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The Ottoman Empire
Dates: 1453-1923
paigns. In addition to a magnificent army, they had a
navy that was among the best in the Mediterranean
area. However, one aspect of the early Ottoman success has been greatly exaggerated—that of the Ottomans’ superiority in numbers. The Ottomans’ rapid
conquest of the Christian, Greek-speaking, Eastern
Roman Byzantine Empire, as well as the other Balkan states in the years from 1290 to 1453, came not
from larger forces but from essentially waiting for
their Christian rivals to destroy each other in battle
and then moving in and taking over the remaining
territory. The Ottoman sultans made alliances with
Political Considerations
The Ottoman Empire, founded by Osman I (r. 12901326), dominated much of southeastern Europe, the
Middle East, and North Africa between the fourteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ottoman military superiority in the Balkans in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries stemmed from the use of new
modern armaments integrating infantry and cavalry
with innovative tactics. The Ottomans borrowed
methods from their adversaries and even used Christian and Jewish soldiers and officers in their cam-
Library of Congress
The Ottoman Turks seize Constantinople from the Byzantines in 1453 to establish the Ottoman Empire.
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Warfare in the Age of Expansion
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Ottoman Expansion Under Süleyman the Magnificent
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Christian states, and Turkish soldiers served as mercenaries in Christian armies, just as Christians fought
in the Turkish armies.
National mythology has also greatly exaggerated
the historical significance of key Ottoman victories
before 1453, such as the defeat of the Serbs at Kosovo
on June 15, 1389. In many ways the Ottomans inherited the Balkans by default, because the Byzantine
army collapsed as a result of internal civil wars and
external invasions by the Western European Christian Crusaders and other neighboring Christian states.
The decisive victory that established the Ottoman
domination of the Balkans was the Siege of Constantinople in 1453. The Turks had prepared for this battle for fifty years. According to legend, the city was to
fall to a sultan bearing the name of the prophet Muwammad. Sultan Mehmed I (r. 1402-1421) initially
appeared to be that man, but an internal contest for
the throne and a war against Tamerlane in the east
d
Ottoman Empire at the end
of Süleyman’s reign
Mecca
made his attack on the Byzantine capital impossible.
However, when his grandson Mehmed II (14321481) ascended the throne in 1451, both sultan and
people were ready.
By 1453 Constantinople had become a shadow of
its former self. The city’s population, which had once
exceeded one million people, had declined to only
several tens of thousands. Constantinople was no
longer a unified city but rather a series of villages behind walls. Mehmed II prepared his attack carefully,
building fortresses on both sides of the Bosporus—
Anadolu Hisari on the Asian side and Rumeli Hisari
on the European side—the ruins of which still stand.
He strengthened the janissary corps, raising their
pay and improving the officer ranks. He constructed
causeways over the Galati hill north of the old city, so
that he could have his ships dragged up and over to
the Golden Horn, the harbor of Constantinople, circumnavigating the chain and flotilla that protected
The Ottoman Empire
589
the entrance to the city’s vulnerable side. Mehmed’s
states for control of the Danubian plain for two hunfleet of 125 ships and an additional number of
dred years. However, they found a European ally in
smaller support craft was five times larger than that
France. In the late seventeenth century the grand viof the Greeks. With this fleet, Mehmed prevented the
ziers of the Albanian Köprülü family arrested the
Byzantines from bringing supplies by sea as they had
decline of the Ottoman Empire and spearheaded a redone in the past. The first Turkish troops to reach the
vival of its former power. However, in 1664 at Szentwalls of Constantinople in April, 1453, were a few
gotthárd, on the Austrian-Hungarian border, the Otknights, who were successfully met by the Byzantine
tomans suffered their first loss of land to the Christian
soldiers in a brief skirmish. Ottoman reinforcements
powers. After the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) the
then drove the Greeks back behind the walls. Masimproved European armies surpassed the Turkish
sive Turkish forces gathered over the next days,
army in organization, tactics, training, armament,
including cavalry, infantry, engineers, and naval
and even leadership. The Turks, whose advanced
forces. Most important were the cannons Mehmed
techniques and equipment had previously been their
had placed at the heretofore impenetrable walls; they
strong points, now found themselves falling behind
began a constant bombardment that continued for
their adversaries in these areas.
seven weeks until they finally breached the wall.
The Ottomans’ failure to take Vienna in a second
Mehmed and his entourage of janissary soldiers,
attempt (1683) began the loss of their territory to the
advisers, and imams, or religious leaders, took up their
European powers. In the eighteenth century the empositions before the city. Mehmed offered the city eipire lost wars and land to both Austria and Russia.
ther mercy if it surrendered without a fight, or pillage
Inside the empire local warlords carved out virtually
if it chose to fight. The Greeks chose to fight to the last.
independent fiefdoms throughout the imperial provAfter the fall of Constantinople the Ottomans coninces. The sultan’s personal authority in reality did
tinued to expand throughout the Muslim world in the
not extend beyond Constantinople. The grand janisNear East and North Africa. At the height of the emsary corps, which had gained the right to marry, were
pire under the sultan Süleyman I the Magnificent
less an effective fighting force than a collection of si(1494 or 1495-1566) the European boundaries
necures. In 1792 Sultan Selim III (1761-1808) turned
reached beyond the Danube River to the gates of Vito France, the empire’s old ally, for assistance in
enna. Süleyman’s failure to take the Habsburg capital
modernizing Ottoman armed forces, creating a modowed as much to the limitations of Ottoman military
ern corps in addition to the janissaries. However, the
tactics, especially the definition of its campaigns by
French Revolution (1789-1799) and the Napoleonic
annual sorties lasting only from the spring to the fall,
Wars (1793-1815) interrupted the partnership. The
as it did to the defense of the Viennese. Süleyman also fought and lost
to the naval forces of King Philip II
of Spain (1527-1598) in the Medi1453 With use of large cannons, the Turks capture Constantinople from
terranean at the celebrated Battle of
the Byzantines, establishing the Ottoman Empire.
