Ottoman Armies Research Articles

1853-56 OSMANLI-RUS HARBİ’NDE DOĞU CEPHESİNDE BİR İNGİLİZ SUBAY: YARBAY WILLIAM FENWICK WILLIAMS'IN ASKERÎ RAPORLARI

Bu çalışma 19. yüzyılın ikinci yarısında modern savaşların başlangıcı sayılan Kırım Savaşı'nın doğu cephesine odaklanmaktadır. Bilindiği üzere Kırım Savaşı, Avrupalı büyük güçlerin ittifak hâlinde Slav yayılmacılığına karşı koyduğu ve modern teknolojilerin harp için kullanıldığı ilk savaş idi. Osmanlı Devleti hem ekonomik hem de harp becerisi açısından bu savaşı yürütecek yeterli donanıma sahip değildi. Ancak dönemi itibarıyla İngiltere ve Fransa gibi devletlerin deniz aşırı politikaları ve dış tehdit algıları, onları Osmanlı-Rus anlaşmazlığında Türklere ekonomik ve askerî destek vermeye mecbur kılmıştı. O nedenle Müttefikler, Osmanlı ordularının Ruslara karşı savaşma kabiliyetini artırmaya çalışırken diğer yandan da önemli subaylarını Türk ordusuna görevlendirmişlerdi. Müttefikler, Kırım'da yoğun çarpışmalar yaşadığından 1853-56 Osmanlı-Rus Harbi, tarihe daha çok Kırım Harbi olarak geçmiştir. Oysa aynı yıllarda Osmanlı orduları doğuda da Ruslara karşı ciddi mücadeleler yürütmüştür. Kırım'a nispeten coğrafyanın ve iklim koşullarının savaşın seyrine önemli etki ettiği Doğu cephesi bu bakımdan Kırım'ın popülaritesinin gölgesinde kalmıştır. Fakat savaş yıllarında aynı durum söz konusu olmadığı için Birleşik Krallık başarılı subaylarından William Fenwick Williams'ı Erzurum'da konuşlanan Anadolu ordularına müttefikler adına göndermiştir. Williams'ın bu doğrultuda İstanbul'daki İngiliz elçiliğine yazdığı raporlar, dağılma sürecindeki Osmanlı Devleti'nin ordusunu anlamamız açısından önemlidir. Çünkü Williams'ın aynı zamanda Osmanlı merkezine gönderdiği direktifler de Türk ordu yapısının değişmesinde etkili olabiliyordu. Dolayısıyla bu çalışma, 1853-56 Osmanlı-Rus Harbi esnasında Williams'ın gönderdiği askerî raporlara odaklanmakta, onların analizine çalışmaktadır.

Digital Geographies and Virtual Landscape Archaeology : Reconstructing the Iron Gates Castle System Under the Miasma of COVID-19

The Iron Gates gorge system is formed by the convergence of the Carpathians and Balkan mountain ranges that collide and plunge directly into the Danube River (Fig. 1). The geographical conditions of this region have created a frontier zone in different periods, and the historical context of this article deals specifically with the period between 1429 and c. 1435 when this castle system was placed under the control of a contingent from the Teutonic Order to help defend the Kingdom of Hungary against an impending Ottoman invasion. The Teutonic Order’s mission was a military expedition and King Sigismund’s use of a contingent from the Teutonic Order as a military force in this region was a part of his overall strategy to protect his kingdom from further invasion by Ottoman armies under Sultan Murad II (1404–1451). The Danube river, itself, at this time served as the frontier between the Kingdom of Hungary and the recently conquered Ottoman territory on the southern bank. The theme of this article centers on the application of traditional techniques of landscape archaeology to perform a military analysis of these fortifications in the Iron Gates castle chain using more novel avenues of research- given travel bans and other restrictions brought about by the on-going Corona-19 crisis.

