Conscription desertion was policed by bedouins and sapper regiments

Evidence

In another way of increasing their surveillance and tightening their control the authorities appointed special guards to prevent the new conscripts from escaping on their way to the conscripting depots. Bedouins were also asked to hand in any deserter to the authorities. Eventually this task was given specifically to special forces, the baltaci ortas, i.e. the sappers’ regiments, whose earlier tasks had included guarding the corvée laborers working to clear the Maḥmūdiyya canal. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 482

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies ‘baltaci ortas’ as sapper regiments repurposed from canal labor guarding.
• XREF: connects to: Bedouins sheltering draft evaders faced conscription or imprisonment by law; Guard duty against deserters was assigned to sapper regiments; Bedouins and sapper regiments proved unreliable as camp guards due to desertion (+6 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Bedouins sheltering draft evaders faced conscription or imprisonment by law; Guard duty against deserters was assigned to sapper regiments; Bedouins and sapper regiments proved unreliable as camp guards due to desertion (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Guard duty against deserters was assigned to sapper regiments #corroborates (0.95)
• Bedouin guards proved unreliable and frequently deserted or rebelled #complicates (0.84)
• Bedouins and sapper regiments proved unreliable as camp guards due to desertion #complicates (0.82)