From the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, the janissaries were the scourge of Europe. With their martial music, their muskets and their drilled march, it seemed that no one could withstand them. Their loyalty to their corps was infinite as the Ottomans conquered the Balkans as far as the Danube, and Syria, Egypt and Iraq. They set up semi-independent states along the North African coast and even fought at sea. Their political power was such that even sultans trembled. Who were they? Why were they an elite? Why did they decline and what was their end? These are some of the questions which this book attempts to answer. It is the story of extraordinary personalities in both victory and defeat. 'An incredible book ... a tour de force' Middle East International 'Well written and lucid.' Muslim World Books Review 'Goodwin has done so much in his scholarly career to introduce a wide audience to Ottoman culture.' Financial Times

The Janissaries

The Janissaries comprised an élite corps in the service of the Ottoman Empire. It was composed of war captives and Christian youths pressed into service; all of whom were converted to Islam and trained under the strictest discipline. In many ways, Jannisaries reflected Ottoman society, which was itself dominated by a military elite and where there was much greater social mobility than in Europe. On top of this, the Turks looked upon Europe much as the early Americans viewed the Western Frontier – as a land of adventure, mission and opportunity. David Nicolle examines the history, organisation, weapons and uniforms of these élite Turkish troops.

English translation reprinted from bilingual ed., originally published by: Ann Arbor: Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, 1975.

Memoirs of a Janissary

In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the 4th century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity's greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire even after the Western half of the Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century. Naturally, the Ottoman Empire would also use Constantinople as the capital of its empire after their conquest effectively ended the Byzantine Empire, and thanks to its strategic location, it has been a trading center for years and remains one today under the Turkish name of Istanbul. In the wake of taking Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire would spend the next few centuries expanding its size, power, and influence, bumping up against Eastern Europe and becoming one of the world's most important geopolitical players. It was a rise that would not truly start to wane until the 19th century. Among those who were responsible for the projection of Ottoman power, few deserve as much credit as the Janissaries. Established by Murad I, the Janissaries became an elite infantry force that was loyal only to the sultan. Their mission was to protect only him and in battles they were always the closest to him, forming a human shield. Originally, they consisted of non-Muslim slaves, mainly Christian boys from Byzantium. Jewish boys were not taken as soldiers and Muslims could not, by law, be enslaved. Murad had instituted a tax of one fifth on all the slaves taken in war, and the idea of only taking boys fit for fighting was called Devshirme, or blood tax. The slaves went through a very strict training, first learning to speak Turkish and practicing Ottoman traditions by living with a family chosen by the sultan. The boys also were forcibly converted to Islam, forbidden from wearing a beard and lived under monastic circumstances in celibacy. They were overseen by eunuchs and trained in special schools, enhancing their personal abilities. The main difference between these and other slaves was that they were being paid for their services. This served as a motivator and kept the soldiers loyal. Civilizations across the steppes and the Middle East relied heavily on cavalry, and the Sipahi were elite cavalry units during medieval times for a couple of powers. That said, they were a massive contributor to the success of Ottoman warfare, and during good times for the empire, the Sipahi were rewarded, to the extent that they became their own social class, much like the Janissaries. In fact, much the way the Janissaries became less effective over time as being one denoted social status, the Sipahi and Janissaries had class resentments among each other, one of the various cracks in the Ottoman Empire that would help bring about its decline. As a result, the Sipahi's private lives in the Ottoman Empire were varied and complex, depending on their social status, wealth, education, and religion. Their homes were often luxuriously decorated, and they were usually portrayed as highly-educated and sophisticated people. The Sipahi frequently had several wives and concubines, and their houses were equipped to accommodate their many guests. They had harems, where they kept their concubines and slaves, and the maintenance of their harems was important for each Sipahi's reputation and status. Their wives and concubines were often confined to the harem, and they did not have much freedom, but in some cases, especially in wealthier families, the women were educated and had an active social life.

The Janissaries and Sipahi

The figure of the renegade - a European Christian or Jew who had converted to Islam and was now serving the Ottoman sultan - is omnipresent in all genres produced by those early modern Christian Europeans who wrote about the Ottoman Empire. As few contemporaries failed to remark, converts were disproportionately represented among those who governed, administered, and fought for the sultan. Unsurprisingly, therefore, renegades have attracted considerable attention from historians of Europe as well as students of European literature. Until very recently, however, Ottomanists have been surprisingly silent on the presence of Christian-European converts in the Ottoman military-administrative elite. The Sultan's Renegades inserts these 'foreign' converts into the context of Ottoman elite life to reorient the discussion of these individuals away from the present focus on their exceptionality, towards a qualified appreciation of their place in the Ottoman imperial enterprise and the Empire's relations with its neighbours in Christian Europe. Drawing heavily on Central European sources, this study highlights the deep political, religious, and cultural entanglements between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe beyond the Mediterranean Basin as the 'shared world' par excellence. The existence of such trans-imperial subjects is not only symptomatic of the Empire's ability to attract and integrate people of a great diversity of backgrounds, it also illustrates the extent to which the Ottomans participated in processes of religious polarization usually considered typical of Christian Europe in this period. Nevertheless, Christian Europeans remained ambivalent about those they dismissed as apostates and traitors, frequently relying on them for support in the pursuit of familial and political interests.

