I've been buying odds & ends of Ottoman figures for years, and never really did anything with them. The release of Song of Drums and Shakos gave them a new lease of life and they have had several games. These prompted me to look into Turkish armies of the period and I'll note my findings here. Note that I refer particularly to the European provinces of the empire.
All wargames Ottoman armies of the Napoleonic period have three distinctive features: lots of janissaries, lots of huge antiquated artillery, and lots of cavalry. These assumptions are on the whole correct, but I have some observations on them below. These portrayals of Ottoman armies probably do have an element of Orientalism about them: seeing the Turks as old-fashioned, lazy, cruel, untrustworthy etc. to justify exposing them to western capitalism or colonising them. More innocently they probably just concentrate on the unusual & picturesque elements that make Ottoman armies different from other armies.
Ottoman armies continued to be divided into regular troops or kapikulu and irregulars. The regular infantry consisted of a few ceremonial household troops and the janissaries. The janissaries and their origins are well known. Originally they were raised by the devshirme, a tax levied periodically on the Christian population of the Balkans and paid in boys. The tax was collected in the form of boys, usually 8 to 10 years old, and roughly every tenth to fourteenth boy was taken. The boys were boarded on farms in Anatolia, where they were converted to Islam and taught Turkish. They were also assessed, with the brightest being sent to be trained as pages or for the civil service bureaucracy, where they could rise to the very highest level of government, and most of the rest sent for military training. Modern perceptions would make us think the devshirme was a cruel practice, but as it provided the boys with a secure career and potentially unlimited advancement it was often seen by parents as offering a better life for the child. There were even cases of Muslim parents passing their children off as Christians so they could be eligible for selection. However the last devshirme was in 1703, and its discontinuation deprived the state of both a merit-based bureaucracy and a loyal, disciplined infantry force.
This period of course saw the rise of drilled musket-armed infantry as the main arm in western armies, and the admission to the janissaries of Muslim men was intended to supply Ottoman armies with large numbers of these new infantry. However the janissary corps had meanwhile become a state within a state, fractious and protective of its own privileges, and had managed by a series of rebellions to extort concessions from the sultan. These included tax exemptions and the right to marry and for their sons to become janissaries. During the same period high inflation meant that janissary pay was no longer enough to live on. This obliged janissaries to take up other professions to support themselves and they became in effect a part-time militia. Some ran protection rackets, defending the tradesmen of a district against others and the government; there were 'turf wars' between units over lucrative areas. Others muscled their way into controlling some valuable trade - often coffee. But most became shop-keepers or tradesmen, and other shop-keepers and tradesmen arranged to be registered as janissaries for the tax advantages and for the status being part of the military conferred. There was soon a complete merging of the janissaries with the urban lower class, with the janissaries providing protection against exactions by the government and a voice in government and the tradesmen enabling the janissaries to make a living.
By the middle of the eighteenth century the janissaries were used only in garrisons, at Istanbul and other large cities or on the frontier, and even at the start of the seventeenth century only a third of the registered janissaries were capable of taking part in campaigns. The level of enthusiasm of the janissaries for military service can be gauged by the events of 1744. Twenty thousand janissaries mustered at Istanbul to march to the Danube frontier. Only three thousand arrived at Edirne, about 220 kilometres away. It was even worse around 1810 when thirteen thousand reported at Istanbul but only sixteen hundred made it to Edirne. This is inexplicable if you imagine the janissaries to be the disciplined force they were in the sixteenth century, but understandable if you think of them as armed grocers and boatmen.
As an aside, the full dress white hat janissary figurines are invariably modelled as wearing is generally painted as having a brass body or band which sits on the head with the cloth sleeve standing up and trailing behind. Although the Ottomans shown in contemporary drawings do have an unparalleled selection of ridiculous headgear I think the brass band is wrong. Some pictures show the band as light brown quilted material, others as cloth heavily embroidered in gold, and I suspect those have been misinterpreted as brass. This idea was supported by this full-sized model which stands in the Kapalıçarşı (Grand Bazaar) in Istanbul. The rest of his outfit seems authentic enough, and this is a close-up of his hat. It has the felt hanging sleeve of the janissary cap and seems to have another hat inside it. That makes sense as that hat, green in the picture below, is what fits the head and the sleeve and band are ornamental. The band is leather, and the plume-holder (also sometimes called the spoon holder) is, interestingly, wooden; I'd assumed that was metal.
