The officers, rather than thinking of themselves as serving in a national army, were behaving as mercenary officers who moved from one patron to the other depending on who paid better. … It was not completely unusual, for example, to find two brothers fighting in the two opposing armies. Having previously served in the Sultan's army, or at least being familiar with the world that it represented, the Ottoman world, the officers in the Pasha's army were closer to the officers and soldiers of the army they were fighting against than to the soldiers of the army they were fighting in, soldiers who spoke a different language, came from a completely different social and economic background and believed in a different set of cultural and moral values.

Pays off: "Ottoman-era Egypt was a vibrant society embedded in empire."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1336