Conscription aimed to drastically reshape the peasant soldier’s body and daily habits

Evidence

Second, it shows that in spite of years of training, of being subjected to a strict system of surveillance and control and in spite of continuous drills and exercises, the sergeant-major in question did not show signs that all this had had any significant effect on the way he was supposed to think and act – i.e. as a soldier and not as a fellah/civilian. Having come across a fellow villager, it was natural for him to extend him an invitation to stay with him on the camp and he could not see why his commanding officers were so harsh and inhospitable to his visitor. When his friend was arrested he could not see why he was being reprimanded and punished. His body might seem to have been closely controlled, but his heart and mind appeared to still belong to a different world, that of civilian life back in the nostalgically remote lands of Egypt. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1110 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• Conscription transformed the relation between Egyptian government and governed (similarity 0.86)
• Years of training failed to transform peasant soldiers’ civilian loyalties. (similarity 0.86)
• Failed Albanian training and slave losses forced reliance on conscripted fellahin. (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian conscripts remained emotionally autonomous despite drill (similarity 0.82)
• Egyptian peasant conscription began as a three-year substitute for Turkish troops (similarity 0.81)
• Peasant resistance to conscription catalyzed a new regime of state control (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian peasants experienced conscription as oppressive taxation rather than patriotic service (similarity 0.80)
• Military drill and surveillance failed to overwrite Egyptian soldiers’ civilian loyalties and thinking. (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into the modern army (similarity 0.80)
• Conscription gave the Egyptian state power over peasants that Ottoman and Mamluk rulers lacked (similarity 0.79)
• Conscription stripped households of their primary breadwinners across Egypt. (similarity 0.79)
• Egyptian peasants blinded and mutilated themselves to evade conscription. (similarity 0.79)
• Bedouins and sapper regiments proved unreliable as camp guards due to desertion (similarity 0.79)
• Egyptian peasants universally hated conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.78)
• Universal conscription of Egyptian peasants was adopted reluctantly after other options failed (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Conscription transformed the relation between Egyptian government and governed #expands (0.70)
• Years of training failed to transform peasant soldiers’ civilian loyalties. #complicates (0.65) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1110
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into the modern army #complicates (0.50)