A 1779 French memo proposed invading Egypt as liberators

Evidence

In 1779 he produced a memorandum which put the case for a French invasion of Egypt. He thought the decayed state of the government there meant that there would be little resistance and he suggested that the French invaders should present themselves as on a mission from the Ottoman sultan to liberate the Egyptian people from the corrupt Mamluk beys. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 236

Categorization

• SEED: The 1779 Tott memorandum directly predicts Napoleon’s 1798 invasion narrative — an essay on how imperial pretexts are rehearsed decades before execution.