Ottoman Warfare, 1500-1700
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Ottoman warfare, 1500–1700 Warfare and History General Editor Jeremy Black Professor of History, University of Exeter Published European warfare, 1660–1815 Jeremy Black The Great War, 1914–18 Spencer C. Tucker German armies: war and German politics, 1648–1806 Peter H. Wilson Ottoman warfare, 1500–1700 Rhoads Murphey Wars of imperial conquest in Africa, 1830–1914 Bruce Vandervort Forthcoming titles include War and Israeli society since 1948 Ahron Bregman Air power in the age of total war John Buckley English warfare, 1511–1641 Mark Charles Fissel European and Native American warfare, 1675–1815 Armstrong Starkey Seapower and naval warfare Richard Harding Vietnam Spencer C. Tucker Ottoman warfare, 1500–1700 Rhoads Murphey University of Birmingham © Rhoads Murphey, 1999 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. Published in the UK in 1999 by UCL Press UCL Press Limited Taylor & Francis Group 1 Gunpowder Square London EC4A 3DE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001. The name of University College London (UCL) is a registered trade mark used by UCL Press with the consent of the owner. ISBNs: 1-85728-388-0HB 1-85728-389-9PB British Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-203-01597-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-17347-3 (Glassbook Format) Contents List of illustrations viii List of tables ix Maps(1–5) xi Preface: Scope and purpose of work xvii Acknowledgements xxi 1 General political framework: the evolving context 1 War on the Eastern Front 3 War on the Western Front 6 Wars of the Sacred Alliance, 1684–99 9 2 Material constraints on Ottoman warfare: the immutable context 13 Technological constraints 13 Cost constraints 16 Physical barriers and environmental constraints 20 Motivational limits 25 Limits of state power and coercion 30 3 Military manpower and military spending: an attempt at realistic assessment 35 Military manpower 35 Military spending 49 v CONTENTS 4 Troop movement and army transport 65 Ottoman army transport: the scale of the challenge 70 Transport and transport costs in Ottoman land warfare 73 5 Provisioning the army 85 Grain provision 93 6 Ottoman methods of warfare: experience, competence and adherence to standard norms of contemporary military practice 105 The Ottomans and current military practice 107 Military architecture and the cost of modernization 111 Ottoman combat (Part One): the major siege as exemplified by the investment of Baghdad in 1638 115 Ottoman combat (Part Two): operational realities during lesser campaigns as exemplified by the pattern of military engagements during the 1664 campaigning season 122 Ottoman combat (Part Three): the nature of combat and its part in war-related fatalities 129 7 Motivational and psychological aspects of Ottoman warfare 133 Leadership and command 134 Troop motivation and the role of ideology and religious inspiration 141 Contemporary Ottoman chroniclers’ views on the material motive in warfare 147 Army ceremonial 152 Pre-battle incentives, post-battle rewards 160 8 The aftereffects of Ottoman warfare: a review of the essential elements of Ottoman pragmatism in the military sphere 169 The destructive capacity of war 170 Ottoman military pragmatism 175 The redistributive function of Ottoman warfare 179 vi CONTENTS 9 Conclusion – war and social transformation in the Ottoman empire 185 Fiscal pressures 186 Military recruitment and social transformation 190 Appendices 193 Notes 211 Bibliography 259 Index 267 vii List of illustrations 1 Army market place, ordu bazar 92 2 Men pulling field cannon 112 3 Besieging a fortress in the Yemen 120 4 Banquet given in honour of the commander before departure on the eastern campaign 153 5 Departure of Osman II’s army from Istanbul on the campaign against Hotin in 1621/1030 H. Religious officials carrying banner of the prophet Muhammad, the alem-i serif 154 viii List of tables Table 2.1 Increase in Janissary ranks shown as a proportion of all salaried staff 16 Table 2.2 Increase in salary payments to the Janissaries shown as a proportion of total salary payments 17 Table 2.3 Proportion of army’s time spent in rest and march (comparison of European and Asian spheres of operation) 22 Table 3.1 Potential strength of timariot army circa 1527 38 Table 3.2 Potential strength of timariot army circa 1631 40 Table 3.3 Prescribed/putative size of the timariot army in 1609 42 Table 3.4 Annual treasury payments for the salaries of the sultan’s standing troops and other (mostly non-military) palace staff 44 Table 3.5 Size and composition of sultan’s standing army (kapu kulu) 1527–1670 45 Table 3.6 Figures contrasting total potential Janissary strength with numbers actually deployed in battle 47 Table 3.7 Treasury savings from