Coins of the Ottoman Sultans Found in the Territory of the Czech Republic from 1996 to 2018

Ottoman coins have been registered in the Czech Lands since the beginning of the 18th century and have been systematically documented since the mid-19th century. The latest actualization comes from 1996, but the following massive use of metal detectors showed a serious need for a new summarization. Up until 2018, some 151 hoards/ single finds with the Ottoman coins, forgeries, and jetons have been registered in the territory of the Czech Republic. These coins came to the mentioned territory via the Ottoman European expansion since the 16th century, and their flow reached its peak in the 17th century. The massive appearance of the Ottoman coins in Bohemia, partly in Moravia and Silesia, in the 17th century represents a phenomenon connected with the Thirty Years War. In south and central Moravia, it is explained by the direct military impact of the Ottoman armies. The later import of these coins is associated with the Napoleonic Wars and with the Austro-Hungarian period through its Balkan connection.

I papi delle crociate e delle Leghe Sante

Crusades’ task was to liberate Holy Places, while Holy Leagues were contracted to stop Ottoman armies marching toward Rome. In the first case popes organized military expeditions to the Holy Land, and in the case those who contracted the League swore fealty to the Pope. The article presents fifteen popes, twelve of them had a connection with calling Crusades, and three of them organized of Holy Leagues.

A NARRATIVE OF THE BATTLE OF NABLUS

The Battle of Megiddo which accelerated the termination of the World War One for the Ottoman Empire was fought between Yildirim Army Group, on behalf of the Ottoman Empire, and Egyptian Expeditionary Force supported by Rebellious Arab Army, in the name of the British Empire, between September 18th and October 31st, 1918 in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. The most of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under the command of Edmund Allenby was made up of the British, Australian, New Zealand and Indian Armies that had returned from the Gallipoli Campaign. The Yildirim Army Group commanded by Otto Liman von Sanders consisted of the 4th, 7th, and 8th Ottoman Armies. The 4th Army headquartered in Al-Salt, Jordan and its commander was Jamal (Marsinli) Pasha. Headquartered in Nablus, West Bank, the commandant of the 7th Army was Mustapha Kamal (Ataturk) Pasha. Javat (Chobanli) Pasha was in command of the 8th Army headquartered in Tul Karm, West Bank. At the end of the battle, the 4th, 7th and 8th Armies were all destroyed by the British and Australian aeroplanes’ bombings in such places as Al-Mafraq station, Valley of Faria and Masudiya Crossing respectively. Von Sanders who general-headquartered in Nazareth, Israel narrowly escaped from being captured by the troops of Desert Mounted Corps. Consequently, the Yildirim Army Group suffered a total of 100.000 casualties including dead, missed and prisoner. However, having taken lesson from this battle, Mustapha Kamal Ataturk, the founder of Republic of Turkey, planned and implemented the Great Offensive of War of Independence so as Allenby did. He also realised the importance of air force as a result of extreme suffering of retreating armies from aerial attacks. Thus, after concluding the Independence War successfully, he established the Turkish Aeronautical Association.

The International Dimension of the Romanians Anti-Ottoman Fight between the 15th and the 18th Century

The aim of our present paper, underwent several important historical stages, between the 15th and the 18th century, and ended up with the maintaining of the autonomy and territorial integrity of the Romanian Countries. We will also underline the main political moments to which these states took part during the centuries mentioned above, highlighting their place and role in the international relations from these times and the influence these relations had on their political situation. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire towards Central Europe was stopped by the isolated or coalesced resistance of the Romanian Countries. The Danube becoming the main European front for the Ottoman Empire during this period. The Romanians fought fiercely for the defense of their countries. Their anti-Ottoman fight, between the 15th and the 18th centuries, caused numerous defeats to the Ottoman armies, triggering important consequences for the state of the European continent.

