Women who helped men evade conscription were hanged as examples

Evidence

When the extent of maiming to avoid conscription became known and when it was reported that it was the wives and mothers of the potential conscripts who were assisting them to maim themselves, Mehmed Ali ordered these women to be hanged at village entrances “so as to be an example to others.” Similarly, in an effort to stop the 1824 rebellion from spreading further Mehmed Ali wrote to the governor of Isna in Upper Egypt ordering him to hang some of the elderly or disabled villagers at the entrances of their villages to be a deterrent to others. The choice of the elderly and disabled was explained by saying that “they were useless and could not perform any task.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 677

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• QUESTION: Self-maiming to avoid conscription and women assisting it—this is a striking social fact worth chasing further in military-history sources.

Related

• Women aiding conscripts’ self-maiming were hanged at village entrances (similarity 0.91)
• Egyptian peasants deliberately self-maimed to evade conscription until penalized harshly (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian peasants so feared conscription that they blinded themselves with rat poison. (similarity 0.80)
• Peasants and conscripts mutilated themselves or broke laws to evade military service. (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian peasants maimed themselves to escape conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.79)
• Women disguised as men to follow their conscripted husbands into Syria. (similarity 0.79)
• Egyptian peasants mutilated themselves to dodge conscription yet were drafted anyway. (similarity 0.78)