Egyptian peasants were first mass-conscripted into a standing army only in 1822.

Evidence

From the year 1822, Egyptians had found themselves being taken in tens of thousands and turned, for the first time in memory, into soldiers. The military forces of Ottoman Egypt had previously been formed out of foreigners conscripted from abroad, together with native Egyptians who inherited or purchased the right to military salaries. These small, part-time garrisons in the major towns, mostly of only one or two thousand men and with loyalties to competing political factions, controlled urban affairs only with difficulty and the countryside even less. Such small bodies of foreigners were now to be replaced with an enormous military force – up to two hundred thousand men or more according to some sources – drafted from the villages and towns of Egypt. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 134

Categorization

• QUESTION: The shift from small mercenary garrisons to a mass conscripted army of up to 200,000 in one generation is a dramatic change — worth chasing how Muhammad Ali financed and administratively managed this scale-up.