In the few Sudanese territories still held by Egypt after 1885, army command was monopolized by British officers, which cost Egyptian soldiers their sense of patriotism, forcing them to fight like automatons for the very people against whom they should have been rebelling. As Kämil put it, in Paris in late 1895,"The spirit which pervades every army in the world, the spirit of love for the motherland [al-watan], does not exist in our army.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 717