Bureaucracy, not battlefield valor, sustained Mehmed Ali’s victorious army

Evidence

It was these meticulous officials and bookkeepers “with ink-stained hands rather than bloody arms” who helped lubricate Mehmed Ali’s military machine and it was that bureaucracy that sustained the army and enabled it to wage its numerous victorious battles. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 933

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how army performance depended on the administrative apparatus rather than combat alone.