Mehmed Ali used decimation-style mass executions to suppress army mutinies

Evidence

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

• XREF: Roman decimation parallels; also connects to Foucault’s notion of spectacle versus diffuse disciplinary power that the author explicitly invokes.