Ottoman Studies

Gabor Agoston examines the weapons technology and armaments industries of the Ottoman Empire, the only Islamic empire that threatened Europe on its own territory in the Gunpowder Age. Considering topics such as technology transfer, the integration of firearms in the Ottoman army and navy, and saltpeter and gunpowder production, the book demonstrates the success of the Ottoman military machine against its European and Muslim rivals from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries.

The Ottoman Empire had reached the peak of its power, presenting a very real threat to Western Christendom when in 1683 it suffered its first major defeat, at the Siege of Vienna.  Tracing the empire's conflicts of the next two centuries, The Ottoman Wars: An Empire Besieged examines the social transformation of the Ottoman military system in an era of global imperialism Spanning more than a century of conflict, the book considers challenges the Ottoman government faced from both neighbouring Catholic Habsburg Austria and Orthodox Romanov Russia, as well as - arguably more importantly - from military, intellectual and religious groups within the empire.  Using close analysis of select campaigns, Virginia Aksan first discusses the Ottoman Empire's changing internal military context, before addressing the modernized regimental organisation under Sultan Mahmud II after 1826.  Featuring illustrations and maps, many of which have never been published before, The Ottoman Wars draws on previously untapped source material to provide an original and compelling account of an empire near financial and societal collapse, and the successes and failures of a military system under siege.  The book is a fascinating study of the decline of an international power, raising questions about the influence of culture on warfare. 

Ottoman Warfare is an impressive and original examination of the Ottoman military machine, detailing its success in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Focusing primarily on the evolution of the Ottoman military organization and its subsequent impact on Ottoman society in a period of change, the book redresses the historiographical imbalance in the existing literature, analyzing why the Ottomans were the focus of such intense military concern.Several books have been written on the fiscal, technological, tactical, and political dimensions of Ottoman military history; little has been attempted, however, to recreate or evoke the physical and psychological realities of war as experienced by Ottoman soldiers. Rhoads Murphey seeks to rectify this imbalance, favoring operational matters and providing a detailed study of a number of campaigns: we are offered, for example, vivid descriptions of life in the trenches with the diggers at Baghdad in 1638, who dug a total of five miles at 50 yards a day. Murphey's analysis does not focus on the Ottoman's success or failure in particular campaigns per se; he focuses on understanding the actual process of how the Ottoman military machine worked.This long-awaited work will become the definitive study of Ottoman warfare in the early modern period, and will be invaluable to those studying the Ottoman Empire and early modern European history in general.

Osmanlılar'ın üç kıtaya yayılmasını sağlayan seferlerin başarı sırrının kahramanlık ve gözü peklikte olduğu kadar; her ayrıntısıyla düşünülmüş, planlanmış ve hayata geçirilmiş organizasyonlarda yattığının ne kadar farkındayız? Haydi Osmanlı Sefere, seferlerin daha az bilinen bu yönüne, Prut Seferi örneğinde ışık tutmayı amaçlayan bir çalışma. Yıllar süren arşiv çalışmaları, 1711'deki bu seferi neredeyse her ayrıntısıyla gözümüzde canlandıracak pek çok bilgiyi bize sunuyor. Padişahın bir diz fikir sorma toplantısından sonra savaşı resmen ilanından, sefer güzergâhı üzerindeki hazırlıkların başlatılması için gönderilen emirlere... Ordunun duraklayacağı her menzilde askere taze ekmek sunabilmek için inşa edilen fırınlardan, yiyecek ve içecekleri soğutmak için kış sonunda faaliyete geçen buzculara... Yeniçeri ordusunun İstanbul'dan şenliklerle uğurlanışından, pek çok eyaletten gelen askerlerin belirlenen buluşma noktalarına ulaşmasına kadar döneme ait özgün belgeler, rengârenk minyatür resimler eşlik ediyor.

Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda askerî yenilgilerin entelektüel ortamı hızla etkilediği dönem Balkan Savaşları’dır. İmparatorluk fikri siyasi elitin zihninde de hızla tükenirken, milliyetçilik dönemin fikir atmosferini ele geçirmiştir. Kaybı telafi etmenin yolunu askerî başarılarda gören bu anlayış, “silahlanmış millet” (millet-i müsellaha) fikrini işlemeye koyulmuştur. Zorunlu askerlik uygulamalarıyla beraber, gençlerin savaşa hazırlanması, askerî eğitimin beden terbiyesi ve gençlere yönelik dernekler vasıtasıyla “tabana” yayılması dönemin uygulamalarından birisidir. Sanem Yamak Ateş, Asker Evlatlar Yetiştirmek’te II. Meşrutiyet döneminde kurulan paramiliter gençlik örgütlerini tüm yönleriyle araştırıyor. Bu derneklerin kuruluşunu önceleyen fikirleri, derneklerin işleyişini ve gençler üzerindeki etkisini inceliyor. Türk Gücü Cemiyeti, İzciler Ocağı, Osmanlı Güç Dernekleri’ni askerî “talim ve terbiye” açısından değerlendirdikten sonra Osmanlı Genç Dernekleri’ni etraflı bir biçimde ele alıyor. II. Meşrutiyet’te sosyal Darwinizmden milliyetçiliğe, beden terbiyesinden militarizme uzanan süreçleri yalnızca fikrî yönleriyle değil, uygulama ve etkileriyle birlikte değerlendiriyor. Asker Evlatlar Yetiştirmek, etkisi II. Meşrutiyet’le sınırlı kalmayan, sonraki kuşaklara da aktarılan militarist “alışkanlıkların” kökenlerini çarpıcı biçimde ortaya koyuyor.

This two-part volume offers a comprehensive account of the conflict between the Ottoman and Mamluk Empires. Part One explores Ottoman-Mamluk relations from their inception in the middle of the 14th century to the laying of the foundations of the conflict in the second half of the 15th century. Part Two offers a detailed description of the actual war of 1485-91, and analyzes it from various angles including military, economic, and diplomatic.Based largely on Ottoman, Mamluk and Italian primary sources documentary and narrative the volume helps to understand the second and final war between the Ottomans and Mamluks in 1516-17, which resulted in the downfall of the Mamluk Empire and the firm establishment of Ottoman power in the Middle East.

The first general history in English of the Ottoman Army in the First World War, Ordered to Die is based on newly available Turkish archival and official sources. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Ottoman Army performed astonishingly well in the field and managed to keep fighting until the end of the war, long after many other armies had quit the field. It fought a multi-front war against sophisticated and capable enemies, including Great Britain, France, and Russia. Erickson challenges conventional thinking about Ottoman war aims, Ottoman military effectiveness, and the influence of German assistance. Written at the strategic and operational levels, this study frames the Turkish military contributions in a unitary manner by establishing linkages between campaigns and theaters. It also contains the first detailed discussion of Ottoman operations in Galicia, Romania, and Macedonia. Erickson provides a wealth of information on Ottoman Army organization, deployments, strategy, and staff procedures. He examines with particular attention the army's role in the Armenian deportations and the intelligence available to the Turks in 1914 and 1915. Appendixes include biographies of important commanders, the efforts of the Ottoman Air Force, Ottoman casualties, as well as a wartime chronology.

No critical analysis has ever examined the specific reasons for the Ottoman defeat. Erickson's study fills this gap by studying the operations of the Ottoman Army from October 1912 through July 1913, and by providing a comprehensive explanation of its doctrines and planning procedures. This book is written at an operational level that details every campaign at the level of the army corps. More than 30 maps, numerous orders of battle, and actual Ottoman Army operations orders illustrate how the Turks planned and fought their battles. Of particular note is the inclusion of the only detailed history in English of the Ottoman X Corps' Sarkoy amphibious invasion. Also included are definitive appendix about Ottoman military aviation and a summary of the Turks' efforts to incorporate the lessons learned from the war into their military structure in 1914. The Ottoman Empire fought the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 against the joint forces of Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia--and was decisively defeated. The Ottoman Army is frequently depicted as a mob of poorly clad, faceless Turks inept in their attempts to fight a modern war. Yet by 1912, the Ottoman Army, which was constructed on the German model, was in many ways more advanced than certain European armies.