reductions in the ranks of the permanent standing cavalry regiments 1609–92 52 Table 3.8 Costs for garrisoning fortresses in newly-conquered Ottoman provinces in the Caucasus circa 1585 54 Table 4.1 Requisition and purchase of camels for army transport at the time of the Erivan campaign of 1635 76 Table 4.2 Data on grain transport by ox cart showing the typical load factor for oxen 78 Table 4.3 Per kile/per kilometre transport costs (in akçes) using various modes of transport 81 ix Maps 1. The Ottoman position in the West at the end of the seventeenth century xi MAPS 2. The Ottoman position north of the Black Sea xii MAPS 3. The Ottoman position in the East at the turn of the seventeenth century xiii MAPS 4. Distance of potential battlefields with reference to Istanbul xiv MAPS 5. River systems of Hungary xv Preface: Scope and purpose of work The period 1500 to 1700 forms a period of Ottoman dynastic history when the Ottomans gave particular emphasis to their frontiers with Europe. While other fronts were activated against Iran in 1514, Syria and Egypt in 1517, and into the lower Tigris-Euphrates in the decade following the Ottoman capture of Baghdad in 1535, from the fall of Buda in 1541 to the close of the seventeenth century the Ottomans were most consistently concerned with the defence (and, periodically, the extension) of their trans-Danubian possessions. This channelling of Ottoman effort was the product (and an Ottoman response to) contemporary political circumstances. While the rise of the Safavid dynasty in the East from 1502 posed a potential threat to the Ottomans, the unification of the crowns of Spain and Austria under Charles V from 1519 posed a present and real danger to Ottoman strategic interests. Despite the redivision of territories at the abdication of Charles in 1556 and the succession of his brother Ferdinand (the First) to his eastern possessions and of his son Philip (the Second) to his western and northern possessions, the Ottomans had by that time irreversibly committed themselves to anti- Habsburg alliances and strategic positions of their own that kept them at the centre of Middle European politics until the end of the seventeenth century. While it will not be possible, given the wide scope of our coverage of general military developments over a two-century period, to focus in detail on developments in any one of the lands that formed the post-1540 Ottoman empire, a natural bias towards events on the northwest frontier represents the actual pattern of Ottoman military involvements in the period. Of the three most active fronts – the Caucasian, the Mesopotamian and the Hungarian – it was the latter which persistently claimed the lion’s share of Ottoman resources and concentration of effort. The sheer size of the post-1540 Ottoman empire necessitated such a balancing of xvii PREFACE interests and commitments. Resources and surpluses from one area were used by the Ottomans to good effect to subsidize and support military activity in another, and for most of the period the empire’s size was a source, not of increased vulnerability, but rather of strength. From the mid-sixteenth century the Austrian military border along the northwest frontier, forming a 370-mile arch extending from Kosice on the north and east to Senj in the south and west, was guarded by a string of more than 50 forts and fortresses.1 By 1600, with the addition of Kanice (Nagykanizsa) as the fourth province of Ottoman Hungary, the Ottomans were able to match the Austrians in number and kind, and the balance struck in the early years of the century was little changed until the 1660s. At the other extreme, although the Ottoman-Safavid frontier stretched over 600 miles from Batum on the Black Sea to Basra on the Shatt al-Arab, only a small proportion of the full extent was very heavily garrisoned or defended. Apart from confined periods of exceptional activity (as for example during the 1580s and again in the 1630s) the costs of maintaining the Ottomans’ presence in this sphere could be offset by relying mostly on local resources. In view of these realities, the weight of evidence which we will draw upon for our narrative comes from the mid-sixteenth century onwards and predominantly from the European sphere of operations. References to events affecting other spheres and periods are unsystematic and included mostly to highlight parallel institutional developments or as illustrations of general phenomena. In the book coverage of principal themes has been organized in accordance with the successive phases of warfare: before, during and after. The first part (Chapters 1–3) treats preparatory and planning aspects of warfare; Chapters 4– 7 are concerned with operational matters; and a final chapter considers various aspects of the post-war impact of military activity.