Educating the Peasants: The Ottoman Army and Enlisted Men in Uniform

Abstract

Writing on the republican Turkish Anny in an article published in 1960, Lerner and Robinson observed that the Turkish army performed a modernizing function in the 1950s. They reasoned that for the army to absorb large quantities of sophisticated weaponry, Turkish soldiers had to be educated in their use and maintenance. An important by-product of this military schooling was that Turkish soldiers acquired 'some degree of literacy... new habits of dress, of cleanliness, of teamwork. In the most profound sense, they acquired a new personality.' The army became a major agency of social change precisely because it spread a new sense of identity and new skills and concepts as well as new machines. Consequently, young men from isolated villages now suddenly felt themselves to be part of the larger society.' While the Turkish soldiers of the republican army in the 1950s may have benefited from formal schooling, the Ottoman soldiers of the early twentieth century did not. Yet, the lack of a formal education programme does not mean that the army did not 'educate' the men in informal ways and impart them with 'modern' attitudes. While recognizing the value of a formal education, many Ottoman officers believed that military service in and of itself was an educational experience.2 This article will answer the question of whether service in the Ottoman army was at the least a qualitatively new experience for the Ottoman peasant soldiers, bringing them even if against their will into contact with a world beyond their villages. Did the military service, with its formal hierarchy, abstract rules and complex patterns of behaviour introduce the Ottoman peasant to a world away from life in the