Egyptian peasants universally hated conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army

Evidence

Given this mentality it was natural for the male population of Egypt to hate the army into which they were dragged by Mehmed Ali’s military machine and to seize every opportunity to evade it whenever and wherever they could. Nothing can be further from the truth than al-Rāf’ī’s allegation that the fellahin eventually saw that “military life was more comfortable than their village life [which, in fact, is not saying much], and even became proud of it.” In all the numerous cases about conscripting the male population of Egypt into Mehmed Ali’s army there was only a single instance of a man voluntarily requesting to join the army. He had been released and allowed to go back to his village, then some time later came back saying that he had heard from some pilgrims that his village had been deserted and that none of his relatives or friends had remained behind. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1359

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s wider question on how the modern Egyptian army was born out of forced conscription, complementing earlier material in this book.