Ibrahim Pasha punished officers who bypassed his command authority, even over disobeying orders.

Evidence

At the height of the Syrian war and after capturing Damascus, Ibrahim Pasha issued orders to Brigadier Ahmed Bey Istanbullu to march from Damascus to Tripoli and to stay there until further notice. Ahmed Bey, however, disobeyed orders and initiated a march towards Ibrahim Pasha’s camp. When Ibrahim heard about this he ordered a court martial to be convened at once “because we do not have beys or princes [in the army], and whoever has his leg slipping (ayağı kayan) is immediately led to the court for his case to be reviewed there.” … Furthermore, it soon became clear why the original harsh sentence was passed in the first place: Ahmed Bey had dared to send his daily reports directly to the War Department in Egypt rather than sending them to Ibrahim Pasha first, thus appearing to ignore and circumvent the authority of Ibrahim Pasha. It was this action rather than the alleged disobeying of orders that prompted Ibrahim Pasha to humiliate the officer since he “pretended that I am not Serasker [i.e. Commander-in-Chief].” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 929

Categorization

• XREF: Shows personal command authority outweighing formal military procedure — parallels the reader’s coverage of patronage-based command structures in other early modern armies.