Ottoman Army

“ Those who advocate their inclusion in the army, moreover, say that it would increase the numerical strength of our fighting forces. But the Ottoman army would exceed a million men nowadays in the case of necessity, and for purposes of defence this would be fully a match for any enemy. ”

“ Prove beyond doubt to the enemies of the country that there exist an Ottoman Army and Navy which know how to defend their faith, their country and their military honor, and how to defy death for their sovereign!
Right and loyalty are on our side, and hatred and tyranny on the side of our enemies, and therefore there is no doubt that the Divine help and assistance of the just God and the moral support of our glorious Prophet will be on our side to encourage us. ”

“ Notwithstanding every exertion was used to restrain the Turkish troops, three hundred of the French garrison were put to the sword. The chearful manner in which the detachment from the British squadron performed their duty, exposed as they were on the Desert, without tents, very ill fed, and with only brackish water to drink, gained them the admiration of the whole Ottoman army. ”

“ Mohammed the Conqueror had established the Ottoman Empire in Europe by means of a well-trained, Koran-disciplined army, his successor Bajazet II increased and strengthened it. Great attention was paid to all matters of artillery and military engineering, in which the Turks of those days outshone all other nations, and which made the hastily levied undisciplined armies of the West, the bands of hired condottieri, or enthusiastic swarms of Christian knights, go under before the sword of Othman. The conquered provinces provided recruits for the corps of Janissaries. ”

“ Nowadays the Young Turkish Government, even if they had the troops to spare, might send a whole army to the Hedjaz and they would be like an island of sand in the midst of that stormy Arab sea. The Arabs, intellectually far superior to the Turks, have at last made up their minds to defy their oppressors, and all the Arabic-speaking parts of the Ottoman Empire may be taken as already lost, no matter what the final result of the great war may be. ”

“ The rendezvous of the Ottoman army was first at Adrianople, about 120 miles from the capital, and afterwards at Sophia, near two hundred miles farther on the road to Belgrade. As fast as the troops were assembled, large detachments were sent to all the garrisons on the frontiers, and there are now 80,000 men still left at Sophia; with these, and some other corps, the Grand Vizir will march against the Emperor; and should his Imperial Majesty choose to enter the Ottoman territories, or attempt to besiege Belgrade, a decisive battle must ensue. ”

“ There is also nothing to show that the Ottoman soldiers were animated by any religious zeal in their campaigns in Europe. The main cause of their military efficiency was the organization of the army effected by Orchan and perfected by Murad I. It offered immense rewards to the soldiers for victories in battle and for personal valour, in the share of booty and plunder levied in the conquered districts, of captives to be sold as slaves, of women for wives or concubines or to be sold for harems, and of lands to be distributed as fiefs. ”

“ During the past months the troops of Great Britain and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, Newfoundland and India fighting side by side have invariably proved their superiority over the enemy, have contained the best fighting troops in the Ottoman Army in their front, and have prevented the Germans from employing their Turkish allies against us elsewhere.
No soldier relishes undertaking a withdrawal from before the enemy. It is hard to leave behind the graves of good comrades, and to relinquish positions so hardly won and so gallantly maintained as those we have left. ”

“ They bore the hardships of long campaigns without complaint. But they were deficient in intelligence and education, which count for much in war as in civil life. In this respect they were very inferior to subjects of the East Roman Empire and to many of the Christians with whom they came in conflict. But the Ottomans who first invaded Europe were not simply Turks. Later, the most effective corps in the Ottoman army was formed exclusively of the sons of Christian parents in the Balkans, conscripted at an early age and forcibly converted to Islam. ”

“ The first division of the Ottoman army moved from Adrianople in February, 1453. In the mean time a numerous corps of pioneers worked constantly at the road, in order to prepare it for the passage of the long train of artillery and baggage wagons. ”

“ Since the advent of the Young Turks, and especially since Enver Pasha, with his German training, succeeded to the position of Minister of War and Commander in Chief, the personnel of the officers' corps has been vastly improved. But it takes years—yes, generations—to create an adequate supply of officers and noncommissioned officers for an army of the proportions of Turkey's, and the assistance of the German stiffening must have been of inestimable advantage to the Ottoman command. ”

“ The Turkish army was at that time the finest in Europe, both in extent and discipline. The Turks were a fighting people, whose arms had steadily won them place and power from the time when their colonel Othman interfered in a Seljuk quarrel to the time when Suleiman’s armies were the terror of Europe, and the few hundred tents of Othman had become the extensive and powerful Ottoman Empire. The army grew and developed with the demands of the state, for as we have seen above, the army was the state. ”

“ Up to the very last minute the British Ambassador did not despair of the success of this peace party. Events were too strong for these advocates of neutrality—events and the control of the all-important army and navy by Enver and his associates. By the sword the Ottoman Empire was reared and by the sword it has been ruled ever since. ”

“ The King of Hungary, the Princes of Servia, Bosnia, Wallachia, formed a league intended to drive the Osmanli out of Europe; they collected their armed forces and marched towards the East, crossing the Maritza about two days’ march from Constantinople. There was no force of equal strength available to Lalashahin, then in command of the Ottoman forces in Europe, for the allied Princes{172} disposed of some twenty thousand men, and the Turkish army was scattered about in various garrisons. ”

“ So much has been said and written of late respecting the decline and decrepitude of the Ottoman Empire, that most persons believe that there is nothing to prevent a Russian army from marching up to the gates of Constantinople, and taking possession of the city, except the resistance which might be offered by the other powers of Europe to such an extension of the Russian dominions. Many of our readers will therefore be surprised to learn that the army of the Sultan is at present in a more efficient state than it has been for the last two centuries ”

