Syria’s prosperity and shared Arabic language drew Mehmed Ali’s soldiers out of their camps.

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 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: One in three soldiers deserted from Mehmed Ali’s army during the Syrian campaign; 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; Egyptian peasants maimed themselves to escape conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army

Related

• Desertion and rebellion fundamentally undermined the performance of Ali’s army (similarity 0.85)
• Mehmed Ali’s army shifted from guarding against desertion to imprinting discipline on soldiers’ minds (similarity 0.85)
• Muhammad Ali’s army trained soldiers to obey orders mechanically without reflection (similarity 0.83)
• Brutal force failed to deter desertion, driving the shift to psychological control (similarity 0.83)
• Egyptian soldiers obeyed orders because desertion and retreat both meant court martial (similarity 0.83)
• The Egyptian army replaced spectacular punishment with rehabilitative discipline (similarity 0.82)
• Egyptian peasants maimed themselves to escape conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.82)
• Within roughly a decade Egypt replaced Mamluk-style warriors with a trained modern army (similarity 0.81)
• Syria’s wealth and shared language worsened Egyptian army discipline problems (similarity 0.81)
• Albanian troops resisted discipline because they regarded Mehmed Ali as first among equals (similarity 0.81)
• Mehmed Ali’s conscript army was held together only by coercion (similarity 0.80)
• Syria’s two million people attracted Mehmed Ali’s conscription plans (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian conscripts resisted the Pasha’s army through desertion and self-mutilation (similarity 0.80)
• The modern army built in 1820-1 enabled Ali’s expansion. (similarity 0.79)
• Egyptian peasants blinded and mutilated themselves to evade conscription. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• One in three soldiers deserted from Mehmed Ali’s army during the Syrian campaign #expands (0.80)
• Mehmed Ali’s army shifted from guarding against desertion to imprinting discipline on soldiers’ minds #complicates (0.60) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 664
• Egyptian peasants maimed themselves to escape conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army #complicates (0.60)