The army forced peasants to fight for Mehmed Ali’s dynasty, not for Egypt.

Evidence

Instead of looking at the army as the national institution that gave those conscripts the “right” to bear arms and to defend their nation, or of writing its history in a manner that the Pasha himself would have liked, this book sees it as an institution of power that forced these tens of thousands of men to carry arms and to fight for Mehmed Ali and his family, and in the process changed the nature of Egyptian society and affected the lives of the men who served in it. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 20

Categorization

• XREF: Connects with the reader’s interest in the army’s actual performance and motivation versus official/mythic narratives of national armies.