Turkish officers systematically abused and despised their Egyptian soldier rank-and-file.

Evidence

It was in the daily encounters on the camps, however, that the tension between the two groups manifested itself. This tension was essentially due to the fact that the officers did not appreciate the efforts of their men, nor deal with them respectfully. A certain captain, Dervis Ağa by name, once asked a soldier (his servant, hizmetkar, as he called him) to fetch him a water bottle. When the soldier brought him an empty one, he shouted at him, cursing his faith, and beating him on the back of his neck. When he was court-martialled he said defiantly, “If you want to punish me for insulting a fifteen-piaster fellah, then go ahead. As far as I am concerned, the fellah is not worth more than this.” When a certain regiment was dispatched to Damietta and paraded through the city, a Turkish official there publicly cursed the days in which the “blind fellahin” had been made soldiers. He added that they would never be as good as Turkish ones. Some officers cheated their soldiers, selling them goods at ten times their price on the market “until they were left penniless.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1330