In the panic that followed in Istanbul the Grand Admiral, Ahmed Fevzi Pasha, instead of co-ordinating his efforts with those of the Serasker, as had been planned, and effecting a popular uprising among the Syrian population against Mehmed Ali's rule there, decided to head for Alexandria not to bombard it but to hand the entire Ottoman fleet to Mehmed Ali. Thus in little less than a month the Ottoman Empire lost its Sultan, its army, and its navy and Mehmed Ali was left as the single most powerful man in the Empire. He had under his command a powerful army that had so far been victorious in all the major battles it had fought. He also had in Alexandria a combined Ottoman-Egyptian fleet that was capable of establishing effective control over the waters of the eastern Mediterranean and which was an important bargaining card to use in the coming negotiations with Istanbul.

Pays off: "Great-power rivalry turned Egypt's crisis into a European-balance matter."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1558