Mehmed Ali decimated a mutinous regiment to terrorize his new army into obedience
Evidence
Mehmed Ali had no problems with this kind of logic and, keen as he was to follow the models he was borrowing from, he was aware of the practical problems he had to contend with. Similarly, impressive and spectacular as he might have found his new army, he was not bound by its visual order nor was he taken in by its spectacles. For example, when in 1824 he detected signs of a serious mutiny among his newly founded army he knew that he had to take some drastic measures to deal decisively with such an alarming situation. In doing so he showed that he understood something about the effect that orderly spectacles had, but that he was not bound by the idea of order that informed them, nor by the principle of “cynical,” diffuse power (in the manner used by Foucault) that is also linked to them. For he then ordered all the soldiers of the regiment in question (the 1st Regiment that was on its way to Sudan) to stand in a row and every tenth soldier to step out of line. The soldiers thus selected would then form a line of their own and be shot in front of their colleagues “to be an example to others.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 919
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Foucault’s diffuse power theory is explicitly invoked and contrasted here; connects to the disciplinary-power literature the author engages elsewhere.
Related
- Mehmed Ali used decimation-style mass executions to suppress army mutinies (similarity 0.88)
- Muhammad Ali’s army trained soldiers to obey orders mechanically without reflection (similarity 0.81)
- Mehmed Ali’s army trained soldiers to obey mechanically without pausing to think. (similarity 0.80)
- Mehmed Ali’s army shifted from guarding against desertion to imprinting discipline on soldiers’ minds (similarity 0.80)
- Albanian troops resisted discipline because they regarded Mehmed Ali as first among equals (similarity 0.79)
- Mehmed Ali’s army failed to command its soldiers’ inner loyalties (similarity 0.79)
- Desertion and rebellion fundamentally undermined the performance of Ali’s army (similarity 0.79)
- Ali threatened mutinous Sudanese troops with brutal religiously-framed execution (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Mehmed Ali’s troops pillaged Acre after its fall and defied their officers.
#corroborates(0.65) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1173 - Mehmed Ali engineered a senior officer corps deliberately loyal to himself
#corroborates(0.50) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1377