Desertion and death wasted roughly a third of Middle Province conscripts.

Evidence

These problems were not peculiar to the Northern Provinces: out of a total of 1,960 men gathered from the Middle Provinces (Banī Suwayf, Fayyūm and Aṭfīḥ), nearly a third were not “in their places (bulmamuş)”. Mehmed Ali wrote to the governor, Halil Bey, reprimanding him heavily and warning him that if he did not do his best to fill these gaps, he would live to regret it. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 476