Egyptian army officers acted as mercenaries loyal to pay, not nationalists

Evidence

In short, the composition of the officer corps in the Pasha’s army was problematic, to say the least, and both father and son were well aware of its precarious nature. The officers, rather than thinking of themselves as serving in a national army, were behaving as mercenary officers who moved from one patron to the other depending on who paid better. Joining the “Egyptian” army for them meant joining the force of an Ottoman pasha who had a better organized and better paid army than the Sultan. It was an army that was fighting the Ottoman Sultan, it is true, but that fight was not an example of a national struggle of a people against their foreign oppressor. It could even be said that, as far as these officers were concerned, the “other” was more the fellah soldiers that they were commanding than the Ottoman army they were fighting. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1336

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgrom’s law merchant work and the broader theme of institutional loyalty vs. personal patronage in military service.