Actually i brought that up because you talked about the Turkish manpower issues, and used France as an example; another country that had manpower issues. I know that Turks used a levy as well.
What If: Ottoman conquest of;malta,vienna,(tahran)persia?
- Thread starter Don Grey
- Start date
Actually i brought that up because you talked about the Turkish manpower issues, and used France as an example; another country that had manpower issues. I know that Turks used a levy as well.
The period generally did not see any significant field battles. Those that did happen were small and short. The period was dominated bye sieges.
Nobody saw those kinds of battles, so i don`t really buy that the reason was due to the west being scared to engage the Turks.
Don Grey
Banned
Sevral western kings strategy was to litteraly avoid the ottomans on open field which is pretty well none. Your just twisting facts to come to your own conclusion. And to say the military in süleimans time was less efficant as aposed to there western counter parts would get you laughed at, at this site. No one is selling anything so you could by it. The only reason you not convinced is it would go against your already precived knowladge.
It must also be said, for what it's worth (more or less nothing regarding the OP) that it was the strategy of many western leaders, not just against the Ottomans, in this period to dig in in fortresses, and have relatively minor field engagements; either deliberate strategy, or result of circumstances. For example, the Dutch wars against the Spanish involved a series of protracted sieges. (This is itself pretty well known.) Nevertheless, field engagements still definitely happened.
This isn't to deny, as I've said before, that the Ottomans were a highly competent force, especially with logistics, massive numbers (I'm not making them out to be quantity over quality 'zerg rushers', but their large resources and powerful government definitely helped) and engineering. But star forts were difficult to take, and even the Ottomans failed at times (for example, Malta.) Even with their massive siege guns (still in working order to take on the Royal Navy in the early 19th century, I read somewhere, which would have made Suleiman the Magnificent jump for joy had he known.)
I was discussing the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, around the height of Ottoman power. EDIT: In addition, the battle is mentioned as being a fair distance away from the Maltese fortifications. It wasn't a Pelennor fields style charge of the Riders of Rohan/Spanish Tercios into the rear of the Ottoman/Orc host as they poured into the city (as wonderful as the fanfic possibilities are.)
This isn't to deny, as I've said before, that the Ottomans were a highly competent force, especially with logistics, massive numbers (I'm not making them out to be quantity over quality 'zerg rushers', but their large resources and powerful government definitely helped) and engineering. But star forts were difficult to take, and even the Ottomans failed at times (for example, Malta.) Even with their massive siege guns (still in working order to take on the Royal Navy in the early 19th century, I read somewhere, which would have made Suleiman the Magnificent jump for joy had he known.)
I was discussing the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, around the height of Ottoman power. EDIT: In addition, the battle is mentioned as being a fair distance away from the Maltese fortifications. It wasn't a Pelennor fields style charge of the Riders of Rohan/Spanish Tercios into the rear of the Ottoman/Orc host as they poured into the city (as wonderful as the fanfic possibilities are.)
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Okay, firstly, if you want to convince me you need to:
A: argue against the issue and not the person making it. Claiming that i am holding to preconceived view and twisting facts sans any other backing that "laughed at, at this site." No sources, no argument, just a attempt at ridiculing me as a person. I gave up my main source a page back, the other are Osperys Lepanto 1571 - The Greatest Naval Battle of the Renaissance and Pike and Shot Tactics 1590-1660, thought i have order Empire of the Sea.
The point of me holding a unorthodox view, for this site, on the prowess of the Turkish army during the 16th and 17th century does not in any way imply that i am wrong. The statements of mailinutile2, whom has also give source references, are similar to what my sources claim. No name calling and several different sources vs name calling and no sources from somebody whom are know to be preconceived pro-Turkish. (Arent you Turkish and Abdul half turkish american?)
Less yap yap, more fact, prove me wrong and i will change my mind, its that easy.
