Immediately after the fall of Acre in May 1832 the Egyptian soldiers we saw at the beginning of this chapter as an organized, well-trained and highly disciplined body of troops who enabled Ibrahim to accomplish what Napoleon failed to do thirty years earlier, these very same soldiers went on the rampage looting the city, attacking its inhabitants, and destroying their property. All semblance of order and discipline disappeared in the havoc that followed and a large number of soldiers seized the opportunity to desert the army altogether. Ahmed Bey, the Colonel of the 10th Regiment, who was appointed in charge of the fortress of Acre after its fall, wrote to Ibrahim Pasha complaining of the situation, and instead of requesting the dispatch of bedouin troops to catch the deserters, he suggested a simple, but effective solution: a roll-call (tadad), he said, should be taken twice a day; those found missing would be recorded as firar, i.e. as deserters, and when found a day or more later the penalty for desertion would be inflicted on them.

DEFINE: Tadad (roll-call) defined as a twice-daily headcount marking absentees as deserters subject to penalty. Builds on: "Egyptian military law lacked provisions governing sodomy in 1824."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 667