Ibrahim feared harsh discipline would push soldiers into open mutiny.
Evidence
These severe punishments are not unknown to me and I saw them in Morea. [Back then] in one incident [one senior officer] whipped more than sixty men in one day with his own hands including an officer with the rank of adjutant-major. In another incident Süleyman Pasha [Sèves] lowered one officer from the rank of adjutant-major all the way to second lieutenant. Time will only tell what the effect of this policy will be on the defection of officers [to the Ottomans]. Of course, injustices and misapplication of the law are inevitable. Be that as it may, however, everyone knows that those who commit injustice are officers and those on whom injustice is committed are soldiers … If the men lose their patience, things can go completely out of our hands, and then neither Your Highness, nor your humble slave, author of these lines, will be able to do anything about it. If these were some fellahin from the villages, we would have expected them to bear up with this system. Since they are [not peasants, however, but] soldiers, we have to think of the dangers if they lose their patience. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1332
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- Harsh officer discipline on conscripted soldiers risked mutiny rather than deterrence (similarity 0.95)
- Ibrahim feared both officer defection and soldier mutiny from harsh discipline (similarity 0.91)
- Ibrahim ultimately sided with the Turkish officer elite over his Arabic-speaking soldiers. (similarity 0.84)
- Officer quarrels and careerism were contained solely by Ibrahim Pasha’s personal authority. (similarity 0.82)
- Mehmed Ali and Ibrahim blamed officers, not duties, for desertion (similarity 0.79)
- Military law punished only soldiers, not officers, with public beating (similarity 0.79)
- Ethno-linguistic officer appointments were deliberate to prevent fellah revolt (similarity 0.79)