Ibrahim Pasha won by superior supply infrastructure and Ottoman command failure

Evidence

This last victory of Ibrahim’s was made possible by his insightful and clever command, by the assistance that Süleyman Pasha gave him, by his well-trained soldiers and loyal officers who had been hardened and tried in an army that had had a short but successful history, and above all by the infrastructure that was built to feed and supply the army. Of equal importance, however, this victory was made possible by the Ottomans’ own dismal performance. As opposed to Ibrahim, Hafiz was without previous battlefield experience. He was inflexible, indecisive and stubborn, refusing to accept the advice of his capable Prussian advisor, von Moltke. His army was ill-trained, his officers’ loyalty was in doubt and above all the directives and instructions he was receiving from Istanbul were contradictory and confusing. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1390

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in comparing the Egyptian army’s performance against Ottoman pashas, and echoes von Moltke’s wider role advising Ottoman armies in later decades.
• QUESTION: The contradictory directives from Istanbul point at the early Tanzimat-era command dysfunction worth tracing forward to the 1840s.