This period of course saw the rise of drilled musket-armed infantry as the main arm in western armies, and the admission to the janissaries of Muslim men was intended to supply Ottoman armies with large numbers of these new infantry. However the janissary corps had meanwhile become a state within a state, fractious and protective of its own privileges, and had managed by a series of rebellions to extort concessions from the sultan. These included tax exemptions and the right to marry and for their sons to become janissaries. During the same period high inflation meant that janissary pay was no longer enough to live on. This obliged janissaries to take up other professions to support themselves and they became in effect a part-time militia. Some ran protection rackets, defending the tradesmen of a district against others and the government; there were 'turf wars' between units over lucrative areas. Others muscled their way into controlling some valuable trade - often coffee. But most became shop-keepers or tradesmen, and other shop-keepers and tradesmen arranged to be registered as janissaries for the tax advantages and for the status being part of the military conferred. There was soon a complete merging of the janissaries with the urban lower class, with the janissaries providing protection against exactions by the government and a voice in government and the tradesmen enabling the janissaries to make a living.
By the middle of the eighteenth century the janissaries were used only in garrisons, at Istanbul and other large cities or on the frontier, and even at the start of the seventeenth century only a third of the registered janissaries were capable of taking part in campaigns. The level of enthusiasm of the janissaries for military service can be gauged by the events of 1744. Twenty thousand janissaries mustered at Istanbul to march to the Danube frontier. Only three thousand arrived at Edirne, about 220 kilometres away. It was even worse around 1810 when thirteen thousand reported at Istanbul but only sixteen hundred made it to Edirne. This is inexplicable if you imagine the janissaries to be the disciplined force they were in the sixteenth century, but understandable if you think of them as armed grocers and boatmen.
As an aside, the full dress white hat janissary figurines are invariably modelled as wearing is generally painted as having a brass body or band which sits on the head with the cloth sleeve standing up and trailing behind. Although the Ottomans shown in contemporary drawings do have an unparalleled selection of ridiculous headgear I think the brass band is wrong. Some pictures show the band as light brown quilted material, others as cloth heavily embroidered in gold, and I suspect those have been misinterpreted as brass. This idea was supported by this full-sized model which stands in the Kapalıçarşı (Grand Bazaar) in Istanbul. The rest of his outfit seems authentic enough, and this is a close-up of his hat. It has the felt hanging sleeve of the janissary cap and seems to have another hat inside it. That makes sense as that hat, green in the picture below, is what fits the head and the sleeve and band are ornamental. The band is leather, and the plume-holder (also sometimes called the spoon holder) is, interestingly, wooden; I'd assumed that was metal.
The regular cavalry are a bit of a mystery. Armies could still be up to 40% cavalry, and although the bulk would be mounted versions of the provincial troops mentioned below there were certainly household cavalry, the kapikulu sipahileri, based at Istanbul, regularly drilled, using pistols and numbering over 10 000. However the system which in earlier times had provided the bulk of Ottoman cavalry had by the end of the eighteenth century completely decayed. Previously a timarli sipahi had been granted land - a timar - for a period of time; he would then collect the taxes in cash & kind from the peasants who worked the land, administer and police the area, and serve in the army along with one or more mounted followers or cebelu when required. Over time as the government's need for cash increased the obligation to serve in person was instead commuted to a payment in cash. This turned the holder of the timar from a soldier into a tax-farmer. They often overtaxed the peasants, who fled from the land to the hills to contribute to the bandit / soldier bands discussed below, leaving the timar uninhabited and so unable to generate income. Although abandoned or forfeited timars were officially meant to return to the state, where they were handed out instead of pay to high ranking administrators as the state was always short of cash, in practice these abandoned lands were often taken over by local leaders who raised taxes from them and maintained private armies.
