Religious difference did not bar Europeans from top ranks in Egypt’s new army

Evidence

Similarly, the Europeans who flocked to Egypt seeking to work for the Pasha were given terms of employment that compared very favorably with any other that they might have sought. Differences in religion did not prevent them from rising in the military and civilian hierarchy and accordingly they received some of the highest salaries that the Pasha was offering. These included not only Süleyman Pasha, who by the early 1830s had become the second-in-command in the army after Ibrahim Pasha, but also Engineer Cerisy who constructed the new arsenal for Mehmed Ali in Alexandria, M. Planat, Director of the Staff College, Col. Seguera, the head of the Artillery School, Clot Bey, the head of the military medical establishment, and numerous other Europeans. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1378

Categorization

• XREF: Mehmed Ali’s merit-based staffing of Europeans parallels the broader story in The Cairo that recruitment ran on talent, connecting to the reader’s interest in how the modern Egyptian army was staffed.