Egypt’s modern army reached full maturity only in the Syrian war

Evidence

In all the points mentioned above, Syria holds the key. It was in the Syrian war that the modern army was fully employed, an army only at its infancy during the Morean campaign and virtually non-existent in the Arabian and Sudanese campaigns. Furthermore, it was only by the late 1820s that the finances of Egypt had been sufficiently restructured and its productivity sufficiently increased to sustain a military expedition with the size and organization of that of the Syrian campaign. Above all it was in the Syrian war that the Pasha fought his Sultan, Mahmud II, hence marking it as distinct from earlier wars in which he was helping the Sultan. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 206

Categorization

• XREF: Central to the reader’s goal of understanding the army’s performance over time: infancy in Morea, nonexistent in Arabia/Sudan, full employment in Syria.