Russia and the Caucasus

IntroductionRussian influence in the South Caucasus region has a long history. Czar Ivan IV initiated construction of the Tarki fortress on the Caspian Sea as early as 1559. In the subsequent centuries Russia gradually extended control over the surrounding area, culminating with the 1829 Treaty of Turkmenchay that established the Aras River as the expanding empire's boundary with Persia.1 Russian policy toward the region has been dominated by the goal of maintaining a position of influence ever since.Challenges to Russian control have arisen from both internal and external sources. Between 1817 and 1863 Russia fought what it calls the Caucasian War against coalitions of local tribes led by the famous Imam Shamil, eventually prevailing in armed conflict that was prosecuted with incredible savagery.2 Modem ethnic nationalism emerged in a Caucasus subjected to czarist control, with local identities conditioned by the status of Russia as a foil for resentment.3 A tradition of armed resistance to Russian control can be traced from the Caucasian War to the present. Against the background of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the peoples of the Caucasus launched unsuccessful attempts to consolidate independent states, and during the 1920s and 1930s there were numerous local uprisings in defiance of Soviet power.4 The tradition of militant opposition to Russian domination has reemerged in the post-Soviet period and remains important source of regional instability.The greater Caucasus has also been a subject of geopolitical competition between external actors. During the Crimean War (1853-1856) Ahmed Pasha led Ottoman armies into the Caucasus with the goal of pushing Russia north of the Terek and Kuban Rivers, a campaign whose logic (and unsuccessful outcome) was replayed by Ottoman forces under Enver Pasha during the First World War. The Caucasus was also the target of offensive by Hitler's Wehrmacht during the Second World War, who were beaten back by the Soviet armed forces at cost.5 Parvrn Darabadi characterizes these episodes as part of a larger struggle waged on the global chessboard to control a great Eurasian Central-Eurasia megazone including the Black and Caspian Seas.6 Today's conflicts for influence in the Caucasus region between the U.S. and its Western allies and the Russian Federation fit neatly into this tradition.The promise of a new beginning offered by the dismantling of the Soviet Union has not been fulfilled. Between 1994 and 1996 Boris Yeltsin's Russia fought the First Chechen War in attempt to squelch separatism in the Russian North Caucasus, with catastrophic results. In the Second Chechen War (1999-2009) Russia achieved greater success, but armed resistance in the region has not been eliminated. Against the background of the Soviet collapse Armenia and Azerbaijan waged war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, while Georgia lost control over the rebellious provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, giving rise to protracted or frozen conflicts that remain unresolved.7 Since the accession of Vladimir Putin to power in the Kremlin in 2000, Russia has committed to a long-term effort to restore something like its traditional dominant status. When the Georgian government of Mikhel Saakashvili sought to regain control over South Ossetia in 2008, Russia responded with a devastating invasion that seemed to make its goals, and the capacity that it possessed to pursue them, crystal clear.8Russia pursues assertive regional policy in the Caucasus consistent with its historical traditions, which portray the region as an inalienable part of the history and fate of Russia, as well as its contemporary geostrategic interests.9 Meanwhile, its longstanding role as a major player in the region continues to shape its perceptions and priorities. Russia's policy toward the South Caucasus is also aligned with a larger vision for post-Soviet Eurasia, which is viewed as the crucible within which Russia will eventually be able to reassert itself as a world power - a dynamic exposed once again by Russian reactions to the conflict that has been unfolding in Ukraine since 2013. …

The Battle for Syria, 1918-1920, by John D. Grainger

The for Syria, 1918-1920, by John D. Grainger. Woodbridge and Rochester, The Boydell Press, 2013. viii, 261 pp. $45.00 US (cloth). The for Syria, 1918-1920 is a sequel to author's The for Palestine, 1917 (Woodbridge and Rochester, 2006) that covers British conquest of southern Palestine from Ottoman Empire up to Jaffa-Jerusalem line, which they reached in December 1917. Grainger, a prolific author of ancient and modem military history, continues here his examination of this campaign, and, contrary to title of volume under review, focuses again on battlefields in Palestine and not in Syria, dealt with in only three out of book's seventeen chapters. Although Ottoman considered Palestine part of Greater Syria, along with Lebanon and Jordan, misleading title cannot be dismissed as a mere technicality, as it might leave reader with a substantively mistaken sense of entire campaign. Historically, operations conducted by Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) under General Edmund Allenby in 1918 were aimed, first and foremost, at occupying northern Palestine and destroying Turkish armies there. Their expansion into Syria proper was an evolving process in form of the appetite came with eating with neither prior political directive nor military pre-planning. According to Grainger (p. 73), Allenby's original final objective in what was later called Battle of Megiddo, was Acre (Akko)-Tiberias line in northern Palestine. Only dramatic success of his troops and rapid collapse of Ottoman armies west of Jordan convinced him to advance northwards to Damascus and late to Aleppo (Halab). The book is a traditional military history, highlighting military aspects and chronologically examining unfolding of 1918 campaign. It first introduces protagonists: Ottomans, EEF, Arabs and French. Then come separate chapters on two failed British attacks across Jordan in March and April (labeled post-factum as raids for face-saving purposes); removal from EEF of experienced divisions sent to reinforce Western Front following German Ludendorff Offensive and their replacement by untrained Indian troops (resulting in postponement of Allenby's offensive for several months); British planning and preparations for Megiddo offensive; infantry breakthrough and cavalry's deep penetration and advance; encirclement and destruction of Ottoman formations in northern Palestine; occupation of Damascus (the controversy over who was first to enter--Australians or Arabs--is still much alive); advance to northern Syria (where main enemy was not Ottomans but epidemics of malaria and influenza); and armistice in October 1918. The last four chapters are devoted to nineteen-month period between armistice and French withdrawal from Cilicia in May 1920, examining rebellion in Egypt, tricky process of EEF's demobilization, problems created by conflicting agreements made by Britain with France, Arabs, and Zionists, and finally with status of France in Levant. Grainger describes military operations in detail, often down to smallest tactical echelons, tediously specifying each of many regiments and battalions that participated in every engagement. …

