The establishment of a modern army held an important place among Muhammad ‘Ali’s efforts to strengthen his position in Egypt and formed the driving force behind the reorganizations that he undertook after 1820. The modern army that was set up depended on the principle of conscription of young males, while the strong central bureaucracy formed by the pasha during his governorship, which at that point had lasted fifteen years, was the mechanism that helped him to achieve this goal. When Muhammad ‘Ali arrived in Egypt he was as well aware of the strength and discipline of the French army as he was of the weak points of the Janissary army, in which he was an officer with the rank of serge§me (chief commander of irregular troops). The chaotic and fractious nature of the Albanian troops who had accompanied him to Egypt had led to great losses in his war against the Wahhabi movement (1811-19), which he had entered on behalf of the sultan. On the other hand, Muhammad ‘Ali was able during that war to rid himself of a large number of the irregular troops who opposed reorganization, and in the relative calm that prevailed thereafter, his resolve to establish a modern army grew in strength. When his attempt to set up an army modeled on the Ottoman Nizam-i Cedid (New Regular Army) in 1815 using the troops to hand failed and his efforts to bring in troops from Turkey and to buy military slaves to replace the Albanians faltered in the face of an Ottoman embargo, Muhammad ‘Ali was left with no alternative but to form a completely new army. His first thought was to form this army of Sudanese slave soldiers.1
Muhammad ‘Ali clearly was informed as to how Napoleon’s army had operated in Egypt and was influenced by this as he strove to establish his modern army. The degree of this influence has, however, been exaggerated in most studies made to date. As Khaled Fahmy has indicated more recently,
It appears not to have been as great as some have believed, since it was the Nizam-i Cedid formed by Sultan Selim III that the pasha took above all as his model as he founded his new army. Husrev Pasha, Muhammad ‘Ali’s predecessor as governor of Egypt (1802), had formed a modern military force of Egyptian and Sudanese slave soldiers, dressed in uniforms resembling those of European soldiers, had sought to train them in new methods, and had called them, too, al-Nizam al-Jadid (the New Regular Army).2 In 1822, Muhammad ‘Ali commissioned the French colonel Seves (1788-1860), a convert to Islam known as Sulayman Agha (later Pasha), Osman Nureddin Effendi, and the engineer Ahmad Effendi to draw up plans for the formation of the new army. The plan prepared by these revealed, however, an army too closely modeled on Napoleon’s and was rejected by Muhammad ‘Ali, who asked them to make a plan for the establishment of an army on the model of Sultan Selim III’s. From another perspective, it is obvious that Muhammad ‘Ali’s introduction of the idea of conscription and his application of it ahead of Istanbul was one of the most important reasons for his success.3
In 1820, Muhammad ‘Ali set up a military school to graduate the first officers of the new army in Aswan in southern Egypt, far from any negative influences from Cairo that might otherwise affect them. He then selected five hundred of his own military slaves and five hundred of those of his men to form a body of approximately one thousand that was to be subjected to a three-year training period, after which they would graduate and become officers and commanders in the army that was to be created. During this period they would require a number of printed books, and this may have been one of the principal reasons for the establishment of the Bulaq Press, since the latter was charged with printing and providing the books required for the education of these officers and that of the members of the army who were to be placed under their command. The section on the Bulaq Press (ch. 12) illustrates this at some length, alluding to the fact that the book Vesdydname-i seferiye (The Advices Related to War), translated from French into Turkish by §anrzade and containing examples of the methods of Prussian generalship laid down by Frederick the Great, was the first book to be printed at the Bulaq Press (December 1822), with the aim of boosting the leadership capacities of these officers and providing them with an experience that was, at base, that of the European armies.
The responsibility for raising this first group of leaders was entrusted to Mehmed Lazoglu,4 Muhammad ‘Ali’s assistant and devoted friend. The educational process was carried out for the most part by Turkish commanders along with Colonel Seves, known as Sulayman Agha.
The backbone of this army, which brought together thousands through conscription, consisted of young Egyptian and Sudanese men. Its leadership, or general staff, was formed of Turkish or Turkish-speaking officers. In 1820, two expeditionary forces had been sent to Sudan and a number of slaves collected, who were sent to Egypt to receive the training necessary for enrollment in the new army. Along with these a large number of local Egyptians, which is to say young peasants, were gathered. All of these were then placed under the command of the officers who had graduated from the school at Aswan. The youths who came from Sudan, however, were unable to endure the weather in Egypt and many were carried away by disease. Thereafter, it was decided to limit conscription into the new army to young Egyptian men.
Four thousand soldiers from southern Egypt who were drafted by Muhammad ‘Ali to form a modern army were trained by Turkish or Turkish-speaking officers. With the passing of time, the army’s size increased to 130,000 soldiers, most of whom, as already mentioned, were Egyptian peasants.5 This rapid growth meant an increased need for commanders who spoke Turkish. To fulfill this need, which would have been difficult to do within Egypt, officers were assembled from all over Ottoman territory. Likewise, given this educational effort within the military, with its two-pronged language approach, it became a necessity first to translate military works into the Turkish understood by the pasha and his commanders and subsequently to print these books. Muhammad ‘Ali consequently asked for a number of books, especially books in French, to be translated into Turkish.
In January 1823, the first six regiments of the new regular army were commissioned, their education and training lasting until mid-June 1824. On reviewing the military books in Turkish printed at the Bulaq Press, we find that Kanunname-i asdkir-i piyadegdn-i cihadiye (The Code of Laws Related to Infantry) was translated from French into Turkish and printed that same year for use in infantry (piyade) training.
The issue was not limited to the leadership and officers of this modern army who spoke Turkish. Orders and commands had also to be given in the same language to thousands of soldiers who did not know it. Among such Turkish commands were hazir ol (Attention!), seldm dur (Salute!), saga bak (Eyes right!), and sola bak (Eyes left!), some of which remained in use in the Egyptian army until the middle of the twentieth century and a few of which are still used today. The word afandim (Turkish efendim) (Sir!), without which no superior officer may be addressed, is still used today in both military and civilian life, a living reminder of the use of Turkish from the time of Muhammad ‘Ali.
The usage of Turkish in the military was born from a basic need. There was no other language to replace it to express the different stages and aspects of military life and to give the necessary commands during times of peace and war. For the military, whose each and every action was carried out by a command, the Turkish language possessed centuries-long experience and terminology. Because of this, Turkish as a military language, which had been Europeanized with new terms and commands during the al-Nizam al-Jadid experience, was rich enough to perform according to Muhammad ‘Ali’s request.
World History
