Muhammad Ali’s grandiose industrial policies routinely failed at the point of implementation

Evidence

However, in spite of these ambitious policies of the Pasha and the various decrees he issued whilst attempting to put them into action, there were enormous obstacles in implementation and rarely did things happen exactly as planned. The factories were always given short notice to fulfill the requirements of the army and were constantly late in supplying them. Although the Pasha considered that the local production of fezzes should take first priority and insisted that they should not be imported, he found, during an unexpected visit to one of the frigates of his navy, the sailors wearing French headpieces. The factory in Fuwwa was said to have an abundant supply of them but, Motoş Bey, the head of the navy, who was accompanying the Pasha, said that he had not received any fezzes from the factory in question. Moreover, those that the factory did produce were sometimes discovered to be the wrong size and moth-eaten and had to be returned. This in spite of the fact that the fez factory was supposed to be one of the Pasha’s best industrial enterprises. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 940

Categorization

• XREF: Reinforces the gap between planned and actual supply a recurrent theme in the Egyptian army’s logistical record.
• SEED: The fez factory sending moth-eaten, wrong-size fezzes to a navy could animate a vignette about top-down modernization colliding with local reality.