While we're on the subject of sources, mine are. Roger Crowley's Empires of the Sea, and half remembered bits of this year's Early Modern History module (which did include people such as Geoffrey Parker, and various sides of the military revolution debate.) Strangely, they never really covered the Ottomans, and my early modern tutor disliked me for including their religious practices (the Milet system) in my group's presentation about european early modern religious tolerance. (I suppose too much proximity to AHP rubbed off and got me thinking that everyone regarded them as quasi European.) But this is considerable digression.
Arafeel, I hope you enjoy Empires of the Sea. It's wonderful narrative history, sweeping you through the bloody, epic period of the clash between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottomans, with all the complex squabbling between rival Christians. A struggle stretching from Constantinople to Central America. I loved it, personally. How accurate it is, or comprehensive? I don't know. Still, when AHP enters a discussion about the Ottomans, it's general practice to assume he has a source. Because he just knows things. I mean this totally unironically. Nibble round the edges, by all means, but he knows things.
Arafeel, I hope you enjoy Empires of the Sea. It's wonderful narrative history, sweeping you through the bloody, epic period of the clash between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottomans, with all the complex squabbling between rival Christians. A struggle stretching from Constantinople to Central America. I loved it, personally. How accurate it is, or comprehensive? I don't know. Still, when AHP enters a discussion about the Ottomans, it's general practice to assume he has a source. Because he just knows things. I mean this totally unironically. Nibble round the edges, by all means, but he knows things.
I am very very aware that Abdul is quit knowledgeable on the subject of the Ottomans. And having debated him earlier i have learned that one needs to have is facts checked when doing so. And on several of those occasions i have learned new things.
But he is not always right, and i am going to trust Cambridge modern history over him until proven wrong. And he might not be as knowledgeable on the other Mediterranean superpower of the 16th century, Spain.
But he is not always right, and i am going to trust Cambridge modern history over him until proven wrong. And he might not be as knowledgeable on the other Mediterranean superpower of the 16th century, Spain.
Don Grey
Banned
You cant be proven wrong because you refuse to admit it. All that you have stated as already been answered by abdul yet you still refuse. If his reasoned argument wont convince you no one can you have just come here to blow your own horn. And no one is calling you any names stop being such a drama queen and try to play your self as someone being persecuted because you hold an unorthodox view.And your views arent unorthadox, its standred victorian era percpective lots of books on the ottomans are written from that perpective which has been discussed alot on this site. Just because you read one book and it said something negative doesnt automaticly make it true.Abduls sources are generaly from a multiple collection of books and knowladge accumilated over years.While mine are mainly in turkey are are apart of my personal liberary which have neen accumilated over years.When you have read multiple sources and acedemic studies on a subject it doesnt mean you make a list of them and put it on your computer screen just it case i have a debate on a history board someday and you might need it as ammunition to get into a source war. And its not 16th and 17th centuray because things started to change by 17th. Its 15th and 16th centuray where the ottomans realy didnt have much of an equal west of china.
What does are ethnicities have to do with anything just because were of a certain ethnicity does that mean our opnion are not as valid?And just because your not of that ethnicity does that mean you are inherently unbaised?Since when is a group known to be pro-anything did we have a concesus on board where the majority of the board came to such a conclution?And another thing did you just pull the race card to win an argument? And if your wondering what my ethnicity is its part bulgarian part macedonian part circassian and my grandmother on my fathers side was english who was part german. There you go and pick on that for a while and see if that offers you a crutch for your next argument.
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I am returning to Lepanto because it was the only battle between infantry forces between the Ottomans and the West powers, and even if it was fought on boat decks, it was a land battle, not a naval one as we intend the term.
The fact that there was no other significant battle works two way: it also mean sthat the Ottomans did not like the risk of it because they were aware of their infantry and artillery problems, and preferred cavalry raids (wisely, since they had an edge on light cavalry).
I'm sorry to say that we have multiple sources, expecially among Venetian and Genoan letters complaninig about the low quality of the captured ottoman artillery, and wailing on the expense for melting them down (they were merchant at heart, after all); on the other hand we hake the Topkapi documents that show how eager Ottomans were to buy guns from the west and how the most important units (kapudan pasha galleys, 1st jannisseries corp, palace guards) tried to be equipped with them, while the other had to settle for 2nd-rate armaments from the empire (let me notice that we do not have a single case of a european state willing to buy guns from the empire).