Lepanto (1571).
1571 The Battle of Lepanto II, fought between the Ottoman Turks and
After Süleyman the Ottoman Emthe Christian forces of Don Juan de Austria, is the last major
pire went into a decline. Succeeding
naval battle to be waged with galleys.
sultans rarely left their palaces and
1792 Modern French military techniques and arms are introduced into
placed state matters in the hands of
Turkey.
their ministers, most of whom were
1826 The janissary corps are destroyed and the Turkish army is
Christian slaves taken in the child
modernized.
tax from Balkan families. The Otto1923 The Treaty of Lausanne creates the Republic of Turkey, bringing
mans fought against Austria, Poland,
the Ottoman Empire to its official end.
the Papacy, and other European
Turning Points
Warfare in the Age of Expansion
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The Ottoman Empire, c. 1700
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empire suffered from internal revolutions, such as
those by the Serbs and the Greeks, and from uprisings
by warlords and rogue pashas such as Ali Pala (17411822), known as the Lion of Janina, in modern Albania, as well as wars with Russia and Persia. In a janissary revolt in 1806 Selim was dethroned and killed.
His successor, Sultan Mahmud II (1785-1839), believed that the defeat of Napoleon would guarantee
Ottoman territory at the Congress of Vienna (18141815), but when the Greek uprising of 1821 split the
European alliance, Mahmud found himself at war
against the combined forces of Russia, France, and
England. In 1826, in order to modernize his forces, he
did away with the janissaries.
Mahmud’s successor, Abdülmecid I (1823-1861),
allied himself to the powers by promising reforms in
the treatment of his non-Muslim subjects. In the
1830’s and 1840’s the powers protected Abdülmecid
from a vassal revolt. In the 1850’s England and
France joined Abdülmecid in the victorious Crimean
War (1853-1856) against Russia. However, in 1877
Russia again went to war against the Turks to aid a
Balkan uprising. Although the Russians defeated the
Turks and liberated the Christian states of the region,
England, Turkey’s ally, prevented the Russian troops
from taking Istanbul.
In the early twentieth century the Young Turk
Revolution brought constitutional government and
more westernization to the empire. However, Turkey
lost wars to Italy (1911) and to a coalition of Balkan
states (1912-1913), only managing to regain a modest amount of European territory around Edirne in the
The Ottoman Empire
Second Balkan War (May-June, 1913). After feeling
betrayed by England and France, the Young Turk
leaders turned toward friendship with Germany. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Turkey
joined with the Central Powers in November of that
year. Turkish troops faced the Russians in the Caucasus and the English in the Near East. The English had
by then occupied Egypt and supported a revolt of the
Arabs in Saudia Arabia and Palestine. With the collapse of Russia in 1917, the Turks received territory
in the Caucasus, but the following year the Central
Powers lost the war and the Allies divided up the territory of the empire among themselves.
However, while the Allies occupied Constantinople, Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938), later named Atatürk, or Father of Turks, raised the standard of revolt
in Ankara, where he set up a rival government.
Kemal led the army to victory over the Greeks (19201922) and renegotiated the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) to
his advantage in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), creating the Republic of Turkey and bringing the Ottoman Empire to its official end.
Military Achievement
The Ottoman Empire in its early years successfully
defeated the Christian powers of Europe and the Muslim states of the Near East. This success stemmed
from the Ottomans’ innovative use of tactics and
strategy integrating cavalry and infantry. The Ottoman cavalry, or sipahi (rendered in English as
“spahi”), was drawn from the noble free-born Muslim class, whereas the infantry, the janissaries, were
slaves of the sultan forcibly recruited from the children of conquered European peoples, converted to
Islam, and trained as fierce fighters. There were also
irregular cavalry and infantry troops. The Ottomans
also did not hesitate, when it served their purposes, to
use Christian or Jewish commanders, as well as
Christian allies and mercenaries.
The Muslims were among the first to effectively
use cannon and gunpowder. Their success against
European armies continued into the seventeenth century, when the decline of the empire began.
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Weapons, Uniforms, and Armor
In the early centuries the Ottomans effectively used
siege weapons and artillery, such as mortars, catapults, and large cannons, that fired both iron and
stone shot. Mehmed II, also called Mehmed the Conqueror, wished to have the most modern weapons and
ordered a Hungarian gunsmith to build him large
cannons, one of which was used at Constantinople,
that could fire 1,200-pound cannonballs. Janissaries
used scimitars, knives, stabbing swords, battle-axes,
and harquebuses. The Turks were also skilled marksmen using muskets. Ottoman archers continuously
rained arrows on the defenders of cities they attacked. The Ottomans were renowned for their
sappers as well, who attacked the enemy’s fortifications with axes. The spahi cavalry, true medieval
warriors, carried bows, swords, lances, shields, and
maces. The Ottoman navy consisted of corsairs and
oared galleons.
The Turks established local janissaries and other
regional corps in different parts of the empire, each
with its own distinct uniforms, pennants, and standards. The traditional Ottoman uniforms consisted of
short, loose pantaloons, a short shirt with a large sash,
a high turban, stockings that reached above the hem
of the pantaloons, and Turkish-style slippers. Janissaries also wore long, flowing robes and felt hats.
The akhis, or officers, wore pantaloons, sashes,
capes, red boots, long fur-trimmed robes, and tall,
elaborately carved, large-plumed helmets whose
height depended on the wearer’s rank. Janissary food
bearers wore black uniforms, sandals, pantaloons,
short jackets with long sleeves, half-vestlike shirts,
and conical hats. The sultans rode on caparisoned, or
decoratively adorned, horses and carried bejeweled
weapons.
