Muhammad Ali’s army trained soldiers to obey orders mechanically without reflection

Evidence

Gradually the authorities came to realize that what was needed was a system of control and surveillance that would be similar to that reached to circumvent the role of the village shaykhs reviewed in the last chapter. Rather than depending on sentry guards and bedouin patrols catching deserters, the aim was to imprint on the minds of the soldiers the idea of internment in the first place and to subject them to a regime of surveillance that would make obedience and discipline seem natural and be habitually practiced. That system, it was hoped, would target the minds of the recruits and not only their bodies; a system that would, in the words of an eighteenth-century French military thinker, bind them “by the chain of their own ideas” rather than “constrain them with iron chains.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 664 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mehmed Ali’s army shifted from guarding against desertion to imprinting discipline on soldiers’ minds — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 664

Related

• Mehmed Ali’s army shifted from guarding against desertion to imprinting discipline on soldiers’ minds (similarity 0.91)
• Mehmed Ali’s army trained soldiers to obey mechanically without pausing to think. (similarity 0.85)
• Albanian troops resisted discipline because they regarded Mehmed Ali as first among equals (similarity 0.85)
• Mehmed Ali’s army failed to command its soldiers’ inner loyalties (similarity 0.83)
• Syria’s prosperity and shared Arabic language drew Mehmed Ali’s soldiers out of their camps. (similarity 0.83)
• Brutal force failed to deter desertion, driving the shift to psychological control (similarity 0.82)
• Desertion and rebellion fundamentally undermined the performance of Ali’s army (similarity 0.81)
• Ibrahim Pasha ordered soldiers to obey without reasoning for themselves (similarity 0.81)
• The modern army built in 1820-1 enabled Ali’s expansion. (similarity 0.81)
• Egyptian soldiers obeyed orders because desertion and retreat both meant court martial (similarity 0.80)
• Within roughly a decade Egypt replaced Mamluk-style warriors with a trained modern army (similarity 0.80)
• Mehmed Ali decimated a mutinous regiment to terrorize his new army into obedience (similarity 0.80)
• Training manuals reduced the Egyptian soldier to a machinelike interchangeable component. (similarity 0.80)
• The Egyptian army replaced spectacular punishment with rehabilitative discipline (similarity 0.79)
• Mehmed Ali’s conscript army was held together only by coercion (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Mehmed Ali’s army shifted from guarding against desertion to imprinting discipline on soldiers’ minds #expands (0.70) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 664