As tightly as the authorities wanted to control the activities of the soldiers, reality spoke differently. The training manual might have portrayed the soldier as a robot with every gesture, every glance meticulously controlled and vigilantly manipulated. Judging from the accounts of the battles, however, it appears that soldiers were full of the all-too-human emotions of love, hate, jealousy, pride and fear of death. And reading the accounts of their daily lives on the camps, it does appear that the authorities failed in capturing their bodies, let alone in imprinting on their minds that this was indeed their army.

Builds on: "Officials' control over common soldiers remained as limited as over senior officers."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1183