Mehmed Ali’s conscripts served for life under appalling conditions
Evidence
Serving in Mehmed Ali’s army was, therefore, a dreadful experience. The Pasha’s army was an army which the soldiers were dragged into against their wishes and with minimal use of persuasion. It was an army that they were conscripted to practically for life and in which they were forced to fight wars that made little or no sense to them. It was an army in which they were continuously humiliated and in which the conditions of camp life were appalling. They were insulted, abused and humiliated by an officer corps that was ethnically, linguistically and socially different and with which they had very little in common. They were, moreover, poorly fed, poorly clothed and poorly paid. It was an army that did not recognize the sacrifice given by those who were wounded while serving in it. Above all, and as was shown in the previous chapter, it was an army that did not respect its dead. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1343
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
Related
- Life in Mehmed Ali’s army was brutally exploitative for conscripts (similarity 0.97)
- Mehmed Ali’s army discarded soldiers once they lost utility (similarity 0.83)
- Conscripted Egyptian soldiers saw the army as hated brutal coercion (similarity 0.82)
- The Egyptian army coerced conscripts for the Pasha’s dynastic wars (similarity 0.82)
- Illiterate conscripted soldiers left no written accounts of their own experiences. (similarity 0.82)
- Egyptian peasant conscripts hated the army so much they deserted and maimed themselves. (similarity 0.82)
- Mehmed Ali conscripted even self-maimed men into his army and projects (similarity 0.82)
- Egyptian conscripts served Mehmed Ali’s army entirely against their will (similarity 0.81)
- Egyptian peasants maimed themselves to escape conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.81)
- The army conscripted Egyptians by force to fight for Mehmed Ali’s dynasty (similarity 0.81)
- Conscript soldiers resisted the Pasha’s project and undermined his army’s power (similarity 0.81)
- Egyptian conscripts resisted the Pasha’s army through desertion and self-mutilation (similarity 0.80)
- Mehmed Ali’s conscript army was held together only by coercion (similarity 0.80)
- The army forced peasants to fight for Mehmed Ali’s dynasty, not for Egypt. (similarity 0.79)
- Fellahin resistance to Mehmed Ali’s conscription was pervasive. (similarity 0.79)