Unlike the barren deserts of Arabia or the Sudan, Syria was a rich province dotted with big towns and cities offering all kinds of attractions for the soldiers to leave the camps and have a taste of the civilian life they must have missed. And unlike Morea or the Mediterranean islands that Mehmed Ali sent troops to, Syria was also an Arabic-speaking province, a fact that allowed the soldiers to mix with the local population for all the reasons mentioned above.

Builds on: "Boundary-crossing by soldiers undermined the modern army's isolationist logic."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1174