Egyptian military bureaucracy prized exact written accountability over prompt execution

Evidence

When he received orders to unload a shipment of bread, for example, he said that he had been doing his best to fulfill this task until it started to rain. Knowing that rain would cause the bread to get wet, he ordered the unloading process to be stopped. “They took no heed of my warning, though, and I am now writing this to free myself of responsibility later when I am asked about the wet bread.” His efforts were not much appreciated by his superiors, nevertheless, who continued to press him to be more prompt in executing orders issued to him. Shortly afterwards when he said that he was doing his best to unload the barley from the ships lying off shore to deliver it immediately to the army kitchens, Ibrahim Pasha apparently had had it with him: he told him that if did not get the barley out of the ships, he, Ibrahim Pasha, would get the guts out of his belly. In this respect Nazif Efendi was a typical bureaucrat who seemed to have been torn by the pressing need to execute orders promptly and at all cost while at the same time paying scrupulous attention to details and proper regulations in order not to be blamed later on. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 947

Categorization

• QUESTION: This illustrates Ibrahim Pasha’s standards of competence in administration, relevant to understanding his command culture.
• XREF: connects to: Military codes in Egypt linked crimes to specific punishments precisely.
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Military codes in Egypt linked crimes to specific punishments precisely.