Fellahin soldiers may have seen the army as a national force

Evidence

This and the previous chapters have shown the authorities attempting to capture the fellahin’s bodies and minds, and the fellahin, on the other hand, resisting these manipulative attempts of the state. Yet, was there no positive incentive that induced the fellahin to join the army out of their own accord, or, having joined it, to think about it in some positive way? The following chapter deals with this question, namely, the possibility that soldiers might have thought of it as a national army fighting for their own country. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1184

Categorization

Category: Connection Points

• QUESTION: This sets up the question of whether Egyptian nationalism predated or was forged by the army experience — worth chasing in the next chapter.
• SEED: Angle: how imperial conscript armies become schools of national consciousness.

Related

• Fellahin soldiers resisted conscription rather than seeing the army as theirs (similarity 0.88)
• Egyptian fellahin fought as a personal army for Mehmed Ali, not for a nation (similarity 0.86)
• Bearing arms may not have produced Egyptian national consciousness (similarity 0.86)
• Mehmed Ali’s conscript army tested whether military service awakened Egyptian national feeling (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian national identity was forged by army discipline, not pre-existing sentiment. (similarity 0.84)
• The conscript army founded Egyptian nationalism through surveillance and control, not enlightenment. (similarity 0.84)
• Historians’ claim that fellahin grew proud of military life is false (similarity 0.84)
• Battalion banners bearing Mehmed Ali’s name suggest a personal rather than national army (similarity 0.84)
• The conscript army did not aim at Egyptian national independence. (similarity 0.83)
• Mehmed Ali’s army unwittingly fostered Egyptian nationalism by turning fellahs against their Turkish officers (similarity 0.83)
• The fellahin rank-and-file would not have seen Mehmed Ali’s wars as national (similarity 0.83)
• Mehmed Ali motivated his soldiers through religion, not nationalism (similarity 0.83)
• Egyptian nationalism grew from Ottoman elite domination, not patriotic awakening (similarity 0.82)
• Conscription warfare can forge national consciousness among a people (similarity 0.82)
• Nationalists claim conscripts discovered an Egyptian identity through warfare (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Pre-national armies held together only by force and pay, not loyalty #complicates (0.35) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1333