The janissaries’ standard was the scarlet crescent
and double-edged sword symbol of Osman, the
founder of the Ottoman dynasty. The akhis carried
staffs with tails representing the sleeve of the sheik of
the Bektashi dervishes, the janissaries’ religious order. The number of tails on the akhi’s staff depended
on his rank. The janissaries’ staff bore a spoon symbolizing their higher standard of living. The insignia
of the janissary corps was the soup pot and the spoon.
Warfare in the Age of Expansion
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Officers bore titles from the kitchen such as the First
Maker of Soup, First Cook, and First Water-Bearer.
The soup pot was the sacred object around which the
janissaries gathered to eat or discuss events and policies. In rebellions they traditionally overturned these
soup pots.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Turkish armament lagged behind the times. In 1796 the
French ambassador General Jean-Baptiste AubertDubayet brought to Turkey several pieces of modern
armament and artillery as models for the Turks to
copy and French engineers and artillery officers to
teach the Turks modern methods. In the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries the Ottoman Empire continued to modernize its forces and weaponry. Before
World War I the Germans improved upon Turkish
arms. German General Otto Liman von Sanders
(1855-1929) came to Turkey to oversee the training
of troops. During the war the Turks had excellent
gunnery. However, two battleships ordered from England, which were to be the best of the fleet, had not
been delivered before the Turks joined the Central
Powers and were confiscated by the British. In the
late nineteenth century the Turks adopted typical European khaki winter and summer army and blue navy
uniforms. For officers, the fez—a brimless, flatcrowned hat—replaced the turban.
Military Organization
Within the Ottoman Empire the government and the
military were closely linked. The empire was divided
into two parts: European and Asian, each governed
by aghas, area governors who administered the empire in the name of the sultan. Under the aghas stood
the provincial governors, or sanjak beys. The sanjak,
which has come to mean “province,” was literally the
standard of the governor, or bey. In 1453 there were
twenty sanjaks in Asia and twenty-eight in Europe.
The sanjak beys commanded troops, operated the policing powers in their provinces, and collected taxes.
Within the sanjaks there were two types of agricultural estates: large zaimets and smaller timars. Ottoman theory held that all land belonged to God and
was managed by the sultan; the managers of these es-
tates were free-born Muslim noblemen. The spahis,
knights who served as the cavalry of the Ottoman armies, were the most numerous Ottoman warriors.
The early sultans gave most of the land they conquered to these warriors, although a minor portion
was reserved for government and diplomatic officials. The peasants, called rayah, literally “cattle,”
were the serfs who worked the land. The other governing functions were handled by the various Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religious authorities who
ruled their own communities.
The Ottomans used both regular and irregular
troops as police forces. The two most important regular land forces were the janissary infantry corps and
the spahi knights. The Ottoman navy was a supplementary force that often carried janissary troops, as
well as naval officers and sailors.
The janissaries were Christian and Jewish boys, as
young as seven years old, periodically gathered in the
Balkans through a child tax, called devshirme. Girls
were also gathered to serve in various harems. Sultan
Orhan (c. 1288-c. 1360) started the corps as a bodyguard, and Murad I (c. 1326-1389) developed it as a
militia to guard the European territories. The boys
were selected for the janissary corps based on their
strength and intelligence. They were educated as
Muslim Bektashi dervishes, the religious order favored by Ohran, and housed in barracks at Bursa. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II
moved the main janissary barracks to the sultan’s
palace in the capital. During battle, conquered fortresses served as their barracks, and local produce
served as their food.
A minority, approximately 15 percent, of the most
intelligent children were selected for government
and diplomatic service, while the remainder were
trained for the janissaries. The boys were educated in
the palace school, where they studied subjects such
as Turkish history, Muslim literature, and romantic
and martial music. They practiced gymnastics and
sports on both foot and horseback to increase their
strength and agility. The students became expert
in archery, swordsmanship, javelin throwing, and
riding.
Early janissaries could not own property, marry,
or perform other service, but they were armed and
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593
well paid and had a strong esprit de corps. They were
the most respected infantry in Europe: fearless, well
trained, dedicated troops with intelligent and coolheaded commanders. At the dedication of the corps,
the sheik of the Bektashi, an officer of the corps,
promised, “Its visage shall be bright and shining, its
arm strong, its sword keen, its arrow sharp-pointed. It
shall be victorious in every battle and will never return except in triumph.” The janissaries were known
for their military discipline, which rivaled that of the
ancient Greeks and Romans.
In contrast to the “inside aghas,” who were leaders
of the government and palace service, the chief janissary officers held the title of “outside aghas.” In the
time of Mehmed II they numbered a force of ten thousand. They were unique in Europe, where most armies consisted almost completely of cavalry. The
janissaries were commanded only by aghas, who had
been appointed by the sultan, and the provincial beys
and pashas had no authority over them.
When the Ottoman Empire went into decline, the
janissary corps began to deteriorate. Muslims were
recruited into the janissaries, affecting the traditional
camaraderie. Janissaries also worked as artisans to
supplement their income. During Süleyman’s reign,
they received the right to marry, and their sons began
entering the corps, first through loopholes in the law
and later through quotas. Nepotism grew rampant.
Murad IV (1612-1640), recognizing the de facto
practice, abolished the devshirme. Janissaries often
paid others to serve in the field in their place, while
still collecting their pay and enjoying their privileges.
The corps, if they disagreed with the imperial policies, would often mutiny in the field or in Constantinople. The janissaries began to influence politics as
early as the fifteenth century, when they backed the
sultan Mehmed I against his brothers, but in the seventeenth century the corps became stronger than the
sultan. Sultans and ministers curried favor with the
janissaries as well as the spahis through promotion
and pay raises.
