Battle of Hamunaptra

Battle of Hamunaptra
Conflict	French Foreign Legionnaires confronted by Tuareg warriors
Date	1923 A.D
Place	Hamunaptra
result	Decimation of French Foreign Legion garrison and Tuaregs, expulsion of officer Rick O'Connell into Sahara
Commanders	Rick O'Connell Guizot
Forces	200 French Legionnaires 2,000 Tuareg horsemen
Casualties	Almost all of the French Foreign Legionnaires Many Tuaregs

The Battle of Hamunaptra was a battle that occured between the Tuareg braves and the French Foreign Legionnaires occupying the ancient City of the Dead, Hamunaptra.

History

Invasion of the French Legion

A garrison of the French Foreign Legion led by Colonel Guizot, an officer placed in charge of the troops, had believed so much in Hamunaptra, which was said to be nothing more than a mere myth, that they had, without orders, marched through Libya into Egypt to find the ruins in the hopes of taking some of the treasures contained within. The troops were, for the most part, composed of lowlifes and criminals from all over Europe, among them the thief Beni Gabor, who had joined the Legion so as to escape persecution for robbing a synagogue in Budapest, Hungary. The second-officer-in-command was an American named Rick O'Connell, who had joined the Legion in Paris, France in the hopes of impressing a young lady, though he himself was drunk when he had enlisted. The Legionnaires were ill-equipped for action, as their weapons consisted of outdated rifles.

Tuareg Defense

Soon after the Legionnaires had reached the ruins, a massive horde of Tuareg warriors had manuevered the garrison that occupied Hamunaptra in such a way that they were open to an ambush attack. Guizot, seeing the battle as lost, mounted his horse and fled from the ruins, leaving O'Connell to be come the acting officer. O'Connell, who had started a fellowship with Beni, had hoped that Beni would back him up should he run into trouble, and kept his hopes in mind as he ordered the other troops to open fire on the encroaching Tuaregs. While the Legionnaires had eliminated many of the Tuaregs, the Tuaregs themselves had taken down a large number of the Legionnaires, leaping through the ruins and killing as many Legionnaires as they could reach.

Tuareg Braves attacking Hamunatra on horseback.

Benny and Rick right about to cease fire.

Only O'Connell himself, who fired away at as many of the warriors as he could, and Benny, who had run off and shut himself up in a stone doorway, survived the battle. O'Connell was chased by several Tuareg horsemen and fired his pistols at them but was soon out of shots, standing cornered against a statue in the ruins, expecting the Tuaregs to open fire. The Tuaregs, however, did not fire, as their horses were all driven mad by some unknown force in the sand. The Tuaregs abandoned O'Connell, who was left alone in the ruins to wonder what was beneath the sand; as O'Connell stood in front of a statue of the god Anubis, he heard unearthly voices and chanting, followed by an inscrutable force that caused the sands to form the shape of a face.

Aftermath

With the battle lost, O'Connell wandered out into the deserts alone, hoping to reach civilization; Beni, however, had helped himself to some of the camels left over by the Legionnaires in order to escape.

Appearances

• The Mummy (First appearance)
  • The Mummy (novelization)
• The Mummy Returns (novelization)(Mentioned only)
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor(Mentioned only)

Behind the Scenes

Filming the scenes of the Tuareg battle took place in mid-May near the small town of Erfoud, Morocco with eight hundred people to accommodate, including filming crew and cast, consisting of two hundred Tuareg horsemen and eighty Legionnaires.