Learning from Sultan Selim's unfortunate experience in dealing with his own old guard, Mehmed Ali knew only too well that any attempt to introduce modern tactics and training drills would have been met with staunch resistance on the part of the Mamluks who would rightly see in these new military techniques an attempt to abolish the old system which they had been monopolizing for centuries and to replace it by a new system in which their privileged positions would be seriously challenged. … On 1 March, 1811a festive ceremony was held in the Citadel to celebrate the appointment of his son, Tusun Pasha, to fight the Wahhabi rebels in Arabia. Mehmed Ali saw this as a golden opportunity to execute his deadly plan. He invited the heads of all the Mamluk households to attend the festive celebration and once they were on their way up a narrow alleyway leading to his court in the Citadel, he ordered his Albanian soldiers to open fire on them. Over four hundred and fifty of the Mamluk emirs were killed in that incident.

XREF: Connects to loc 223 where the sultan credited Mehmed Ali for inspiring nizami army reform — the massacre was the violent precondition for implementing those reforms in Egypt. Builds on: "The sultan credited his rival for inspiring nizami army reform."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 410