Republic of Turkey, 1923
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The vizier Köprülü Amca-z3de Hüseyin (died
1702) tried to reverse the downward trend by revising the muster roles of the janissaries, improving military equipment for both the janissaries and the navy,
building new barracks, and refurbishing the imperial
defenses, but the measures proved to be only temporary. The Ottoman forces also included renowned artillery and engineering units and highly skilled artisans who were supported through a guild system.
These artisans supplied the Ottoman armies and
maintained their morale and standard of living.
The Turkish sipahi cavalry were considered to be
without peer. They were ready at any moment on the
command of the sanjak beys to leave their fields and
join in battle. Failure do so would mean loss of their
position. Although the ranks were not hereditary, the
son of a deceased spahi might be given a small
amount of land for his needs. He would then have to
prove himself in battle to earn a tamir or zaimet.
There were also mounted soldiers at a lesser rank
than spahi, and the spahis of the Porte in Constantinople, “the men of the sultan,” who formed a separate
corps. In the seventeenth century the number of feudal spahis dwindled, and, like the janissaries, the
spahi also began to hire substitutes, some of whom
were unscrupulous adventurers. Spahis were no longer suited for all-year duty against the modern European artillery. At the Battle of Mezö-Keresztes
(1596) against Hungary they left the field en masse.
The sultan dismissed thirty thousand spahis, turning
a large group of nobles into landless malcontents and
further increasing the problems of the empire.
In times of war the Ottoman Empire employed a
supplemental irregular cavalry, the akinjis. Other irregular troops were the azab corps, a reserve infantry
founded by Orhan. The sixteenth century governor of
Bosnia used another irregular force to police his
sanjak. These irregular troops did not receive regular
pay but were rewarded with spoils of war. However,
jealous of the pay and privileges of the regular forces,
they sometimes rebelled.
In the seventeenth century the Ottoman Empire
also fell behind in inventory and supply. While the
great powers of Europe established modern professional armies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the sultans stubbornly held on to their antiquated
Warfare in the Age of Expansion
traditional techniques. They lacked modern financing procedures and an industrial system based on
flexibility, free enterprise, and competition that was
required for modern warfare. Pillaging and living off
the land no longer sufficed. The haphazard Turkish
system of taxes and economic restrictions held the
empire’s military behind while its European enemies
forged ahead. Furthermore, the janissaries and artisan guilds joined together to protect their traditional
privileges and maintain the military’s traditional procedures.
In the eighteenth century all aspects of the army—
training, discipline, armament, fortifications, field
maneuvers—fell to a substandard state. Incompetence and ignorance ruled even in the most elementary matters. Open defiance and mutiny were rampant among the troops. Theft of supplies by both
officers and soldiers was common. Janissaries often
did not go on campaign but hired people in their
stead. Janissaries would fight with their officers or
demand privileges reserved for officers. The corps
became a parasitic burden, a shadow of the unbeatable force it had been in its early days.
After a loss to the Russians in 1792, Sultan Selim
III was anxious to reform his army. Although Selim’s
many reforms were not limited to military matters,
an overhaul of the army played a key part in his
plans. Selim looked to France, where the French
Revolution of 1789 had brought about a new order.
He sent special ambassadors to the courts of Europe
and studied their detailed reports. He was particularly interested in guns and artillery, about which
he himself had written a treatise. He was especially
impressed with the revolutionary French army and
requested help from Paris to improve the Turkish
military. The French experts improved Turkish gun
foundries, arsenals, and equipment. In both the army
and navy they taught the Turks gunnery, fortifications, navigation, and related subjects. The Turkish
engineering school was brought up to modern standards.
However, the sultan’s advisers were divided.
Some insisted on maintaining the old Turkish ways at
any cost, whereas others advocated the Western techniques only to restore the past Turkish glory; still
others called for a complete overhaul of the Turkish
The Ottoman Empire
595
F. R. Niglutsch
The British defeat of the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Navarino Bay in 1827 effectively destroyed the Ottoman
navy and paved the way for Greek independence.
military and society in the Western manner. Selim established the Topiji—a small force of prisoners, European deserters, and poor Muslims—and had them
trained in the Western fashion as a prototype army.
Impressed by the Topiji’s superiority, Selim tried to
introduce their methods and arms into the Turkish
forces. The spahis accepted the new methods, but the
janissaries continued to resist modernization. Selim
thus enlarged the Topiji force, which by then included some of the French officers who had remained in Turkey. In 1805 he introduced a draft but
was assassinated the following year in a janissary revolt. Mahmud II then ascended the throne.
The success of Mehmed Ali of Egypt in building a
Western army with Muslims encouraged Mahmud to
do away with the janissaries and rely solely upon the
new army. Mahmud replaced the European officers
training the troops with Muslims and ordered 150
troops from each janissary battalion to join the new
corps. On June 15, 1826, as expected, the janissaries
revolted, overturning their soup pots and invading
the palace. Mahmud was ready. He had increased his
loyal artillery troops, placing them in strategic points
in the streets. They drove the rebels back to their barracks, where they barricaded themselves and were
destroyed by artillery in less then an hour. More than
six thousand died in the shelling. Mahmud executed
the surviving leaders, disbanded the corps, and outlawed the Bektashi dervish religious order. The remaining janissaries were exiled to Asia.
After the destruction of the janissaries, Mahmud
reintroduced the old title serasker; originally held by
a high commander of general rank, it was now given
to the commander in chief who also served as minis-
596
ter of war and handled police duties in Constantinople. He paid special attention to the new army.
