Mehmed Ali’s authority was mediated by squabbling bureaucrats who distorted his orders.

Evidence

Using the military institution as an example this chapter attempts to come to a closer and, hopefully, more critical reading of these letters. It does not start with how “insightful” the great Pasha was or how ahead of his time he might have been. Instead, it argues that the Pasha, besides issuing often impressive, orderly regulations, was also under severe time and financial constraints that frequently forced him to deviate from the very laws he was issuing. Moreover, between the “insightful” command of the Pasha in his palace in Cairo and the soldier on the field or in his barracks stood hundreds of officers and commanders. An army the size of Mehmed Ali’s, dependent on the state for its upkeep and maintenance, obviously also depended on hundreds of bureaucrats and scribes for the procurement of its provisions and supplies. These men often did not form a homogeneous group and their internal feuding occasionally affected the soldiers in ways that were most probably not envisaged by the Pasha. How can one read the letters of these innumerable bureaucrats and assistants of the Pasha who helped run his bureaucracy: as reflecting keen attempts of obedient, disinterested aides to fulfill blindly and lovingly the orders of their patron, or were they also sometimes moved by their own intrigues and internal fights and quarrels as well as by their limited understanding of their paymaster’s wishes? — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 911

Categorization

• XREF: Generalizes the gap between central decree and field execution that runs through administrative history, echoing the reader’s question about how the Egyptian army actually performed.