Historians’ claim that fellahin grew proud of military life is false

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. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1359

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Serves the reader’s performance question by correcting the nationalist historical narrative of Egyptian army pride.

Related

• Only one Egyptian ever volunteered for Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.90)
• Egyptian peasants universally hated conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.86)
• Egyptian fellahin fought as a personal army for Mehmed Ali, not for a nation (similarity 0.85)
• Fellahin resistance to Mehmed Ali’s conscription was pervasive. (similarity 0.84)
• Fellahin soldiers may have seen the army as a national force (similarity 0.84)
• The fellahin rank-and-file would not have seen Mehmed Ali’s wars as national (similarity 0.83)
• Mehmed Ali’s conscript army tested whether military service awakened Egyptian national feeling (similarity 0.83)
• The army forced peasants to fight for Mehmed Ali’s dynasty, not for Egypt. (similarity 0.82)
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army. (similarity 0.81)
• Bearing arms may not have produced Egyptian national consciousness (similarity 0.81)
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into the modern army (similarity 0.81)
• Fellahin soldiers resisted conscription rather than seeing the army as theirs (similarity 0.81)
• Mehmed Ali motivated his soldiers through religion, not nationalism (similarity 0.81)
• Over 30,000 Egyptians rebelled against Mehmed Ali’s conscription in 1824 (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian peasant-soldiers had been denied the right to bear arms for centuries. (similarity 0.80)