Local Egyptian officials resisted conscription to protect village agricultural production

Evidence

In this respect the different shaykhs and governors were caught between a rock and a hard place: even if it is assumed that they were genuinely interested in fulfilling the government’s orders and that they had no loyalty to the people of their administrative units, a serious problem remained: on the one hand, these orders meant moving men away from agriculture, and on the other hand, the local officials had to make sure that production did not get disrupted by the government’s continuous and seemingly unsatiable demand for manpower. Nowhere was this conflict more evident than in the case of applying the conscription policy. The different local officials, from the shaykhs to the department governors, often refused to hand in the men needed for the army to the conscripting officers and instead allowed them to “disappear” in their provinces and sometimes gave them refuge by hiding them in their own houses. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 480

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to themes of resistance to state extraction and the tension between military manpower demands and agrarian economy.