How far West?: Lord Curzon's Transcaucasian (Mis)Adventure and the Defence of British India, 1918–23

In the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, the British, German and Ottoman armies sought to exploit the chaos within the southern borderlands of the old Tsarist Empire. The Ottomans primarily sought to recover lands lost in the nineteenth century while for Germany, expansion into the Black Sea littoral not only broke the Allied Naval Blockade, but also offered the possibility of menacing British India via the Central Asiatic or Transcaspian Railway. Britain's involvement in Transcaucasia during the final months of the Great War has received relatively little scholarly attention, being seen as little more than a bargaining chip to be used at the Paris Peace Conference. This article suggests that the true aim of Lord Curzon's Transcaucasian policy was the incorporation of Persia into Britain's informal empire, a task that he doggedly pursued all the way down to the 1923 Lausanne Conference.

Bitwa pod Kumanovem (23- 24 października 1912 roku). Siły zbrojne stron, działania operacyjne, konsekwencje militarne i polityczne

The battle of Kumanovo traditionally passes as the most important clash of the Serbian and the Ottoman armies in the First Balkan War. The analysis of the military potential of both parties to the conflict, the weapons used by both armies, the positioning of forces, the battle plans and their realizations made possible a new interpretation of the course of the battle and its real meaning. In the light of recent studies, as it turned out, the command of the first Serbian Army not only did not predict the fight to take place near Kumanovo, but it was also unaware of the military operations happening near Kumanovo until the end of the first day of the battle. The ultimate success of the Serbian Army in the battle came more as a result of a lucky coincidence and the actions of the commanding line officers, rather than conscious military operations of the Serbian command, which did not join in the battle until its final stage. As a result of the battle of Kumanovo, the Ottoman Vardar army commanded by Zeki Pasha, which was the strongest one at the site, indeed suffered large losses and was forced to retreat, however, it was not the ultimate defeat. The later battles of Kratovo and Kočani and especially of Prilep and Monastir proved to be decisive. The myth of Kumanovo as a decisive battle of the war served as dynastic propaganda for the Karađorđević and namely, for the current heir to the throne, Aleksander, who formally, assumed command of the fighting troops. The myth was established, though, and also nowadays, the battle of Kumanovo is treated as a symbol of Serbian victory, as, among other things the ceremonies held in 2012 at the 100th anniversary of the battle prove.

Cretan Muslim Immigrants, Imperial Governance and the ‘Production of Locality’ in the Late Ottoman Empire

This study is an attempt to shed light on the issue of Cretan Muslim emigration from Crete to the Ottoman Empire in order to analyse the multiple connections among the Ottoman state, immigrants and different localities in the Eastern Mediterranean in the late nineteenth century. Following the Cretan revolts of 1896 and 1897, the establishment of autonomous government on the island of Crete and the withdrawal of Ottoman armies from the island, Cretan Muslims began to emigrate from Crete to various places in the Ottoman Empire. Specifically, this article aims to deal with the migration of Cretan Muslims and to focus mainly on the year 1899, during which large numbers of Muslims were forced to leave their homes. The article suggests that Cretan Muslim emigration provides a good case for understanding the attitudes and policies of the Ottoman state towards migration, and the relationship between the state and immigrants, as well as for analysing the broader connections between Crete and the other localities of the Eastern Mediterranean. The working hypothesis is that in order to understand certain socio-political and demographic changes and transformations experienced within the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century, it is important to study the issue of Cretan Muslim immigration to Ottoman Anatolia. This presents an opportunity to investigate certain questions with regard to the dynamics of migration and also to discuss certain facts associated with migration within the late imperial context.

