Mehmed Ali punished officers for desertions with salary deductions

Evidence

Besides ordering the shaykhs to capture any deserters who might have taken refuge in their villages, and threatening them that they would be whipped if they did not comply, Mehmed Ali also threatened his own officers “for any negligence that [they] showed in that respect.” He said that any officer from whose unit a deserter fled had to find a replacement himself. Otherwise, if he failed, a percentage of his salary would be deducted. Furthermore, it was decreed that deserters who had decided voluntarily to return to their units would be pardoned; otherwise on being caught they would each receive 500 stripes of the whip. In another desperate attempt to control desertion people who caught deserters were rewarded with fifty piasters for each soldier they caught. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1348