Napoleon's Fleet Discovered

Two centuries after a historic battle destroyed Napoleon's hopes of crushing the British empire, the French emperor's fleet has been discovered in the depths of an artifact-rich Mediterranean Bay.

French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio said his team is salvaging the flagship of Napoleon's fleet, L'Orient, along with two other French frigates submerged 15 miles off the coast of Alexandria.

"It is a magnificent find," Goddio told The Associated Press on Saturday. "The explosion that sank L'Orient left it scattered all over the bottom of Abu Qir Bay."

The 120-cannon, roughly 2,000-ton ship was lost on Aug. 1, 1798, in a battle with the British fleet of Adm. Horatio Nelson. Cannon shot set the ship ablaze and an ensuing explosion in a gunpowder magazine sank it, Goddio said. All 1,000 sailors and officers aboard died.

The first trace of L'Orient came in 1983 with the discovery of the bronze name plate of a ship called "Royal Dauphin." But Goddio said it was only later that Royal Dauphin was found to be the pre-French Revolution name of L'Orient.

"The discovery, unfortunately, was forgotten for years," he said.

Goddio's team began surveying Alexandria's eastern harbor in 1996. Its first and most dazzling find was the 2,000-year-old ruins of Cleopatra's palace and the home and temple of her Roman lover, Marc Antony, which had sunk into the harbor after an earthquake.

But for Goddio, the discovery of Napoleon's fleet 36 feet below the surface at Abu Qir, east of Alexandria, yielded a new sense of excitement.

"This is where the fate of Europe was decided," said Goddio, referring to the battle in which Nelson destroyed a French fleet bent on crushing the British Empire by striking at Egypt and, ultimately, India.

Among remains of the ship found were "parts of the hull and an 11-meter-long (36-foot) rudder which weighed about one ton and the ship's riggings," Goddio said.

Also found was part of the ship's mast, another section of which had been ordered salvaged by Nelson and was used in making the admiral's coffin after his death in the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, Goddio said.

"Touching that wood is like being an eyewitness to history," said an elated Goddio.

By Tarek El-Tablawy