Clothes to Kill For: Uniforms and Politics in Ottoman Armies

Clothing and fashion, even down to colors or accessories, made it easy to visually judge status for subjects of the Ottoman Sultan. Green versus blue turban, hats, or high yellow boots were not simply a matter of personal taste but also a means of clearly stating religion, ethnicity, and class in the pre-nineteenth century Ottoman Empire. Sumptuary laws provided centuries of support for a system that made it possible to visually judge status. This tradition also made change difficult, especially when military reformists sought to graft European-style uniforms onto Muslim soldiery. Violence, some up to the level of regime change, was one result. This article examines resistance to martial fashion in the Ottoman and Egyptian militaries, and also, why nearly a century later, what was once revolutionary chic, morphed into symbols of a reactionary past.

The Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915

Mainstream western scholarship maintains that the Armenian insurrection of 1915 was never an actual threat to the security of the Ottoman state in the First World War and that the relocation of the Armenians of eastern Anatolia was unnecessary. In truth, no study of the Armenian insurrection and its effect on Ottoman military policy has ever been conducted. This article examines the Ottoman army's lines of communications architecture and logistics posture in eastern Anatolia in 1915. Armenian threats to the logistics and security of the Ottoman armies in Caucasia and Palestine are overlaid on this system. Evolving and escalatory Ottoman military policies are then explained in terms of threat assessments and contemporary counter-insurgency strategy. The article seeks to inform the reader why the Ottomans reacted so vigorously and violently to the events of the spring of 1915.

Of Time, Honor, and Memory: Oral Law in Albania

This essay provides a historical account of the role of oral tradition in passing on from generation to generation an ancient code of customary law that has shaped and dominated the lives of northern Albanians until well into the mid-twentieth century. This traditional body of customary law is known as the Kode of Leke Dukagjini. It represents a series of norms, mores, and injunctions that were passed down by word of mouth for generations and reputedly originally formulated by Leke Dukagjini, an Albanian prince and companion-in-arms to Albania’s national hero, George Kastriot Skanderbeg (1405-68). Leke Dukagjini ruled the territories of Pulati, Puka, Mirdita, Lura, and Luma in northern Albania—known today as the region of Dukagjini—until the Ottoman armies seized Albania’s northernmost city of Shkoder in 1479. Throughout the past five to six centuries this corpus of customary law has been referred to as Kanuni i Leke Dukagjinit, Kanuni i Malsise (the Code of the Highlands), or Kanuni i maleve (the Code of the Mountains). The “Code” is an inexact term, since Kanun, deriving from the Greek kanon, simultaneously signifies “norm,” “rule,” and “measure.” The Kanun, but most particularly the norm of vengeance, or blood taking, as its standard punitive apparatus, continue to this day to be a subject of historical, sociological, anthropological, and juridical interest involving various theoretical frames of reference from the dominant trends of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to today. The Kanun of Leke Dukagjini was not the only customary law in Albania. Some regions in the north attributed theirs to Skanderbeg (Kanuni i Skenderbeut—the Code of Skanderbeg), and in the south another Code (Kanuni i Laberise—the Code of Laberia) was enforced, although not as rigidly as the Kanun of Leke Dukagjini. Although the latter two are little known, they, too, are worthy of sociological and anthropological attention. Before the Ottoman Turks invaded Albania over 600 years ago, the country was divided into several petty principalities, none of which was sufficiently strong for long enough to subject a neighboring territory to its rule. Faced with the danger of Ottoman invasion, Skanderbeg was able to unite all of the Albanian princes and their territories under his unchallenged leadership in a single state. Leke Dukagjini was one of his closest friends and allies. They both were Christian crusaders and resisted the whole force of the Ottoman army for a quarter of a century. Although the Ottomans finally conquered Albania ten years after the death of Skanderbeg, they were

