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Aboukir

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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a village on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, 14 1/2 m. N.E. of Alexandria by rail, containing a castle used as a state prison by Mehemet Ali. Near the village are many remains of ancient buildings, Egyptian, Greek and Roman. About 2 m. S.E. of the village are ruins supposed to mark the site of Canopus. A little farther east the Canopic branch of the Nile (now dry) entered the Mediterranean.

Stretching eastward as far as the Rosetta mouth of the Nile is the spacious bay of Aboukir, where on the 1st of August 1798 Nelson fought the battle of the Nile, often referred to as the battle of Aboukir. The latter title is applied more properly to an engagement between the French expeditionary army and the Turks fought on the 25th of July 1799. Near Aboukir, on the 8th of March 1801, the British army commanded by Sir R. Abercromby landed from its transports in the face of a strenuous opposition from a French force entrenched on the beach. (See FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS.)