The Albanian soldiers violently resisted early attempts to impose French-style military discipline.

Evidence

In August 1815, however, the Pasha decided to impose order on the troops by force, and “to put their pay and expenses under an organized principle (rabita ve nizam).” Influenced by a certain Ibrahim Ağa who had recently arrived from Istanbul, the Pasha gathered his Albanian soldiers in Maydān al-Rumayla at the foot of the Citadel for target practice. For over three hours the soldiers fired their guns in “successive volleys making a thundery noise like the French.” The following day it was rumored that the Pasha wanted to have a count of the soldiers and “to train them according to al-nizām al-jadīd, copying the positions of the French. He wanted them to put on tight clothes and to change their appearance (ughayyir shaklahum).” … The attempt failed miserably. The soldiers reluctantly complied with the Pasha’s orders on the first day only to conspire to kill him the following night. The Pasha was informed of the plot in time to escape the assassination attempt, and when the rebels knew that their conspiracy was foiled, they went on the rampage in the streets of Cairo looting and damaging a considerable amount of property and Mehmed Ali was able to pacify the merchants and the populace only by returning their stolen property or compensating them for the damages. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 434

Categorization

• XREF: The resistance parallels the janissary uprisings against Ottoman Selim III’s Nizam-i Cedid reforms.
• CANDY: A pasha tried to reorder his unruly Albanian troops by drilling them in French-style volleys, and they responded by plotting to assassinate him.