Previously there had been a strict division between the military class and the peasantry or reaya (literally flock, which the military class had to protect). The reaya were predominantly Christian, of the various Balkan peoples conquered by the Ottomans. There had been huge population growth during the 16th century which contributed to the internal security problems faced by the empire. By the 18th century the population was however supposedly declining, probably due to people avoiding censuses rather than any real decline. As the internal security role previously fulfilled by the holders of timars became vacant peasants were encouraged to obtain firearms for self defence. There were also attempts to expand the janissaries to supply firearm-using infantry and the scheme for arming the peasants was intended to supplement that. This all got completely out of hand in Asia Minor where large areas were more or less permanently out of government control. These militias were also tasked with guarding the roads and passes against bandits; from there it was a small step to levying unofficial tolls. Peasants driven from their land by over-taxation also often became bandits. Others sold their land to buy weapons and horses and become soldiers, which was a high status occupation and offered chances for wealth and advancement. These armed peasants - sometimes local self-defence groups, sometimes internal security forces, sometimes bandits, and in time of war soldiers - provided the great majority of Ottoman forces. The very same groups were of course at different times each of the four categories.
Sizeable forces could also be raised from these groups by local notables, known as ayans, who were permitted to maintain their own forces despite the obvious risk of rebellion that offered. These troops raised from the peasantry were known as sekbans, saruca or, most often, levends. (I think levend means 'a crowd', so that says something about where they were raised from or maybe about their discipline.) Some were hired direct by the state and called miri levends; others were part of the retinue of an ayan and called kapili levends. The local rulers supplied or withheld troops as suited their political aims and frequently rebelled, often ruling large areas as effectively independent states for long periods - for example Ali Pasha of Janina ruled most of the western Balkans for 33 years until his death in 1822 and could raise up to 50 000 men. Orders for companies of miri levend, usually in groups of 500 or 1000 soldiers, were sent to the notables of a particular region with conditions defining length of service (usually six months), salary and a list of what provisions they would receive. The recruits received a sign-up bonus and a monthly salary, which including a 10% commission paid to their officers, and the agreed rations. The orders usually stipulated that the recruits be Muslims and have guarantors who were to be responsible for their behaviour. The recruits were assumed to have their own weapons and, if appropriate, horse.
As the various ethnic groups in the Balkans had been pretty much left alone by the Turks so long as they paid their taxes troops retained their local character and style of dress, leading to the wild variety of exotic outfits worn by Ottoman forces of the time. These troops were of course of varying quality. Some were very good - for example Albanians were highly regarded for their toughness and loyalty and employed everywhere, from the Balkans to Egypt. Bosnian local forces, recruited by the state from Muslims of all classes and specifically noted as having none of the supernumerary officers that plagued other Ottoman forces, fought off the Austrians without help in 1737-39. All tended to perform better in guerrilla or limited war situations rather than in pitched battles in the field. Levends were officially abolished in 1775 to be replaced by troops called delis, gonullus, farisan, azeban and tufenkchis; these were themselves abolished in 1791. I don't know what they were replaced by, but as they were all recruited in the same way from the same groups these must have been merely administrative changes. There were attempts by central government to regain some control by raising modern European-style troops, the Nizam-i-Jedid, but these were disbanded after janissary revolts.
Sizeable forces could also be raised from these groups by local notables, known as ayans, who were permitted to maintain their own forces despite the obvious risk of rebellion that offered. These troops raised from the peasantry were known as sekbans, saruca or, most often, levends. (I think levend means 'a crowd', so that says something about where they were raised from or maybe about their discipline.) Some were hired direct by the state and called miri levends; others were part of the retinue of an ayan and called kapili levends. The local rulers supplied or withheld troops as suited their political aims and frequently rebelled, often ruling large areas as effectively independent states for long periods - for example Ali Pasha of Janina ruled most of the western Balkans for 33 years until his death in 1822 and could raise up to 50 000 men. Orders for companies of miri levend, usually in groups of 500 or 1000 soldiers, were sent to the notables of a particular region with conditions defining length of service (usually six months), salary and a list of what provisions they would receive. The recruits received a sign-up bonus and a monthly salary, which including a 10% commission paid to their officers, and the agreed rations. The orders usually stipulated that the recruits be Muslims and have guarantors who were to be responsible for their behaviour. The recruits were assumed to have their own weapons and, if appropriate, horse.