Twelve thousand men were stationed at Constantinople and elsewhere in the provinces. Mahmud turned
to England and Prussia for assistance training the
new army. Officers were sent to England, and British
officers came to Turkey. Prussia sent Lieutenant
Helmuth von Moltke (1800-1891), who later became
an architect of Prussia’s renowned army, as a military
adviser. Von Moltke helped to modernize the Ottoman Empire’s defenses and to train and organize the
new troops. He was dissatisfied, however, with
Mahmud and the Ottoman army, who resisted instruction from foreigners. Turkey and Prussia exchanged cadets and officers as well, establishing a
German tradition that would continue through the
life of the empire.
In the 1840’s the army was reorganized into active
and reserve units, and the term of active service was
reduced from twelve to five years. Soldiers who had
actively served for five years would serve the balance
of seven years in their home provinces as reserves.
The military was further reorganized along Western
lines, the number of troops was increased to 250,000,
and military schools were established.
In 1808 the Young Turk Revolution brought German trained officers forward. Enver Pala (18811922), one of the leaders of the revolt, had trained in
German methods as a young officer and now went to
Berlin as military attaché. The war minister Sevket
Pala (1858-1913) actually trained in Germany. Thus,
the German influence that had existed since the time
of Mahmud actually increased during the nineteenth
century.
After the Young Turk Revolution, the use of officers in government positions reduced the efficiency
of the army and navy in the field. Furthermore, capable officers opposed to the government were sent to
distant posts. The defeats of the Italian and Balkan
Wars impressed upon the new leaders the need for
massive reform. Enver Pala, who by that time had
become one of the ruling triumvirate along with
Mehmed Talât Pala (1872-1921) and Ahmed Cemal
Pala (1872-1922) took this in hand. Much of the
problem was the mistrust that the older officers had
of the young military supporters of the revolution, a
Warfare in the Age of Expansion
situation that demanded a general purge of the senior
officers. Sevket Pala recognized the problem but refused to dismiss his friends in the officer corps.
Therefore Enver Pala took over the ministry and convinced the reluctant Sultan Mehmed V (1844-1918)
to issue a decree retiring officers over fifty-five years
of age. A new agreement with Berlin brought forty
German officers to Turkey. They were led by Liman
von Sanders, who was placed in charge of the first
army in Constantinople.
Doctrine, Strategy, and Tactics
From the early days of the Ottoman Empire, the doctrine of warfare called for the conquest of Muslim
and Christian land in the name of God. In fact, all of
the empire’s territory was seen to be God’s land, administered by the sultan through aghas, beys, and pashas, military leaders as well as government officials.
When the Ottoman sultans became the rulers of the
Muslims of the Near East, they revived the old title of
caliph, for the religious leader of Islam.
The Ottoman strategy was simple. On yearly campaigns, which, after 1453, began from Constantinople in a formal ceremonial military parade and lasted
until late fall, their well-trained and courageous armies fought and conquered as much land and as
many cities as they could. Victims who acquiesced
were shown mercy. Those who resisted suffered a
brief period of brutal pillage. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Ottomans managed the lands under their control well. Even non-Muslim communities had a great deal of autonomy. In the later
centuries, inefficient government and arbitrary actions of virtually independent warlords, landlords,
and local beys and pashas inflicted hardship.
The Ottomans learned from their adversaries,
studying Western military forces and strategies. After the seventeenth century the viziers, more often
than the sultan, marched on campaigns and sometimes participated in battles. Although the army was
the main force, a flotilla of hundreds of boats accompanied the troops on the rivers of the region under attack.
A typical order of battle in the open field consisted
The Ottoman Empire
of three armies. For example, at Kosovo Field in
1389, Sultan Murad I commanded the center with his
janissary corps and spahi knights. By tradition the
army of the region where the battle was fought occupied the right flank. Thus Bayezid I (c. 1360-1403),
the sultan’s son and heir, led the army of Europe on
his right. A younger son led the army of Asia on the
left flank. At Kosovo an advance guard of two thousand archers began the attack. However, the standard
Ottoman practice was to begin battle with an inferior
line of irregulars. The janissaries would attack accompanied by drums and cymbals and exhorted by
their non-janissary brothers of the Bektashi der-
597
vishes. If the enemy forces outnumbered the Turks,
the strategy changed, and the Ottomans would wait in
hiding for the battle to begin.
The Ottoman forces, well suited for siege warfare,
used both cannons and mines. They dug trenches
about 1,500 meters from the besieged city walls and
set up their artillery behind the ridges. Archers then
continually rained arrows on the city, while janissaries scaled the walls. The Turks were willing to continue a siege as long as it took for a city to surrender or
fall. They often gave generous terms of surrender, allowing those who wished to leave the city to go
freely.
Contemporary Sources
The best primary sources on the military history of the Ottoman Empire available in English
and held in American libraries are memoirs and contemporary accounts of battles. Among the
best of the former are the memoirs of Sir Edwin Pears (1835-1919), Forty Years in Constantinople: The Recollections of Sir Edwin Pears, 1873-1915 (1916), Evliya Çelebi’s (c. 1611-c. 1682)
Travels in Palestine (1834), and Konstanty Michalowicz’s (born c. 1435) Memoirs of a Janissary (1975), an account of a fifteenth century Turkish warrior found in the microform collection
of the University of Michigan. The University of Michigan is the repository of numerous eyewitness accounts of Turkish-Western battle, a number of which have been published. Suraiya
Faroqhi’s Approaching Ottoman History: An Introduction to the Sources (1999) is a general
survey of sources in Turkish and other languages.
Books and Articles
Aksan, Virginia. “Ottoman War and Warfare, 1453-1812.” In European Warfare, 1453-1815,
edited by Jeremy Black. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
_______. Ottoman Wars, 1700-1870: An Empire Besieged. Harlow, England: Longman/
Pearson, 2007.
