AllMovie

In 1798, the 28-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte realized his dream of reaching Egypt, where he intended to emulate the feat of his hero Alexander the Great, by making his own conquest of the country. This film chronicles that effort and the defeat of Napoleon's fleet of 400 ships, with 55,000 soldiers, 7,000 horses, and 1,000 pieces of artillery. In the end, the twin foes of the Ottoman Turks and the plague were too much for Napoleon's forces. The film has an interesting account of the Institute of Egypt, the brain trust of 150 engineers, botanists, mathematicians, artists, and writers that Napoleon intended to use to rebuild Egypt's culture and economy. The most important result of their short-lived efforts was the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. This block of black basalt, and its cryptic writings, supplied the key to the ultimate deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphic script.