The Turks and ‘Europe’: The Argument from History

On 2 November 2002 Valerie Giscard D'Estaing made his now famous statement to Le Monde about the Turks' historical and cultural unsuitability for membership in the EU; he said it would be 'the end of the Union', as Turkey was 'a country that is close to Europe but not a European country'.' Inadvertently, Giscard D'Estaing did the Europhobes in Turkey and the Turcophobes in Europe a great service. By provoking the 'argument from history', he was merely voicing a feeling that many people in Europe and some in Turkey actually share. A British historian recently wrote: 'When in 1544 Francis I of France allowed the Turkish fleet to winter at Toulon, he was not merely giving assistance to the enemies of Christ (and more to the point, of Emperor Charles V). He was dissolving a centuries old antagonism. He was allowing Asia into Europe'.2 This certainly puts Giscard D'Estaing's statement into perspective. It looks as if 'Asia' advances into Europe in the shape of the Ottoman armies or navies. We have thus a sort of 'transportable Asia'. In a similar vein, when in 1791 the British Prime Minister William Pitt, during the OttomanRussian war of 1791, proposed sending British troops to help the Sultan against the Czar, he was reprimanded by Edmund Burke, who demanded: 'What have these worse than savages to do with the powers of Europe, but to spread war, devastation and pestilence among them?'3 Yet in the Crimean War the 'spreaders of pestilence' were to be supported in the very same theatre against the 'European' Russians. This article is an attempt to do two things. First, to put the Turkish/Ottoman relationship with Europe in a historical perspective, in a sense to respond to Giscard D'Estaing's argument from history; second to make some speculative remarks on how these might tie in with Turkey's present relations with the EU.

Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire (review)

Reviewed by: Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire John P. Dunn Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire. By Gábor Ágoston. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-52184313-8. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Tables. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvii, 277. $75.00. Gábor Ágoston's newest book is a much-needed addition to English language works dealing with Ottoman military affairs. Based on sound archival and other primary sources, it looks at the employment, manufacture, and cost of Turkish gunpowder weapons in the 1400s to 1700s. From the castle smashing kale-kob down to the infantryman's tüfenk (musket), Ágoston starts with a history of Ottoman gunpowder technology, and how it was employed on the battlefield and in siege warfare. He gives equal time to analyses of weapons manufacture, the artisans who did the work, and how it all was financed. Ottoman leaders embraced the new weapons after encountering gunpowder technology during their invasions of the Balkans in the 1300s and 1400s. By 1430, significant resources were expended to develop an artillery train, one that was powerful enough to take on the heavily fortified city of Constantinople twenty-three years later. By the 1500s, a mix of field artillery and infantry weapons allowed Ottoman armies to blast away opponents in major battles like Çaldiran or Mohács. Ágoston sees this rapid evolution as a clear sign that Ottoman Sultans were "flexible" and pragmatic" in their approach to new technologies—a marked difference between themselves [End Page 218] and leaders of rival Middle Eastern powers like Mamluk Egypt or Safavid Iran. Reading Guns for the Sultan leaves one with the strong impression that Ottoman armies were as good, or maybe even better, than their European counterparts. Ágoston portrays a state self-sufficient in supplies of raw materials and workmen—vital ingredients needed to produce the "high-tech" weapons of the early modern world. He also discusses the Turks as disseminators of weapons technology in Central Asia, the Middle East, North-East Africa, and South-East Asia. Another important contribution is Ágoston's critique of the "Islamic conservatism" theory that portrays Muslim nations as technically impaired by religious dogma. He cogently argues that special interest groups within the armed forces, like the Yeni çeri (Janissary) or Sipahi Corps, combined with terrible economic problems, endemic through much of the 1600s and 1700s, were the real culprits. "Perceptions of honor and manliness," as he puts it, rather than Islamic conservatism, play a role in slowing the advance of Ottoman gunpowder technology during the 1600s. Combine these with regular revenue shortfalls, which made it difficult to hire and train artillerymen, or released musket-armed irregulars joining the growing ranks of bandit or separatist forces and the result was a significant decline in Ottoman military potential. Even then, Ottoman artillery and small arms were not tremendously behind European designs. Rather, Austrian and Russian armies had the advantage of "better drill, command and control, and bureaucratic administration." Guns for the Sultan is a good book. It contains extensive notes with frequent references to contrary points of view. Readers interested in military technology, siege warfare, and Balkan or Near Eastern history, should consider it for their libraries. John P. Dunn Valdosta State University Valdosta, Georgia Copyright © 2006 Society for Military History

