SULTAN IV. MURAD DÖNEMİNDE OSMANLI KALELERİ AVRUPA’DA HUDUT BOYLARI: 1630 CİVARI MACAR GARNİZONLARINI ANLAMLANDIRMAK

Abstract

Tangible evidence regarding Ottoman military entity in the early modern period is provided by the frontier garrisons. Therefore, studies of Ottoman military history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have started to focus on the garrisons on the Hungarian frontier. The present study undertakes a similar attempt but with a particular focus on the border garrisons stationed in the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623-1640). Both provincial (pay lists and treasury registers) and central registers (central treasury register in Istanbul) provide us with data that render it possible to have a rough idea regarding the garrisons troops. Thus, this study aims at a comparison of the Hungarian frontier troops with those of other Ottoman provinces in Europe. Furthermore, a similar comparison will be made by comparing Ottoman frontiers with the troops stationed across the border, i.e., the troops of the Ottoman rival states. As a result, the present study argues that the Ottoman administration placed the lion’s share of its military entity/garrison troops on the western frontier against the Habsburgs.