Syria’s two million people attracted Mehmed Ali’s conscription plans

Evidence

This narration will not start at the beginning, as he would have liked, with his childhood in Albania or with his arrival in Egypt, or at the end, as some nationalist historians would have preferred, highlighting his showdown with Great Britain, but in the middle of his long career as governor of Egypt, and precisely in the year AH 1236/AD 1820–1. This is the year that Mehmed Ali started to found a modern army in Egypt, an army which was based on conscription and which relied on the institutions of the modern state that he founded mainly to serve that army. It is this army, rather than Mehmed Ali’s character or his person, that is the subject of this book, and it is this central institution that is studied below in order to analyze the nature of Egyptian society in the first half of the nineteenth century. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 70 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mehmed Ali founded a conscription-based army in Egypt in 1820 — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 70

Related

• Mehmed Ali founded a conscription-based army in Egypt in 1820 (similarity 0.90)
• Egypt’s modern army was founded through conscription in 1820–21 (similarity 0.89)
• Mehmed Ali conscripted even self-maimed men into his army and projects (similarity 0.89)
• Ali founded his conscript army in 1820-1 to secure his rule against Istanbul (similarity 0.87)
• Egypt’s conscription needs drove Mehmed Ali to target Syria for manpower (similarity 0.86)
• Within roughly a decade Egypt replaced Mamluk-style warriors with a trained modern army (similarity 0.85)
• Conscription drained Egyptian manpower, making Syrian levies an appealing reserve (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian peasant conscription began as a three-year substitute for Turkish troops (similarity 0.84)
• Conscription transformed the relation between Egyptian government and governed (similarity 0.83)
• The Egyptian army coerced conscripts for the Pasha’s dynastic wars (similarity 0.83)
• Over 30,000 Egyptians rebelled against Mehmed Ali’s conscription in 1824 (similarity 0.83)
• Mehmed Ali’s conscript army drove the creation of the modern Egyptian state (similarity 0.83)
• Conscription-based army provisioning drove Egypt’s modern state formation (similarity 0.82)
• The army conscripted Egyptians by force to fight for Mehmed Ali’s dynasty (similarity 0.82)
• The modern army built in 1820-1 enabled Ali’s expansion. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Mehmed Ali founded a conscription-based army in Egypt in 1820 #expands (0.70) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 70