By comparing the performance of Mehmed Ali’s army to those of Napoleon and Sultan Mahmud II it is possible to come up with suggestions as to how the Pasha’s army was capable of accomplishing these spectacular victories in spite of the fact that its soldiers were drafted into it against their wishes and used every means at their disposal to resist it. While to argue, as most contemporary observers did, that “the Turkish defeat in the conflict with Muhammed Ali [was due] primarily to the inadequacies of the Ottoman military leadership” might be to stress the point too forcibly, it remains true that Ottoman incompetence and timid military reform contributed significantly to Ibrahim’s victories, and that had the Ottomans been more successful in managing their own armies, Ibrahim Pasha’s career and, indeed, that of his father would seem much less impressive.

XREF: Builds on and nuances the earlier claim at loc 1360 that coerced peasant armies can secure spectacular victories, and at loc 1384 about Ottoman internal rivalries — here the author attributes Ibrahim's wins partly to Ottoman weakness, not merely Egyptian strength. Builds on: "The Ottoman army's internal rivalries crippled its battlefield effectiveness."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1391