Almond, Ian. “Muslims, Protestants, and Peasants: Ottoman Hungary, 1526-1683.” In Two
Faiths, One Banner: When Muslims Marched with Christians Across Europe’s Battlegrounds. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Faroqhi, Suraiya. “The Strengths and Weaknesses of Ottoman Warfare.” In The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Gabriel, Richard A. The Siege of Constantinople. Carlisle, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 1992.
Goodwin, Godfrey. The Janissaries. London: Saqi, 1992.
Guilmartin, John F., Jr. “Ideology and Conflict: The Wars of the Ottoman Empire, 1453-1606.”
In Warfare and Empires: Contact and Conflict Between European and Non-European Military and Maritime Forces and Cultures, edited by Douglas M. Peers. Brookfield, Vt.:
Ashgate/Variorum, 1997.
Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2002.
Murphey, Rhoads. Ottoman Warfare, 1500-1700. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University
Press, 1999.
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Warfare in the Age of Expansion
Nicole, David. Armies of the Ottoman Turks, 1300-1400. Botley, Oxford, England: Osprey,
1985.
Reid, James J. Crisis of the Ottoman Empire: Prelude to Collapse, 1839-1878. Stuttgart, Germany: Steiner, 2000.
Turfan, M. Naim. Rise of the Young Turks: Politics, Military, and Ottoman Collapse. London:
I. B. Taurus, 1999.
Turnbull, Stephen. The Ottoman Empire, 1326-1699. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Zorlu, Tuncay. Innovation and Empire in Turkey: Sultan Selim III and the Modernisation of the
Ottoman Navy. New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2008.
Films and Other Media
Lawrence of Arabia. Feature film. Columbia Pictures, 1962.
The Ottoman Empire: The War Machine. Documentary. History Channel, 2006.
The Ottoman Empire, 1280-1683. Documentary. Landmark Films, 1995.
Suleyman the Magnificent. Documentary. National Gallery and Metropolitan Museum of Art,
1987.
Frederick B. Chary
Literature and Warfare
Overview
The earliest literary work in the Western tradition
to deal with war is found in the Iliad (c. 750 b.c.e.;
English translation, 1611), ostensibly written by
Homer (c. 750 b.c.e.), but whether or not it is a work
of shared authorship is a moot point. One of the classics of world literature, the Iliad deals with the very
long and savage war between Athens and Sparta—
the Trojan War (c. 1200-1100 b.c.e.)—with the culminating siege of Troy, which dragged on for three
decades. The war was originally based on a struggle
for control of important trade routes across the
Hellespont. However, in the Iliad, the story centers
on one incident: the Trojans’ attempt to recover the
abducted Helen of Troy. When Agamemnon—king
of the Greeks (who invade Troy), refuses to ransom
Chryseis to her father, the god Apollo inflicts a
plague of pestilence on them, compelling Agamemnon to return the girl. Not to be entirely thwarted, Agamemnon takes Achilles’ prized concubine instead.
Dishonored, Achilles withdraws his warriors. War
here is depicted as not only mean and bloody but also
a process of retaliation and quid pro quo. During this
process, when a warrior is slain or an attack is perpetrated, the fury of the combatants escalates. Such
endlessly escalating conflict required a resolution,
and Homer offered one in the Odyssey (c. 725 b.c.e.;
English translation, 1614), which tells the story of a
survivor of the Trojan War, Odysseus (or Ulysses),
who undergoes a series of adventures that function as
tests and atonements before he can return home to a
joyful reunion with his wife, Penelope. Both the Iliad
and the Odyssey draw heavily on the rich storehouse
of Greek mythology, and in so doing provide a “divine” perspective on the issues of loss and redemption surrounding the Greek view of war.
In the Aeneid (29-19 b.c.e.; English translation,
1553), war is the context for nation-building: The
Roman poet Vergil (Publius Vergilius Maro) uses literature as a sort of genealogical tool to reconstruct
the beginnings of the Roman Empire. In this epic
poem, the Greek warrior Aeneas has fled his native
War is life’s greatest conflict and the ultimate form of
competition. As such, it continues to provide writers
with a fertile field for examining the always intriguing
complexities of human nature. Warfare is often railed
against, and on occasion it has been chic to view it as
obsolete. In the overall scheme of things, however,
war has generally managed to remain popular. Indeed,
the noted philosophers Will and Ariel Durant once
calculated that in the past 3,000 years only 268 of
those years have been free of war. With this in mind,
it is perhaps not surprising that wars have provided
grist for some of the world’s most enduring literature.
Significance
Literature that focuses on war recognizes how war
affects human behavior through characters created in
literature.
History of Literature
and Warfare
Ancient World
Organized armies have fought against each other for
at least ten thousand years. Either at war or in anticipation of war, military infrastructures have played a
key role in the organization of human societies. The
earliest civilizations of China, for example, were established by organized armies.
Accounts of the earliest conflicts were preserved
in song and story through oral tradition, often setting
warfare in a mythological context. Rigvedic hymns
of ancient India, for instance, relate tales of the warrior god Indra. A Babylonian epic poem, “War of the
Gods,” deals with the myth of world creation and the
establishment of divine hierarchy, which formed part
of a New Year’s festival.
873
874
land following the Trojan War and—after a series of
adventures, some harrowing—arrives in Italy, where
he proceeds to recount the details of the Trojan War.
After defeating the Rutulian leader Turnus in battle
and miraculously recovering from a wound received
in combat, Aeneas marries Lavinia (daughter of
Latinus, king of the Latins) and establishes the new
kingdom on the Seven Hills that has been promised
to him in a dream.
