Abū Qīr (Arabic أبو قير) (also Abukir or Aboukir) was a village on the Egypt, twenty-three kilometers (fourteen and one-half miles) northeast of Alexandria by rail, containing a castle used as a state prison by Muhammad Ali of Egypt.
The name Abū Qīr is pronounced Abū’īr in the local dialect (with a glottal stop in place of the qaf).
Near the village are many remains of ancient buildings, Egyptian, Greek and Roman. About three kilometers (two miles) southeast 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 Khalīj Abū Qīr (Abū Qīr Bay), where on 1 August1798, Horatio Nelson fought the Battle of the Nile, often referred to as the Battle of Aboukir Bay. The latter title is applied more properly to an engagement between the French expeditionary army and the Turks fought on 25 July1799. Near Abū Qīr, on 8 March1801, the British army commanded by Sir Ralph Abercromby landed from its transports in the face of a strenuous opposition from a French force entrenched on the beach.
Abū Qīr (Arabic أبو قير;) (also Abukir or Aboukir) was a village on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, twenty-three kilometers (fourteen and one-half miles) northeast of Alexandria by rail, containing a castle used as a state prison by Muhammad Ali of Egypt.
Stretching eastward as far as the Rosetta mouth of the Nile is the spacious Khalīj Abū Qīr (Abū Qīr Bay), where on 1 August 1798, Horatio Nelson fought the Battle of the Nile, often referred to as the Battle of Aboukir Bay.
The latter title is applied more properly to an engagement between the French expeditionary army and the Turks fought on 25 July1799.
The weather was too bad for destroyers to be at sea and unfortunately Euryalus had to drop out due to lack of coal and weather damage to her wireless, Rear Admiral Christian had to remain with his ship rather than transfer to another ship as the weather was too bad to transfer.
At first Drummond thought that Aboukir had been mined and signalled the other two cruisers to close and assist but he soon realised that it was a torpedo attack and ordered the other cruisers away, but too late.
Although the submarine threat at the time was not considered, even by critics of the patrol, the fact that the three ships didn't zigzag was criticised by the board of inquiry, a practice that was widely ignored at the time and even by some ships after the loss of the three cruisers.
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