AHC: A Christian country with janissary-like military units/recruitment

The big(gest) problem would imo be tye fact that armed slaves were a big no-no in the western tradition (dating back to Roman times and to the fear of slave revolts).

What if the Christian state weren't Western? Ethiopia, Mesopotamian, something farther east.

Ethiopian janissaries would be awesome.
 
Last edited:
What if the Christian state weren't Western? Ethiopia, Mesopotamian, something farther east.

Ethiopia didn't arm slaves either, but what about Oromo that migrate and convert first (unlike OTL) and then expand as per OTL. It might work better than Ethiopia itself and they could be the assimilationist power the OP wants.

Looking for someone with knowledge of the region to correct me if I'm wrong.
 

Deleted member 97083

Once people realized the war was going to last years, could the Thirty Years' War have seen this happen?
 
Basically, you need a society where religious authority is subservant to political power. In the West, for example, the military orders are best suited to the training en masse of young children : they have the financial means, the military expertise and the religious justification. But they follow their own agendas, roughly going along the pope's, but certainly not the kings', as this unfortunate Templars business has shown. Before the modern era, the ideal of "nation/patria" or the ethos of king's service is not enough to ensure the acceptance of a standing army running on mass abduction and basically brainwashing. Only religion might justify such a policy.

Certainly true, but setting up monasteries as orphanages that are given donations and prepared adoption is certainly not the same as serving the King. Not directly. Plus, it is hard to see why the Pope would object, more priests, more Catholics, and soon, more tithes.

Certainly easier in the ERE for this exact reason, as in many affairs the Patriarch was subservience to the Emperor, depending on the period.
 
The Iroquois for example captured other tribes' children and raised them as Iroquois warriors.

The French Canadians picked up on this policy and adopted it toward English Protestant children, farming them out to families or letting the Nuns educate them. They were pretty effective in converting these kids not just into Catholics but into Frenchmen. ATL stronger French Canada militarizing this could work.

I was thinking of using this behavior being adopted atl Norse based in NA but turning 1600s Christian settlers kids into Norse Pagans.

Other idea, have the Northern crusade take up this policy vis-à-vis various Baltic peoples.
 
The main departure point is that slavery in post-imperial Romania tended quickly to be mixed up with other servicable or client categories : Merovingian pueri were generally lumped with servi without much second tought, and servi went from a metaphorical use for servents to a generic name.
At least North of Alps, the social situation was vague enough to avoid "warring slaves" to really blossom, especially as contrary to the Arabo-Islamic world (and somewhat ERE), service to the king or the head of a family was considered the privilege of the free man, what we use to call the vassalic link.

Now, it could happen in Mediterranean and Western Europe, sort of.
@Yanez de Gomera is right to point that Siculo-Normans did used a subservient Islamic archery for decades and while it's not really what you could call a servile army, the concept of subservient army, directly tied to the royal figure as "protected household" is interesting.
Visigoths, at least until the VIth century, kept a large part of armed slaves or semi-servile clients. The Visigothic Code pretty much clearly required any large slave-holder to arm and bring with him 1/20 of his slaves in battle. It seems that at least Burgundians did pulled something similar.

The aformentioned pueri, while not servile in the sense we could give to the word, were also a common part of Merovingian armies in the same period : as the name implies, they were originally non-veteran troops but young enough to be servicable. It of course changed a lot with time.

Let's remember that the institution of service created by Romans to refugees or deportees within their territory was carried on (or expanded) by Franks : Armorican Saxons, Continental Saxons, Alans, Alamans, Thuringians and other laeti/foederati were part of the Merovingian armies. But again, we're on a tradition of domanial/state service trough personal links, and it's the ground we have to use to create something akin, but vastly different from the "slaves on horses" of the Arabo-Persian tradition.
There I think @Yanez de Gomera is wrong to tie the change with feudalism as it appeared in the late VIIth century (unless he meant the mix of manorialism, vassalic ties, Barbarized imperial institutions, etc. but it's quite confusing and not really relevant, as I tried to point above). It's rather how to make the Late Antiquity uses lasting ITTL, and I think it means at least no-Islam PoD and no rupture of the post-Imperial world, and possibly a Gothic hegemony in most of the region (less for political ties, than to highlight the 1/20th rule).

It's pretty much a given, tough, that the European model of subservient armies will be less of a household army, than a domanial army, and tending to mix up with the vast ensemble of serviciable or client classes eventually : still, it could make the development of a miles sub-class interesting, as even more tied to lower classes than IOTL.
 
Ethiopia didn't arm slaves either, but what about Oromo that migrate and convert first (unlike OTL) and then expand as per OTL. It might work better than Ethiopia itself and they could be the assimilationist power the OP wants.

Looking for someone with knowledge of the region to correct me if I'm wrong.

The early solomonids used Chewa regiments who were usually drawn from conquered non Abyssinian peoples that were usually muslim or pagan in background and were supposed to act as loyal troops to the royal family as opposed to the feudal vassals. The Chewa were usually given fiefs (gult) in conquered territories in order to sustain themselves although these could be revoked and the chewa regiment moved elsewhere. I'm not sure whether or not they were slaves though and if they were christianised. Either way I don't think they ever trully assimilated into Ethiopian society.
 
That said, @Superninja76, they do fit the situation I tried to describe above, about "subservient" armies tied to a dynasty or an household on vassalic links. It wouldn't ask for much to be mixed-up with a semi-servile bunch (which wouldn't make them more servile, but enough for the same kind of change described above) in Constantinople, ending up being associated (more or less wrongly) with a partially servile status.
 
If the East India Company stayed loyal to James II and VII, could they have put something together to put him back on the throne? And keep him there?
 
I was believing that system would have (or something in a similar fashion) used to some extent by the empire of Nicea if he was bent to go up to the taurus instead of willing to retake a wasted Constantinople and the bloody mess the balkan was.
 

Deleted member 67076

Ethiopia didn't arm slaves either, but what about Oromo that migrate and convert first (unlike OTL) and then expand as per OTL. It might work better than Ethiopia itself and they could be the assimilationist power the OP wants.

Looking for someone with knowledge of the region to correct me if I'm wrong.
I think this would be unlikely given the Oromo made too much money enslaving and selling those slaves off to various markets, especially up north. In doing so it created a ton of ethnic tension that local indoctrination at the time may not be able to remove. At the same time, the Solomonic dynasty levied its troops from local militias (and so the gentry had a large say in that IIRC) alongside a central army personally on the emperor's payroll, which is tied to his legitimacy and therefore creates an incentive for a core of loyal troops drawn from important families and provinces as a means of patronage.

BUT, at least a few emperors levied troops from newly conquered areas and apparently raised some of those troops from childhood, which does indicate the potential for creating a Mamluk like system if Ethiopia were to manage to become a major slave exporter and continued its conquest south.
 
Top