Medieval World
The adopted nephew of Charlemagne, the knight
Roland, and his bosom friend Oliver, together with
their valiant comrades, sacrifice their lives to protect
Charlemagne’s army by defending the pass at
Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees Mountains in 778 c.e.
Their epic defense was later immortalized in the
anonymous Chanson de Roland (c. 1100; The Song
of Roland).
Among Germanic peoples, one of the most influential works of literature was the Nibelungenlied
(c. 1200; English verse translation, 1848; prose translation, 1877), set in the fifth century in north-central
Europe. Although medieval in origins, the Nibelungenlied, like the Homeric writings, draws on numerous myths, including Siegfried’s titanic battle
with a great dragon, including rituals of ancient worship that are woven throughout the work. War, again,
is depicted in the context of national origins and identity, with an emphasis not on realism but on the
mythic and glorified aspects of battle, reflecting an
ancient Germanic cult of hero worship.
By the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance,
the literature of war had begun to depart from the reliance on mythology found in earlier literature and to
concern itself more with historical reality. The topic
of war continues to provide an opportunity for writers to speak of glory, honor, and courage, but with increasing fidelity to the background against which the
story is set. William Shakespeare’s Henry plays, for
example—Henry IV, Part I (1592), Henry IV, Part II
(1597) and Henry V (c. 1598-1599)—smoothly
blend poetry and history both to glorify England and
to explain how the notoriously un-princely Henry V
evolved from a rakish and somewhat unprincipled
youth into a revered king, the hero of Agincourt. In
Culture and Warfare
the belief that he has as much lawful right to the
throne of France as did Charles, the reigning French
monarch, Henry V makes his claim for that crown.
Insulted by Charles’s son, the Dauphin, Henry prepares for war. At the decisive Battle of Agincourt,
Henry’s leadership carries the day, despite the fact
that his army is outnumbered and weakened by illness. Shakespeare glorifies Henry V (r. 1413-1422)
and his victory at Agincourt, and his contemporaries
may well have regarded the portrayal as an overtly patriotic affirmation of contemporary warfare against
Spain. However, many critics have seen in the play’s
language and portrayals a more ambiguous attitude
toward warfare and perhaps a veiled criticism of contemporary events in Elizabethan England (where
open criticism of the monarchy and its policies would
not have been safe). The play thus illustrates both the
growth in literature referencing actual events and the
sensitivities, and potential dangers, of doing so.
Modern World
As world civilizations advanced in age and (especially) technology, these achievements were reflected in world conflicts. Wars increasingly expanded their sphere of impact. Increasingly, battles
were no longer confined to unpopulated areas. Accordingly, literature sought to keep pace with the
evolution of modern warfare. Although the heroic
values present in the literature of ancient and medieval wars was still to be found in literature the realism, the suffering and horror of war became increasingly evident.
As warfare evolved into the so-called modern
period, writers sought to present their subjects more
realistically. Literary characters provided the opportunity and the voice to reveal a more accurate portrayal of the grim horrors found on the battlefield. In
literature as in real life, war as a glorious confrontation of chivalric honor was now depicted as a bloody
crucible of suffering and death.
Novels, plays, and poems increasingly began to
address not only the external events of war but also
the soldier’s personal experience of such traumatic
events, from courage to cowardice. In Stephen
Crane’s classic Civil War novel, The Red Badge of
Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War
Literature and Warfare
(1895), young Henry Fleming finds himself tormented by fear. Having dreamed of glorious battles
as a young farm lad, he was at first anxious to taste
combat, as are many soldiers who find themselves on
the field of war for the first time. Now, as his regiment advances, Henry sees battle as an escape from
the boredom of inactivity. Then comes battle, with its
cacophony of sounds, followed by an enemy counterattack and panic. Henry flees from the field and now
thinks of himself as a coward. In a subsequent battle,
he redeems himself, earning the praise of his lieutenant. The novel offers the reader an instructive psychological profile of one young man enduring the chaos,
fear, and self-doubt that every soldier must face.
In his 1929 novel of World War I, Im Westen
nichts Neues (1929; All Quiet on the Western Front,
1929), Erich Maria Remarque produced what is generally thought to be the best-known work of antiwar
literature published between the two world wars. The
novel was subsequently adapted for the screen, starring actor Lew Ayres. So forcefully did the film depict the horror of war that Ayres became a pacifist
and later refused to serve in the military during
World War II.
Two other haunting and memorable literary statements to emerge from World War I are Lieutenant
Colonel John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields”
(1915) and the poem “Rouge Bouquet” (1918), by
Sergeant Joyce Kilmer (perhaps best known for his
poem “Trees,” 1914). In “Rouge Bouquet,” Kilmer
memorialized his World War I comrades, who had
perished at Rouge Bouquet, near Baccarat in France.
Many other poets emerged from this war, including
the “war poets” Wilson Owen, who died in battle at the
age of twenty-five, and his friend Siegfried Sassoon.
World War I and its fierce trench warfare gave rise
to what a group of writers called “the lost generation”; they not only depicted the horror of war but
also questioned its value and necessity as a means of
resolving disputes between nations. In his novel A
Farewell to Arms (1929), Ernest Hemingway wrote
what many regard as the strongest polemic against
war. The story is told through the eyes of a young
American officer, Lieutenant Frederic Henry, who is
attached to a medical unit on the Italian front. There
he meets and falls in love with a nurse, Catherine
875
Barkley. Wounded, Henry is hospitalized and eventually has surgery on his knee. He and Catherine are
together during his rehabilitation. She becomes pregnant. While attempting to avoid capture by the Germans, Henry deserts, and the two manage to reach
Switzerland, where Catherine and the baby both subsequently die.