The Euro-Islamic Roots of Secularity: A Difficult Equation

AbstractThis article probes into the issue of secularity as a main node of the historic construction of modern power and the modern state in Europe. It builds an interpretative arch ranging from the Spanish Reconquista, stretching through the European Wars of Religion and the resistance to the "Turkish Threat" of the encroaching Ottoman armies, and reaching into the contemporary predicament of the presence of a growing population of Muslim background in the key states of Western Europe, notably those involved in the Reconquista, the resistance to the "Turkish Threat", and in the Wars of Religion. The analysis matches the interpretation of these historical traumata with philosophical and sociological reflections, from Spinoza and Vico to Asad and Casanova. The conclusions point to the inherent ambivalence and arbitrary character of the modern secular distinction between religion and politics. They suggest that the philosophical utopia of secularity is still an open issue for the European states and that the growing presence of Islam in Europe helps give evidence of the limits of the secular arrangements reigning in the continent thus far.

Did the diverson of a small water course change the course of the history?

The 600th anniversary of the Battle of Ankara between the Mongol and Ottoman armies—the subject of this article—was observed on 28 July.Throughout history, water has played an important role in military camgaigns and battles.

Magyar Judah: Constructing a new Canaan in Eastern Europe

During the first half of the sixteenth century, Hungarian society underwent two dramatic changes. Firstly, Suleiman the Magnificent’s Ottoman armies advanced into the northern Balkans, causing the collapse of the Hungarian kingdom after the battle at Mohács in August 1526. Hungary subsequently became divided into three parts, with the Ottomans controlling the central and southern counties, the Habsburgs governing Royal Hungary from the Croatian coast to the mountains of Upper Hungary, and a series of native nobles elected to rule over the Transylvanian principality, which included the counties of the eastern Hungarian plain. Secondly, the spread of Protestant ideas about religious reform brought confessional division to Hungary. The initial reform was to a large degree driven by a desire to purify the Catholic Church, whose spiritual credentials were badly discredited by the Ottoman invasion. By 1570 German- and Hungarian-speaking towns and most Hungarian magnates and nobles had abandoned the Catholic Church. German-speakers and nobles in western Hungarian counties on the whole adopted Lutheranism. Calvinism meanwhile came to dominate religious life in the eastern counties, and also received broad support within Transylvania, although some Hungarian towns and Szeklers in Transylvania instead embraced anti-Trinitarianism. Confessional loyalty across Hungary was decided by a variety of factors including patterns of communication and trading networks, the pre-Reformation structures of ecclesiastical organization, and feudal, regional, and family ties. Linguistic barriers were also crucial in determining adherence to a particular religion, with Lutheranism widely supported by German-speakers whilst Calvinism was almost exclusively the preserve of Magyar-speakers. It seems clear that some sense of linguistic or ethnic community assisted both Protestant Churches to reinforce attachment to their confessions.

Competition and Coincidence: Venetian Trading Interests and Ottoman Expansion in the Early Sixteenth-century Levant

Historiography generally has excluded the “oriental” empires from the competition for world economic power. The Chinese sailed to Africa in the early fifteenth century. Then one day the ships “just stopped coming.” The Mongols “swept” across the steppes for the love of conquest, pastures, space. The Ottoman armies marched to Yemen, Tabriz, Vienna. Yet this marching was somehow instinctual, a reaction of blood, training, temperament. One might suppose that this “oriental” failure to be an economic contender resulted from a state of mind rather than an act of will, a naiveté or an intellectual conceit rather than a lack of the power to compete. Thus, while Eurocentric historiography has not disarmed the Ottomans, it has mentally incapacitated them, thereby dispensing with the need to evaluate economies of conquest and ignoring competition with European states for markets rather than territory.