Different archival sources produce divergent pictures of the same army

Evidence

The other reason for highlighting the various bureaucratic problems and logistical obstacles that the army suffered from is to draw attention to the fact that behind the discrepancy – between the neat and precise picture of the army presented in the last chapter and the more complicated one presented in this one – is the different kind of sources used in both chapters. For whereas the previous chapter had relied mostly on the military laws and the training manuals printed at the Būlāq Press, this chapter found the army journals and specifically the records of the courts martial very useful. The intention of using these latter sources was not to argue that the training manual and the military law present a simplistic picture of the army to be replaced by the more complicated and more realistic one offered by the record of the court martial. For the records of the court martial like the reports of the daily checks on the soldiers are in fact applications of these laws and blueprints. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 953