The same applies for the command chain, which was quite well infiltrated by Venice services and the Nunziature reports often it was quite a mess.
Again, all our sources (relations, letters, even miniatures) agree on the Ottoman being extremely poor in the handgun deparment (I'm sorry to say again "Lepanto", but that's the reason for its outcome), a significant fraction of them (vitrually all the timarites, and a significat fraction of the jannissaries) preferring bows even in late 16th century (when virtually there were none in the western armies), and having a body protection at most consisting in leather jacket (while most of western soldiers had studded or mail ones), which would be ok to protect against a bow, but not against an arquebuse.
The same fonts describe their way of fighting, and they were not using neither a pike square nor the pike-and-arqubuse formation, whith the result that they were neither able to hold defensively the ground against a larger attacking force, nor to produce fire concentration able to shake an unshaken unit (and also made them vulnerable to volleys).
No one is questioning their individual bravery, but they were fighting with methods which had been surpassed by 200 years.
If they had improved, instead of sticking to them, things would surely have been different
PS: on the no-alcol-consumption thing: please notice that virtually all the jannissaries were bektashi (and quite famed for going roaring drunk, too), 3/5 of the fleet was christian orthodox and 1/3 of the timarites was ortodox or catholic.
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On the one hand-there was at least one infantry vs. infantry battle between Western and Ottoman troops (the relief of Malta-infantry definitely clashed there, and the Spanish Tercios emerged triumphant). On the other-I'm not sure how far you can equate the conditions of a battle fought on boat decks, even boat decks on the fairly calm Med, with those of a battle fought on the open field.
You're certainly right, but, that's what we've got to make our minds up for that period.
Maybe the battle that ended the second Vienna siege could be considered, too (it was a field battle with the relief army, not an assult to Vienna defences), and the results (using german and polish infantry instead of spanish tercios) is the same
For the next major clash we have to go to Eugene of Savoy campaign.
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Snake Featherston
Banned
In the 15th and 16th Centuries? Horse puckey. The Ottoman forces in the 1400s and 1500s were entirely superior to anything European states of the time were able to create. Lest we forget, European states at the time were involved in those minor donnybrooks known as Wars of Religion, as nobles with private armies used them to mainly kill other nobles for personal gain and patronizing their own religion. A professional army like the Janissaries tore the heart out of them over and over again.
So did Russian guards units from Peter the Great-Nicholas I. Nobody ever tends to claim that makes Russian armies of the period worthless. If anything those armies were better than anything Russia produced until the Axis-Soviet War given they were so tantalizingly close to annihilating Prussia before it was even born. All this means is that the Janissaries were European-style aristocracies.
The historical Praetorian Guard was killing Emperors left and right, which hardly impaired the ability of Roman legions, so your parallel is a senseless one. It's like claiming the SS and NKVD made the Nazi and Stalinist armies clumsy, stagnant forces.
Er......there were no European professional armies in the 1400s and 1500s. They arose as a result of the Wars of Religion, while the Ottomans were bitch-slapping their way through the feudal levies.
Mercenaries, who were paid foreigners, not connected to the state in any way beyond the moneybag, the kind of mercenaries who often had limited connection to the theoretical goals the wars of that age were about. The most obvious example of this is the 30 Years' War, a mercenary war more vicious than anything seen until World War II.
These are the European armies of the St. Bartholomew's Square Massacre-Thirty Years' War period. At that phase the Ottoman Janissaries were the only professional army in Europe. This gave them advantages no European levies of the time could challenge.
As I remember it, those "Spanish" armies were composed of rainbow groups of mercenaries from multiple nations, seeking victory and loot, and if denied either they did not tend to hold together very well. The armies of the Wars of Religion are not those of the Second World War, there were no large national armies bar those of France, the Ottomans, and Russia. And actually the Spanish Army did have rivals. I might also note that the professional Spanish Army, what there was of it, had to secure a huge portion of South America, Caribbean Islands, and several Pacific Islands against a dynastic state able to make better use of concentrating professional soldiers against a disorganized rabble.
