In
August 1815, Muhammad `Aliy had no sooner announced his
intention to instruct his troops along Western lines, than a revolt broke
out among them; the bazaars were plundered, and Muhammad `Aliy
himself was obliged to retire behind the walls of the Citadel. After a
bumpy start, Western methods became habitual to the Egyptian troops, who
by now were formed into corps and trained to the manual and platoon exercises.
The first step in the creation of a modern army was
the founding of a military school in Aswan to train officers.
But to train officers in the art of modern warfare required the importation
of military expertise and other foreign instructors. The first batch of
cadets to be trained at Aswan were carefully selected.
But training officers alone was not enough for the organization of an army.
The officers had to have troops to command, and recruitment of soldiers
presented serious difficulties for Muhammad `Aliy.
The
decision as to the method of recruiting soldiers for his army, and from
what classes or groups in society they should be selected, were difficult
choices to make. He ruled out the recruitment of Turks and Albanians in
the modern army because he felt that they were unreliable. By 1823,
he had resorted to the recruitment of Egyptians Fallahiyn
(peasants) for the army. That year the first six battalions
of the organized modern army were mustered in and the first batch officers
had graduated from the Aswan Military School.
In
addition to military schools and colleges, Muhammad `Aliy
founded a War Department (NiZarat al-Harbiyah), also
known as the War Council (Diwan al-gihadiyah), which
became responsible for the staffing, command and administrative organization
of the armed forces. Modeled on French military organization, it was also
responsible for logistical support to the army supplies, armaments, ammunition
and other services.
In
order to provide the skills and services required for the maintenance and
fighting effectiveness of a modem army, not available in Egypt at
this time, Muhammad `Aliy had to invest a great deal of money
and much effort in the creation of a native educated élite. The
organization of the Egyptian army subsequently developed under the supervision
of Colonel
Sèves into a formidable fighting army of 250,000
men strong. Sèves, a former officer of the army
of Bonaparte, who, being thrown out of a career in France by
the defeat of 1815, sought his fortunes in Egypt. He
embraced Islaam, and rose to the highest military rank, he later became
known as Sulayman Pasha al-Firansawiy (the Frenchman
d.1860).
Muhammad
`Aliy realized that Egyptians conscripts had to be educated before
they could become useful soldiers. He therefore initiated a literacy program
in the Army and navy and made promotions dependent upon reading ability,
in the process he also encouraged official use of Arabic. A school of infantry
(Madrasat al-Mushah) officers was formed at al-Khanqah,
where languages and military exercises were taught. On the other side of
the Nile, the palace of Murad Bey became a cavalry
school (Madrasat al-furuwsiyah) where another soldier of the former
French imperial armies, Colonel Varin, instructed a corps in modern
cavalry drills. In addition, a Spanish colonel, Seguera, organized
the artillery school (Madrasat al-Madfa`iyah), so much to Muhammad
`Aliy's satisfaction that the rank of bey was solemnly
bestowed on him.
Muhammad
`Aliy neglected none of the auxiliary roads to the consolidation of
his power. A large part of the Citadel was converted into an arsenal
where skilled foreign experts directed the industry of hundreds of native
Egyptians in the casting of cannons, and outfitting soldiers from head
to foot. In
Cairo, between the Citadel, Buwlaq, and
the Island of Rawdah on the Nile, was concentrated a formidable
military-industrial complex, producing armaments, military dress and equipment.
Muhammad
`Aliy, not content with having only an army based on the Western model,
conceived the idea of also building a navy, of which Alexandria
became the arsenal. He had already purchased frigates which were
constructed at Venice and Marseilles. Conscious of the multiplied
power which a naval predominance gives even to small armies, in the year
1829, he commissioned Monsieur Lefebure de Cerisy the famous
French engineer from Toulon, to construct a naval arsenal in Alexandria.
An institution which subsequently assumed large proportions.
Alexandria
had become a self-sufficient naval arsenal. From its yards came frigates,
corvettes, and other classes of men of war. De Cerisy, eventually
presided over the first Egyptian Navy War College where French naval instructors
were teaching Egyptian navy cadets, while hundreds of Egyptian midshipmen
received practical training in the dockyards and on board the English ships
of war.
The
first state schools opened by Muhammad `Aliy were organized
as military schools. Students were subjected to rigid military discipline.
Those who taught in the schools were also considered members of the military
establishment, and held appropriate military ranks commensurate with their
position in the administrative hierarchy of the school system. This was
to be expected if one bears in mind that these schools were intended to
serve exclusively the army in all its branches and activities. Thus the
Medical School was intended to train army doctors, the Engineering
School military engineers, the trade and industrial schools to supply
the army, and so on. Schools at this early stage therefore were organized
as military camps in permanent barracks. Even the members of educational
missions to Paris under Muhammad `Aliy were housed
together and supervised in military fashion. All of this educational effort
was directed toward improving the army and the navy and building
up a local industry to support them. The best of the students in local
technical schools were sent to Italy and France for further training.
Inevitably, as a by-product of these policies, this drive for Western education
and techniques was to have a great influence on traditional Egyptian education.
Muhammad
`Aliy's state school system was a revolutionary innovation. His desire
for modernity, which was a precondition of his ambitions of power based
on self reliance, unwittingly sowed the seeds of an intellectual cultural,
social and political renaissance which sparked the first glimmer of national
self consciousness.
(To be continued)
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