As the various ethnic groups in the Balkans had been pretty much left alone by the Turks so long as they paid their taxes troops retained their local character and style of dress, leading to the wild variety of exotic outfits worn by Ottoman forces of the time. These troops were of course of varying quality. Some were very good - for example Albanians were highly regarded for their toughness and loyalty and employed everywhere, from the Balkans to Egypt. Bosnian local forces, recruited by the state from Muslims of all classes and specifically noted as having none of the supernumerary officers that plagued other Ottoman forces, fought off the Austrians without help in 1737-39. All tended to perform better in guerrilla or limited war situations rather than in pitched battles in the field. Levends were officially abolished in 1775 to be replaced by troops called delis, gonullus, farisan, azeban and tufenkchis; these were themselves abolished in 1791. I don't know what they were replaced by, but as they were all recruited in the same way from the same groups these must have been merely administrative changes. There were attempts by central government to regain some control by raising modern European-style troops, the Nizam-i-Jedid, but these were disbanded after janissary revolts.
The artillery too was not quite as I'd assumed. The huge guns of the 15th to 17th centuries were no longer produced, although they were retained in fortresses and still could be effective. New guns in this period were of conventional field-gun size although of bronze rather than iron. The real problem was lack of standardisation of calibre and sometimes a shortage of powder.
The other features which had earlier made Ottoman armies the envy of western armies had largely not survived. Their camps were haphazard and often very poorly guarded and so vulnerable to surprise attacks. The system which earlier had led to armies being well supplied and troops paid in advance so they could buy provisions on the march had dwindled away due to lack of cash. Turkish troops were however still eager to build earthworks and used them in open battle as well as sieges.
The other features which had earlier made Ottoman armies the envy of western armies had largely not survived. Their camps were haphazard and often very poorly guarded and so vulnerable to surprise attacks. The system which earlier had led to armies being well supplied and troops paid in advance so they could buy provisions on the march had dwindled away due to lack of cash. Turkish troops were however still eager to build earthworks and used them in open battle as well as sieges.
For classifying all of these in Song of Drums and Shakos I worked on the basis that they would be the same as everyone else's line infantry - Q4+ C2 - with one or two special rules to differentiate them. Another basic assumption is that almost all would be Individualistic, as there seems to have been an almost complete lack of discipline. The baseline was the ordinary Turkish irregulars - sekhan, tufenkchi or whatever. They would be Q4+ C2 and Individualistic.
Some of the special rules were easy to assign. For example Albanians often formed advance guards and rear-guards, and came from mountainous areas; so Light seemed an obvious one for them. Bosnian frontiersmen would also be Light, and Greeks might be, but I read somewhere that the Greeks were good shots so they got Marksman instead to distinguish them from the Albanians. That might also tie in to my reading on the Greek war of independence, where the Greeks seemed to defend barricades rather than snipe from the hillsides which light troops might. The Bosnians as well as being Light were after some hesitation exempted from the general Individualistic category.
One remark that came up often in my reading was that Ottoman troops could have been better led. For that reason only I made leaders and NCOs also Q4+ C2. The exceptions were Bosnian leaders, who are Q3+ as they seem to have been picked for ability rather than influence, wealth etc., and the European-trained Nizam officers & NCOs.
That left only the pretty useless janissaries. Probably there should be no difference between janissary and non-janissary troops, but in order to make them different I gave the janissaries Reluctant; with their leaders nearby they would be quite poor, but on their own they would be very poor. When we tried that in a game they turned out to be unworkably useless, so I've swapped them to be Unreliable instead of Reluctant. That means that they activate at Q5+ if more than one Medium from a leader, but Q3+ when within 1M. Bearing in mind they are Individualistic this is bound to lead to clumping round the leader. The aim is to make them amusingly hopeless, rather than unplayably hopeless. The effect of Unreliable on the Q4+ janissaries would seem to be:
- No Leader or NCO within 1 Long: Q = 5+
- Leader within 1 Long: Q = 4+
- Leader within 1 Medium: Q = 3+
- NCO within 1 Short: Q = 3+
The stats are below. See what you think.
Some of the special rules were easy to assign. For example Albanians often formed advance guards and rear-guards, and came from mountainous areas; so Light seemed an obvious one for them. Bosnian frontiersmen would also be Light, and Greeks might be, but I read somewhere that the Greeks were good shots so they got Marksman instead to distinguish them from the Albanians. That might also tie in to my reading on the Greek war of independence, where the Greeks seemed to defend barricades rather than snipe from the hillsides which light troops might. The Bosnians as well as being Light were after some hesitation exempted from the general Individualistic category.
