 He is said to have shown his army the pyramids behind the enemy's left flank and at the moment of ordering the attack shouted "Soldiers, see the tops of the Pyramids" – in accounts written long afterwards, this phrase was altered into "Soldiers, remember that from the top of these pyramids, 40 centuries of history contemplate you", though historians later discovered that the pyramids were not visible from the battlefield.This was the start of the so-called Battle of the Pyramids, a French victory over an enemy force of about 21,000 Mamluks.