Mamluk warfare relied on personal valor, cavalry, and individual initiative

Evidence

The performance of the Mamluks at the battle of Imbāba and that of the Egyptian army at the battle of Acre more than thirty years later could hardly be more sharply contrasted. The Mamluk attitude to war and fighting shown in the 1798 battle against the French was an example of a method of warfare made obsolete by the new evolving drills and technology. al-Jabartī’s and Boyer’s accounts of the battle show clearly how they relied on their personal bodily strength; how important cavalry was for their army so that nearly no infantry is mentioned in the accounts of the battle; how decisions to charge or retreat were left to the personal initiative of the warriors; how their dress in its embroidered caftans and colorful turbans was an expression of their social status not of their military ranks; and finally how out-of-date their weapons were, comprising as they did swords, pikes, maces and muskets. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 647

Categorization

• XREF: Contrast of individual-courage vs drill-based warfare parallels the reader’s knowledge of military modernization theory.