Mehmed Ali’s new soldiers received rations instead of living off the land

Evidence

Feeding the army was considerably more complicated than paying the troops, if only because of the logistical problems involved. The same discrepancy between the authorities’ blueprints and their actual implementation by the bureaucracy existed in the case of requisitioning food for the troops as in that of sending them their monthly pay. When the Pasha dispatched one of his earliest regiments to the Hijaz to quell the ‘Asīrī revolt in 1823 he soon realized that their monthly pay would not be enough for their subsistence and that his new troops had to be fed by their units and not be allowed to live off the land as the old troops used to do. “Although these new troops are well trained and follow known and fixed regulations,” he told his nephew, Ahmed Pasha Yeğen, who was then governor of Mecca, “their pay is only 15 piasters and hence they will not be able to subsist in the way the old infantry soldiers used to do. It has been decided, therefore, that their food rations be sent with the army and distributed to them daily.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 936

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in the birth of the modern Egyptian army — the shift from foraging to state-supplied rations is a hallmark of professionalization.