The articles compiled in Ottoman War & Peace. Studies in Honor of Virginia H. Aksan, honor the prolific career of a foremost scholar of the Ottoman Empire, and engage in redefining the boundaries of Ottoman historiography. Blending micro and macro approaches, the volume covers topics from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries related to the Ottoman military and warfare, biography and intellectual history, and inter-imperial and cross-cultural relations. Through these themes, this volume seeks to bring out and examine the institutional and socio-political complexity of the Ottoman Empire and its peoples. Contributors are Eleazar Birnbaum, Maurits van den Boogert, Palmira Brummett, Frank Castiglione, Linda Darling, Caroline Finkel, Molly Greene, Jane Hathaway, Colin Heywood, Douglas Howard, Christine Isom-Verhaaren, Dina Rizk Khoury, Ethan L. Menchinger, Victor Ostapchuk, Leslie Peirce, James A. Reilly, Will Smiley, Mark Stein, Kahraman Şakul, Veysel Şimşek, Feryal Tansuğ, Baki Tezcan, Fatih Yeşil, Aysel Yıldız.

From the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, the janissaries were the scourge of Europe. Their ferocious spirit allowed their masters to extend their conquests from the Danube to the Euphrates. Their power was such that even sultans trembled.But by the end of the eighteenth century, they were more interested in trade than war. Ill-disciplined and arrogant, both rulers and ruled turned against them. Yet their political power was so extensive it took years before they could be suppressed.

Ottoman naval technology underwent a transformation under the rule of Sultan Selim III. New types of sailing warships such as two- and three-decked galleons, frigates and corvettes began to dominate the Ottoman fleet, rendering the galley-type oared ships obsolete. This period saw technological innovations such as the adoption of the systematic copper sheathing of the hulls and bottoms of Ottoman warships from 1792-93 onwards and the construction of the first dry dock in the Golden Horn.The changing face of the Ottoman Navy was facilitated by the influence of the British, Swedish and French in modernising both the shipbuilding sector and the conduct of naval warfare. Through such measures as training Ottoman shipbuilders, heavy reliance on help from foreign powers gave way to a new trajectory of modernization. Using this evidence Zorlu argues that although the Ottoman Empire was a major and modern independent power in this period, some technological dependence on Europe remained.

Of all the major navies of the 19th century, that of the Ottoman Empire is least known. Modern Turkish archives preserve a quantity of material upon which the authors have drawn.

The Ottoman Mobilization of Manpower in the First World War offers a multi-faceted story of how the Ottoman Empire tried to cope with the challenges of permanent mobilization under total war conditions which reshaped state-society relations. By focusing mainly on Anatolia and the Muslim population, Mehmet Beşik i argues that the conditions of mobilization pushed the Ottoman state to become more centralized, authoritarian and nationalist, but the increasing dependence on people paradoxically also enlarged their space of action vis- -vis state authority. The book demonstrates that people's responses to the state's needs constituted a wide spectrum ranging from voluntary support to open resistance such as desertion. In turn, the state responded by revising its mobilization policies and reformulating new mechanisms of control at the local level.

The study focuses on the mutual transfer of military knowledge between the German and the Ottoman/ Turkish army between the 1908 Young Turk revolution and the death of Atatürk in 1938. Whereas the Ottoman and later the Turkish army were the main beneficiaries of this selective appropriation, the German armed forces evaluated their (prospective) ally's military experiences to a lesser extent. Through the analysis of archival and published sources and memoir literature the study provides evidence for the impact of this exchange on the armies of both countries and on the Turkish civil society. Indeed, the officer corps in both countries was a small but influential group of the society for the further development of their nations.