One remark that came up often in my reading was that Ottoman troops could have been better led. For that reason only I made leaders and NCOs also Q4+ C2. The exceptions were Bosnian leaders, who are Q3+ as they seem to have been picked for ability rather than influence, wealth etc., and the European-trained Nizam officers & NCOs.
That left only the pretty useless janissaries. Probably there should be no difference between janissary and non-janissary troops, but in order to make them different I gave the janissaries Reluctant; with their leaders nearby they would be quite poor, but on their own they would be very poor. When we tried that in a game they turned out to be unworkably useless, so I've swapped them to be Unreliable instead of Reluctant. That means that they activate at Q5+ if more than one Medium from a leader, but Q3+ when within 1M. Bearing in mind they are Individualistic this is bound to lead to clumping round the leader. The aim is to make them amusingly hopeless, rather than unplayably hopeless. The effect of Unreliable on the Q4+ janissaries would seem to be:
- No Leader or NCO within 1 Long: Q = 5+
- Leader within 1 Long: Q = 4+
- Leader within 1 Medium: Q = 3+
- NCO within 1 Short: Q = 3+
The stats are below. See what you think.
Sources:
The whole of Memoir of a Campaign with the Ottoman Army in Egypt, from February to July 1800 by J.P. Morier, who was secretary to the Earl of Elgin and accompanied a Turkish army on campaign, is available at:
https://archive.org/details/memoiracampaign00morigoog
and at:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tEgOAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&hl=es&source=gbs_summary_r&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
Octavien D'Alvimart travelled around the Ottoman Empire from 1796, being in Athens in 1797 and Asia Minor in 1798, and a book of his drawings dated 1802 is available at:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bQNSAAAAcAAJ&pg=PT16&lpg=PT16&dq=d'alvimart&source=bl&ots=BU4TJE1vZQ&sig=6KQ1i_XEm5YM3tZoNlWQ1NBJlGE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNia66_-3eAhWFyqQKHUs9Bpg4ChDoATADegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=d'alvimart&f=false
Most modern reconstructions, and also most purportedly first-hand drawings from around the time, seem to be based on D'Alvimart, and it is possible he based his own pictures on sort of postcards produced by Turkish artists for visitors to buy.
As for books, The Ottoman Empire & the Napoleonic Wars by William E Johnson & Christopher Bell (ISBN 1 870445 54 6) gives the standard details for an Ottoman wargames army, and there are lots of great illustrations in Osprey 140 Armies of the Ottoman Turks 1300-1775 and Osprey 314 Armies of the Ottoman Empire 1775-1820, both by David Nicholle & Angus McBride.
A lot of interesting snippets can be gleaned from theses. Some good ones are referenced at a very useful Turkish website - The Janissary Archives https://thejanissaryarchives.wordpress.com/
That site has a library full of invaluable references including for example:
The Ottoman Army in the Eighteenth Century https://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12608192/index.pdf
and Cauldron of Dissent: A Study of the Janissary Corps, 1807-1826 at:
https://thejanissaryarchives.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/cauldron-of-dissent-tez.pdf
as well as extracts from:
Whatever Happened to the Janissaries? Mobilization for the 1768–1774 Russo-Ottoman War by Virginia H. Aksan
Postscript
Writing the above has made me realise a couple of things. They are obvious enough but I just thought about them.
1. Research is much easier with the internet. I am old enough to remember how difficult research was before the web, and can appreciate how hard it must have been for Johnson & Bell in 1988 to produce their booklet. Take the picture below for example (their illustration 8). They would have first have to have somehow found out that books from 1800 with colour pictures of Ottoman soldiers even existed. They would then have to have found where a copy was held. Then they would have had to persuade the library that owned it to send their valuable copy to another library where they could view it, or even travel to where the book was. Next they would have had to copy the illustration, presumably by hand - no digital cameras remember! - and take notes on the colours. Now all you have to do is look on the interwebs and find the picture; any smart-arse can find them and write about them as if they're an expert.
2. Spods like classifications. I suspect all Ottoman soldiers were much alike; leadership, supply and motivation would have been more important than anything else in determining their abilities. However there is a tendency to assume that since some are called janissaries, some sekhans, some tufenkchis and so on that they must somehow have been different, in the same way as a Panzer IV is different from a T34. And if they are different, they must've looked different in some way. Also, differentiating them allows us to use different figures to represent them and that looks nice on the table, gives an entertaining game, and is fun to paint.