The Sultan's Renegades

In 1807 the reformist Sultan Selim III was overthrown in a palace coup enacted by the elite special forces of the day-the Janissaries. The Ottomans were bankrupt and had been forced to make peace with Napoleon after Austerlitz, but it was Selim III's efforts to reform an empire that had suffered successive military defeats, and to reform along the lines of modern principles-with an end to the privileged 'feudal' position of many in elite Ottoman civil-military society-which sealed his fate. This book seeks to situate Turkey's reactionary revolutions of 1807 into a wider European context, that of the French Revolution and the outbreaks of revolutionary activity in the German states, Britain and the US. The Ottoman Empire was an interconnected and crucial part of this early-modern world, and therefore, Aysel Yildiz argues, must be analyzed in relation to its European rivals. Focusing on the uprising, and the socio-economic and political conditions which caused it, this book re-orientates Ottoman history towards Western Europe, and re-situates the late-Ottoman Empire as a key battle-ground of political ideas in the modern era.

Crisis and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, when Ottoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration. In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion. Useful Enemies shows how the concept of 'oriental despotism' began as an attempt to turn the tables on a very positive analysis of Ottoman state power, and how, as it developed, it interacted with Western debates about monarchy and government. Noel Malcolm also shows how a negative portrayal of Islam as a religion devised for political purposes was assimilated by radical writers, who extended the criticism to all religions, including Christianity itself. Examining the works of many famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, and Montesquieu) and many less well-known ones, Useful Enemies illuminates the long-term development of Western ideas about the Ottomans, and about Islam. Noel Malcolm shows how these ideas became intertwined with internal Western debates about power, religion, society, and war. Discussions of Islam and the Ottoman Empire were thus bound up with mainstream thinking in the West on a wide range of important topics. These Eastern enemies were not just there to be denounced. They were there to be made use of, in arguments which contributed significantly to the development of Western political thought.

Useful Enemies

After the Ottoman conquest of Syria in 1516, the Janissaries of Damascus were employed to meet the manpower needs of further campaigns in Iran, Cyprus, and particularly Yemen. The recruitment of the necessary troops beyond the dev?irme dramatically changed the character of the Janissary corps and eventually the empire as a whole. It transformed the Janissaries from an elite military unit of slave soldiers into an assemblage of men from diverse origins, slave and free, who performed a variety of functions for the empire in addition to waging war. This transformation affected the role of the Janissaries in Ottoman politics as well as their own concept of themselves and their role, generating shifts among social groups and changes in the way Ottomans regarded their empire. This study examines the change in military recruitment in Syria through the documents of the Ottoman government, showing how the actual beginning of this transformation differed from its description by contemporary writers of nasihatnameler.

The Janissaries of Damascus in the Sixteenth Century, Or, how Conquering a Province Changed

At the close of the 18th century the Ottoman Empire still had huge military potential. It was a complex structure of military provinces, autonomous regions and virtually independent 'regencies'. The Ottoman Empire had a larger population than its land could actually support which resulted in bloated cities, migration to under-populated mountainous areas, widespread banditry and piracy. It also meant that Ottoman armies had a ready pool of military manpower. With numerous illustrations, including eight full page colour artworkss by Angus Mcbride, this fascinating text by David Nicolle explores the armies of the Ottoman empire from 1775 until 1820.

Armies of the Ottoman Empire 1775–1820

The birth of the Ottoman state is shrouded in legend. Whatever the truth of its origins, the Ottomans formed an Empire which almost succeeded in bringing Christian Europe to its knees. During the last decades of the 13th century, the ambitious Osman Bey's tiny mountain state took eight frontier castles plus the Turkish town of Eskisehir. In 1299 Osman seized Yenisehir after working up the Kara Su valley. With this as its first real capital, the Ottoman state emerged into history poised above the fertile shores of the Sea of Marmara.

Armies of the Ottoman Turks 1300–1774

A study of the Ottoman military machine and its successes in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East in a period when they were feared by western European states and the focus of much military concern. The book is intended for undergraduate courses in early modern history, Ottoman history, history of the Middle East and North Africa, and for military historians.

Ottoman Warfare, 1500-1700

No description providedThe Janissaries were an elite military corps in the Ottoman Empire, formed in the late 14th century by Sultan Murad I. Initially composed of Christian youths from the Balkans who were taken from their homes, converted to Islam, and trained as soldiers, the Janissaries became renowned for their fierce loyalty to the Sultan, distinct uniforms, and strict discipline. Over the centuries, they evolved into a powerful political force within the Ottoman state, influencing government and society. However, their growing power and reluctance to modernize led to their eventual downfall, culminating in their abolition by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826 during the Auspicious Incident, where many were massacred in an effort to modernize the army and consolidate central authority.