Mehmed Ali’s conscript army drove the creation of the modern Egyptian state

Evidence

Besides being an army that relied on conscription, the Pasha’s army was novel in its reliance on the central government for its provisions and supplies. This was an army whose soldiers were issued uniforms designed, tailored and distributed from Cairo, and which had, among other things, an unprecedented medical establishment catering for it. It was an army that also depended on the central bureaucracy for its food, ammunition and supplies. Moreover, it was an army which triggered, through its reliance on conscription, considerable opposition from the population. In dealing with this opposition, the state resorted to various policing and surveillance practices and institutions that together changed the manner in which the state controlled society and altered the relationship that the population had with the government. It is the intention of this chapter to investigate this novel aspect of the army and to see how it was a crucial stimulus behind the formation of the modern state in Egypt. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 418

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated goal on the birth of the modern Egyptian army, and resonates with broader state-formation literature (e.g. Charles Tilly’s ‘war makes the state’).