Peasants initially equated military conscription with the corvée labor system

Evidence

When Mehmed Ali told his officials that they had to convince the fellahin that serving in the army was essentially different from corvée28 he was probably addressing a common perception among the potential conscripts and their families, one that equated the two institutions and saw little difference between them. … The way the fellah dealt with his time, his physical environment, and above all, his own body was to be radically transformed. As will be shown below, the new military life would impose timetables, medical checks and strict surveillance systems the net effect of which was intended to impress upon the new soldier the formidable barrier that would distinguish his new life in the army from his previous civilian life. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 656

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on the social history of conscription in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt, and to the psychological transformation of the soldier in Foucault’s work on discipline.