One of the most meaningful works of modern literature to address the subject of war, Norman
Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead (1948), is regarded
by some as the best novel of World War II. The author set his story on a South Pacific island, focusing
primarily on one platoon of soldiers: their trials and
tribulations, their interactions with one another, and
The Granger Collection, New York
The original 1929 front jacket cover for Erich Maria
Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.
876
Culture and Warfare
Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
the same fears and issues with which young Henry
Fleming grapples in The Red Badge of Courage. In
the world of The Naked and the Dead, there is little
empathy among the members of the platoon, and no
sympathy whatever for their Japanese foes. Mailer
introduces a second element to his novel, wherein he
uses his story as a forum to describe ridiculous army
rules and protocols, always the source of irritation for
the soldiers. The novel also sets the conflict in perspective by providing background for the campaign
and a critique of military judgment.
Satire and comedy have been used in many modern works to depict and condemn war. Critique of
war becomes an outright condemnation in Joseph
Heller’s Catch-22 (1961), which uses satire to focus
on the futility and sheer idiocy of the way in which
the military prosecuted war. Heller’s main charac-
ter, Yossarian, a bomber pilot based in Italy, has
looked at enough sky. He has no interest in heroism, medals, or glory. His one abiding interest is to
get rotated home. In what almost appears to be a
contrived setup, Yossarian finds that each time he
approaches the required number of missions to
qualify for rotation home, the higher echelon increases the number. Determined, Yossarian resorts
to various deceptions to try to defeat the system.
Heller provides a supporting cast of characters every bit as devious as Yossarian. Hilarious in its satiric effect, Catch-22 speaks against war as loudly
as more serious works—but here by casting war as
a farce.
The novel Mister Roberts (1946), by Thomas
Heggen (adapted for the stage in 1948 by Heggen
and Joshua Logan, and in 1955 released as a feature film), focuses on life as a soldier, making the
audience aware that men in combat must deal not
only with fear and suffering but also with the boredom of daily life in the backwater of war. The setting is a supply ship in the South Pacific commanded by a tyrannical captain who cares only
about his next promotion. The hero, Lieutenant
Douglas Roberts, who longs for a transfer to combat, finally gets his request for transfer approved
by the captain—or rather by the members of the
crew, who forge the captain’s signature in repayment for Roberts’s having managed to secure liberty for the crew by agreeing to give up challenging
the captain’s authority.
The Vietnam War (1961-1975) has occasioned
many novels. In these works, realism has continued
to be emphasized—including, again, the psychological experiences of the individual soldier. In the case
of Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam War veteran, psychological realism renders his novels extremely personal to
the point where, at times, the narrative crosses the
boundary between actual fact and internal imaginings. Going After Cacciato (1978, revised 1989),
which won a 1979 National Book Award, examines
the conflicting moral imperatives of the Vietnam
War when the point-of-view character, Paul Berlin,
joins others in his platoon to retrieve the deserter
Cacciato (literally “the hunted” in Italian), who has
vowed to escape the war by walking to Paris. The ac-
Literature and Warfare
tual events in the narrative are seamlessly interrupted
by Berlin’s fantasies and fears, making the distinction between reality and Berlin’s psychological state
difficult to discern. The clear sense, however, is that
Cacciato, in attempting to carry out his insanely bold
plan, is a hero—in some ways a goal to be pursued
877
rather than a criminal to be hunted—as the soldiers
grapple with the moral ambiguities of following orders not because they believe in the war but because
they need to avoid the fate that Cacciato will inevitably meet when they finally locate him near the Laotian border.
Books and Articles
Barlow, Adrian. The Great War in British Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press,
2000. Elucidates the different ways that World War I has been used in British literature and
how that literature has impacted people.
Berkvam, Michael L. Writing the Story of France in World War II: Literature and Memory,
1942-1958. New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2000. Looks at the works of literature that portray French life during World War II, after the fall of Paris, showing that not all
French resisted the Germans and many later wrote about it.
Chakravarty, Prasanta. “Like Parchment in the Fire”: Literature and Radicalism in the English
Civil War. New York: Routledge, 2006. Uses the literature of English sects during the Civil
War to outline the roots of what would later be called liberalism.
Dawes, James. The Language of War: Literature and Culture in the U.S. from the Civil War
Through World War II. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Analyzes the
ties between language and violence, looking at how words frame the experience and understanding of war.
Griffin, Martin. Ashes of the Mind: War and Memory in Northern Literature, 1865-1900.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009. Uses the literature of three northern poets and two writers of fiction to investigate the social memory of war and its place in cementing national values.
Jones, Kathryn N. Journeys of Remembrance: Memories of the Second World War in French
and German Literature, 1960-1980. London: Legenda, 2007. Focuses on the memory of the
Holocaust in the literature of France, West Germany, and East Germany during 1960-1980.
Mickenberg, Julia. Learning from the Left: Children’s Literature, the Cold War, and Radical
Politics in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Examines a specific
genre of children’s books during the 1920’s-1960’s that went against the Cold War rhetoric
to teach so-called radical viewpoints, many of which are now mainstream.
Natter, Wolfgang. Literature at War, 1914-1940: Representing the “Time of Greatness” in
Germany. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. Ties German literature about
World War I to the rise of a military ethos that persisted through the German defeat and
helped prepare the ground for Adolf Hitler’s rise and World War II.
Phillips, Kathy J. Manipulating Masculinity: War and Gender in Modern British and American
Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. By using examples from the literature
from World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and Iraq, this study illuminates how men are
goaded into war mentality through the feminization of common traits.
Taylor, Mark J. The Vietnam War in History, Literature, and Film. Tuscaloosa: University of
Alabama Press, 2003. Uses a case study approach in looking at five episodes during the Vietnam War to examine how returning veterans are regarded in film and literature.
Jerry Keenan