And yet one of the most successful armies of this time in Europe was that of the Romanov Empire which took Russia to the Pacific and would secure by the start of the 18th Century Russian status as a Great Power. In contrast the professional Swedish Army would be chewed up and spat out in Russia, while the Italian states went on to be the joke of Europe and the German states were very varied and multiple states. Saxony's army was not necessarily like that of Bavaria or Brandenberg.
That would be the country that fielded the largest European army aside from Russia, and that's what you term manpower issues?
It's the same reason you never see terrorists choosing Dien Bien Phus against say, the US Army. If you know you can't win a certain way, why give the enemy what he wants? Make him fight a different way.
And again these armies won decisive victories in all the few battles that there were between them and the Ottomans in the period (Malta, Lepanto Vienna).
When you say that Janissaries where the only professional force you are not correct. The Jannissaries were the only one having a fixed salary. The other (many) professional forces usually worked "on commission", to be paid with a share of the booty.
This made the Jannissary force somewhat more reliable when money was ready (they did not go looking for other would-be-payers), but also less reliable if problems occurred (they anyhow had their money income).
We have several descriptions of fires burning down whole sections of Istambul, with the jannisseries in the city refusing to help to put the fire down because the Palace was unwilling or unable to provide a "bonus" pay for the job.
You're misunderstanding my words.
My point is that, brave as they were, Jannissaries had a weakness.
A central power strong enough to force them to be reformed might have cured that weakness.
But the threat that they posed to the Sultan while protecting him (and the rolled heads of a few Sultans as an example) made it impossible for him to force on them conditions they did not liked.
thus my parallel with pretorians.
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Snake Featherston
Banned
No, the Siege of Vienna no more decided anything than relief of the Siege of Leningrad decided anything in the Axis-Soviet War. Relieving sieges is not decisive battles, sieges themselves, unless accompanied by destruction of the enemy army in the city are also not the most decisive means of war. What you describe is not atypical of their European counterparts, but nobody ever says that say, Charles V led a bunch of mobs.
The Samurai in Shogunate Japan would be a better comparison. The Praetorians were the ancient world's NVKD/SS. They were not what you're talking about, which is an overmighty military caste.
The second siege of Vienna (which is what I am referring to) was decided by a field battle between the turkish army and the incoming polish german force.
And it offer an idea of how two weary (one for the siege, the other for the march) armies could be compared.
the "L" battle offers an idea on how more-or-less fresh forces could be compared, but on an unusual battleground (ship decks).
Malta could hardly be called a greater battle.
But, with confrontations between the armies being so rare (just 3 in 160 years) we could hardly afford to be plucky.
If you prefer, Samurai, then.
Pretorians come to my mind because the Ottoman empire inherited so many of the virtues and of the problems of the Roman one.
Also, please notice that one of the Jannissaries weakness is precisely that they had become an overpaid caste themselves.
on the other hand, since the "Happy Incident" ending the Jannissaries is so similar to the Satsuma rebellion, I concede this point.
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Snake Featherston
Banned
I'm referring to the FIRST Siege of Vienna, which is actually in the 16th Century. You're talking about the 17th Century siege.
Thing solved then, that was not a real field battle (not like the second, anyway).I'm referring to the FIRST Siege of Vienna, which is actually in the 16th Century. You're talking about the 17th Century siege.
The confusion started because I was answering Abdul Hadi Pasha, who noticed that between Mohac and Second Vienna there had been no confrontations (he didn't consider Lepanto), and then in the upcoming post I used "Vienna" as a synonim of "second siege of"
Snake Featherston
Banned
Are the people who claim that Philip II, Elizabeth I, Ivan the Terrible, and Charles V wielded mighty professional armies on the 20th Century model going to back *their* claims? Claims that Turks declined without evidence aren't cutting it either.
To be honest, that's not fair.
In the empire, Selim the Terrible's edict forbidding printing on pain of death was still active, so most of our sources come from the west, while from the empire we only have the Topkapi registres.