Conscripted Egyptian soldiers saw the army as hated brutal coercion
Evidence
As far as the fellah-soldiers were concerned, the allegation that this was their army, and that they were fighting for their own sake, would have been the most ludicrous claim they would have heard. For them, nothing could have been further from the truth. The soldiers came to see the army as the most detestable aspect of the Pasha’s already hated regime. They were dragged to serve in it practically for their entire lives, often never to see their families again. During their life-long period of conscription they were ridiculed, beaten and humiliated by their Turkish-speaking officers. They saw the army as an institution that came to represent to them in the most concrete and direct way the atrocious, inhuman and dreadful policies of Mehmed Ali. Seeing it in this light, they spared no means at their disposal to express their true sentiments of disgust and hatred to the regime that made them pay with their blood and lives for the glory of Mehmed Ali and his family. They might not have left us written records to let us know what their sentiments were towards the army and the Pasha. But they have made their feelings known by much more eloquent means: through desertion and maiming they showed that they would use every means to evade an institution that came to represent to them in a very real way all the brutalities of the Pasha’s regime. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1394
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- SEED: Desertion and self-maiming as ‘eloquent’ resistance by illiterate conscripts is a striking historical method for recovering subaltern voice — possible essay on reading non-written protest.
- XREF: Resonates with Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and other works on subjugated peoples’ resistance, and with the reader’s broader interest in conscription’s human cost.
Related
- Egyptian peasant conscripts hated the army so much they deserted and maimed themselves. (similarity 0.92)
- Egyptian conscripts resisted the Pasha’s army through desertion and self-mutilation (similarity 0.88)
- Egyptian conscripts served Mehmed Ali’s army entirely against their will (similarity 0.86)
- Egyptian peasants maimed themselves to escape conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.86)
- Egyptian conscripts saw their own officers as the enemy rather than the Ottomans (similarity 0.86)
- Conscript soldiers resisted the Pasha’s project and undermined his army’s power (similarity 0.86)
- Desertion reveals Egyptian soldiers’ true feelings toward Mehmed Ali’s regime (similarity 0.85)
- Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army. (similarity 0.85)
- Egyptian peasants universally hated conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.84)
- Egyptian peasants blinded and mutilated themselves to evade conscription. (similarity 0.84)
- Fellahin resistance to Mehmed Ali’s conscription was pervasive. (similarity 0.83)
- Conscripts resisted army discipline through mutiny, desertion and self-mutilation. (similarity 0.83)
- Hospitalized Egyptian soldiers violently resisted medical authority. (similarity 0.83)
- The Egyptian army coerced conscripts for the Pasha’s dynastic wars (similarity 0.83)
- Mehmed Ali’s conscripted soldiers resisted his modernizing project (similarity 0.83)