Early Egyptian desertions stemmed from discipline problems, not low pay

Evidence

For example, Ibrahim Pasha wrote to his father that some of the exercises looked good on paper but turned out to be inconsistent and self-contradictory in practice. In addition, it proved difficult to instill in the new cadets the idea of military hierarchy and some of the younger officers had still not got the habit of obeying their senior officers. On investigating the reasons behind some of the early cases of desertion of soldiers, it was discovered that it was caused more by “following their own whims” and not standing their officers’ punishment rather than by their low pay. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 451