Mehmed Ali’s 130,000-man army forced unprecedented state centralization in Egypt

Evidence

Sustaining an army of around 130,000 men on a more or less constant war footing was no easy task, though. The problems encountered in keeping this army well fed, adequately clothed, and regularly paid were as significant as collecting the peasants from the villages and turning them into disciplined soldiers. This massive task demanded the build-up of state power to an extent unprecedented in Egyptian history and an encroachment by the state on people’s lives in a way previously unparalleled. … In short, the importance of Mehmed Ali’s army lies not only in its size or in the fact that it relied on what appears to have been universal conscription, but also in the economic–bureaucratic structure that supported and sustained it. Without an analysis of the working of this war machine no clear understanding of the performance of this army would be complete. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 934

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated goal of understanding the birth of the modern Egyptian army and how it was sustained.