Officers in Mehmed Ali’s army behaved as mercenaries loyal to pay, not national identity

Evidence

The officers, rather than thinking of themselves as serving in a national army, were behaving as mercenary officers who moved from one patron to the other depending on who paid better. … It was not completely unusual, for example, to find two brothers fighting in the two opposing armies. Having previously served in the Sultan’s army, or at least being familiar with the world that it represented, the Ottoman world, the officers in the Pasha’s army were closer to the officers and soldiers of the army they were fighting against than to the soldiers of the army they were fighting in, soldiers who spoke a different language, came from a completely different social and economic background and believed in a different set of cultural and moral values. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1336

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in the Ottoman pasha system and how patronage (not nation) structured military loyalty.

Related

• Egyptian army officers acted as mercenaries loyal to pay, not nationalists (similarity 0.91)
• Egypt’s army in Mehmed Ali’s era was not a national force. (similarity 0.91)
• The officer corps served the Pasha’s dynasty rather than any Egyptian nation (similarity 0.88)
• Mehmed Ali’s Turkish-speaking officer corps felt no national loyalty to Egypt (similarity 0.87)
• Egyptian soldiers served under Turkish officers in the reformed army (similarity 0.85)
• Mehmed Ali’s officers were foreign newcomers with no roots in Egypt (similarity 0.85)
• Mehmed Ali barred Arabic-speaking officers from high army and bureaucratic ranks (similarity 0.84)
• Nepotism was essential, not aberrant, in Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian conscripts saw their own officers as the enemy rather than the Ottomans (similarity 0.84)
• Mehmed Ali’s army was a personal, dynastic force rather than a national one. (similarity 0.82)
• Ottoman officers readily defected to serve in the Egyptian army (similarity 0.82)
• Mehmed Ali’s officer corps spoke Turkish while common soldiers spoke Arabic. (similarity 0.82)
• Mehmed Ali engineered a senior officer corps deliberately loyal to himself (similarity 0.82)
• Mehmed Ali’s army unwittingly fostered Egyptian nationalism by turning fellahs against their Turkish officers (similarity 0.80)
• Mehmed Ali staffed his top military posts with relatives and freed slaves (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Mehmed Ali’s wars against the Sultan were dynastic, not national #corroborates (0.60) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1537
• Mehmed Ali engineered a senior officer corps deliberately loyal to himself #qualifies (0.55) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1377
• Mehmed Ali’s officers were foreign newcomers with no roots in Egypt #expands (0.50) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1367
• Mehmed Ali and his officials thought of themselves as Ottomans, not Egyptians. #corroborates (0.50) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1687
• Mehmed Ali’s army unwittingly fostered Egyptian nationalism by turning fellahs against their Turkish officers #complicates (0.50) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1371