaparte lifted the siege in May and retreated to Egypt, and later said that if Acre had fallen he would have changed the face of the world. It is the first serious defeat of his career. Jezzar died in 1804 still in office. The great mosque he built in Acre carries his name and holds his tomb.

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