“ In the same way, while the Ottoman power was strongest, the chief posts of the Empire, civil and military, were constantly held, not by native Turks, but by Christian renegades of all nations. The Ottoman power in short was the power, not of a nation, but simply of an army." E. A. Freeman, The Ottoman Power in Europe, chapter 4. The name of Yeni Tscheri, which means 'new troops,' and which European writers have turned into Janissaries, was given to Orchan's young corps by the Dervish Hadji Beytarch." ”

“ Meanwhile on the wings desperate cavalry charges succeeded each other, till on the second day the Wallachian allies of Huniades gave way before the superior numbers of the Ottomans and the Christian centre had to draw off and retire. So desperate had the fighting been, that half the Hungarian army and a third of that of Murad was left upon the field. The tactical meaning of the engagement was plain: good infantry could make a long resistance to the Ottoman arms, even if they could not secure the victory. ”

“ Such a levy was almost equivalent to a standing army; but there was also a standing army in a precise sense,—an establishment of paid troops, recruited from captive children who were robbed from hostile or subject Christian countries and educated in Islam. A strict, but not cruel, discipline trained some of them to be foot-soldiers; while others, under an equally severe regime, served in the seraglio; thence rising gradually to offices of state, or being drafted into the brilliant corps of the paid mounted soldiery who were the bodyguard of the Sultan. ”

“ The weakest principality had nothing to fear in the nineteenth century from Turkish invasion, but the most powerful states had realised that it would be a formidable task to make the Porte comply with the concert of Europe—such is the quality of genuine vis inertiæ. Nevertheless the real guarantee for the integrity of the Ottoman Empire had come to be—not her army and fleet, nor the fervour of her Moslem subjects—but the mutual jealousy and suspicion existing between other Powers regarding the disposal of Ottoman territory. ”

“ It is a disputed question whether Venice urged the Ottoman Sultan (as successor to the Byzantine emperors) to lay claim to southern Italy; but at all events in 1480 Mohammad sent an armament under Kedyk Ahmad, and Otranto fell at once. The commandant and the archbishop were sawn in two—the favourite Ottoman mode of intimidation at this time. From the surrounding land some people were transported as slaves to Albania. But the Turks made no progress. Want of provisions hampered them, and presently Ferdinand arrived with an army and confined the invaders to Otranto. ”

“ Every train from the central countries brought German army officers and a sprinkling of German noncommissioned officers with which to stiffen the Ottoman troops. The army was mobilized and General Liman von Sanders, a distinguished German officer, was appointed inspector general of the Turkish army. Immense stores of food and munitions were concentrated at Damascus, Constantinople, Bagdad, and on the Trans-Caucasus frontier, while a holy war against the infidel was openly preached. ”

“ Predatory warfare was the training which gave the Ottoman Turks their irresistible power as conquerors; they were organized as an army disciplined and ever ready to strike. No better field for such training could have been found than the territory of Anatolia when the empire of the Seldjouks disappeared, and a condition of affairs arose, of which Northern Spain, at a somewhat earlier period, is a parallel instance of prevailing anarchy and local turmoil. ”

“ The Ottoman Emperor having introduced an admirable 243system into his army, and established a corps for the express purpose of keeping it up, we shall no longer be able to keep face with such well disciplined troops: as the soldiers of the Islam are naturally brave, they will fall in among us, sword in hand, and make a speedy end of us ”

“ Instead of the Ottoman Empire, which prior to the outbreak of these hostilities was held by competent authorities to be able to provide a vast army, then calculated to number approximately 1,225,000 men, there would have sprung up a friendly group of countries which in the near future could easily have placed in the field a combined army approximately amounting to at least 1,000,000, all told. ”

“ XXVII. The Sublime Porte undertakes not to punish in any manner, or allow to be punished, those Ottoman subjects who may have been compromised by their relations with the Russian army during the war. In the event of any persons wishing to withdraw with their families when the Russian troops leave, the Ottoman authorities shall not oppose their departure [8] . ”

“ For this reason, whenever a forward movement of our army was resolved upon, they surprised the camp towards morning, the day before it was to be executed, and routed so large an army of the Ottoman race, without allowing them to open their eyes, all being buried in sleep. We have learned by experience, that as the infidel race are very cunning and deceitful, they have often effected, merely by wiles and stratagems, things which we never have been, nor ever will be, able to bring about with our hundred thousand men. ”

“ The population of the Ottoman Empire is of a most heterogeneous character, embracing Turks, Greeks, Slavs, Albanians, Armenians, Syrians, Arabs, Tartars, &c. The government is a pure despotism, and the Sultan is regarded as the Caliph or head of Islam; military service is compulsory, and the army on a war footing numbers not less than 750,000, but the navy is small ”

“ At a time when the Eastern Question looms like a huge shadow over Europe, and when the very existence of the Turkish Empire is once more threatened, may I hope that this story of the military virtues of the Ottoman troops may not be found without real interest? ”

“ The enlistment of Bulgaria and the obliteration of Serbia made possible more active German assistance to Turkey, and during the latter months of 1915 and the early months of 1916 strenuous efforts were made to bring the Turkish military machine to a high point of efficiency. Large numbers of German staff officers were despatched to Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia, and Turkish officers were brought to the French and Russian fronts to learn the methods of modern warfare. The Prussian system of military service was adopted throughout the Ottoman Empire, and exemptions were reduced to a minimum. ”