1700s Ottoman army lists?

[vtsaogames]

I am afraid this is largely a wargamer myth. The kind of forces you are thinking about disappeared 100 to 200 years before this time. The Austrian Grenzers were modelled on the Provincial infantry I mentioned, who indeed were also often Balkans infantry. The Austrian hussars were modelled on the Moldavian/Wallachian cavalry I mentioned who were also Balkans troops. The Ottoman provincials fought in 'line' in battles rather than being skirmishers like grenzers of the earlier 18th century. Both these Ottoman types could be called 'irregular' but that depends on what exactly you mean by this. They were generally paid professional soldiers but didn't fight in the 'regular' way Europeans thought of it, but then neither did the rest of the army.

I have no doubt various other types would feature in small scale actions in the 'little war' - on both sides. Peasants armed with improvised weapons, hastily raised militia, poorly armed garrison types, etc. But all these were not part of either sides normal troops used in the actual army at this time.

There's some cold water on my face. I must admit this period is one where my knowledge is mostly from wargame publications. I should be wary of wargamer history since periods that I do know more about point up the loose nature of such game "history".

For many years I bought the gaming notion that the crowned nations of Europe ganged up on the new French Republic. Then I discovered that the French Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria (largely for domestic reasons) and following that, war on just about any ancien regime power that blinked at them. So much for the quality of history to be found in some wargame rules. Likewise the old saw that all the early opponents of Bonaparte were geriatric incompetents. Beaulieu fit that profile, but Alvintzy gave the young Corsican some anxious moments and Melas came within a hair of defeating Bonaparte at Marengo. Geriatric he may have been, but no incompetent.

I recall working on SPI's old board game Musket and Pike, which featured the "super" Swedish cavalry, since revealed to be of more human proportions. It was a fun game, even if the history behind it was dubious. I should review where my knowledge comes from. If from actual research, good. If it comes from canned history and army lists from game rules, beware.

[WFGamers]

There's some cold water on my face. I must admit this period is one where my knowledge is mostly from wargame publications. I should be wary of wargamer history since periods that I do know more about point up the loose nature of such game "history".

You are not alone and indeed see my post on being wary of some non gaming material. A lot of the 'history' books are very weak on the Ottomans, mainly due to a lack of good Ottoman sources. So they are often very good on the 'others' the Ottomans are fighting but just rehashes of out of date material on the Ottomans themselves. One of the things that makes the war of 1711 interesting is that the Ottomans have 'Western/European' allies and so we have good accounts of them from these sources.

Things are changing though as there are now some good works coming out in English and more interest in the subject in Turkish academic circles.

[ArisK]

Hello Lluís,
Glad to see that inspiration has returned! There's a detailed list of the Ottoman Army that went into the Peloponnese by Brue, I think it's included in Hatzopoulos' La Dernière guerre entre la république de Venise et l'Empire Ottoman at least. There's a fair bit of information in that book, but spread around, I'll see what I can chase up for you.  The aforementioned B. Mugnai's also published a two volume work on the Ottoman army up to 1718, although it's in Italian some of the tables might be of interest and I'll scan them as well- unless you have it already!
best regards
Aris K.

[Gungadin]

Dear Aris,
that is very interesting - would it be possible to also get copies of what you come up with?
Thanks in advance and kind regards
Chris

[WFGamers]

I will attach Brue's list of troops to this message but you must realise the list is completely useless. It is a list of what could be sent in theory and NOT any kind of list of the real army. Brue himself says this and he says no more than 10,000 (and modern thinkers think less) of the 67,000 Janissaries in the list were actually in the army. The Janissaries were regulars so other groups would be even less or not actually go at all.

In effect the list is totally useless.

[WFGamers]

I would be interested in what Ottoman/Turkish sources Mugnai used for his book. Could you list them for me?

[Moriarty]

Good luck with finding army lists, though you may be in for a long haul :-) AFAIK the editor of 'The Dragoman Magazine' (name?) had a contact in Turkey who did some translations of original documents for him, and that is the nearest anyone has got to finding 'army lists'.

There was a board game by the name of Turkenkrieg, by Red Sash Games, which seemed to have a lot of research to it. I believe it included orbits for various campaigns, but was out of my price range :-(

From my own searches, you can divide the Ottomans into Regular Army and Provincial forces. These forces did not have fixed proportions of Infantry to Cavalry, due to the 'ad hoc' nature of Ottoman war preparation and use of troops to guard lines of supply. Half each with one artillery piece per thousand men is what I work on. Artillery includes field and siege types, but not lighter guns. These appear as wall mounts and other, fortress (Palanka) weapons.

Troops are grouped in Ortas, sub divided into Alays. Each Orta would have around 400 men, with Infantry sub units about half the size of the Cavalry. Once again, variations existed because of the nature of the Ottoman organisation. Heavy cavalry would have a larger compliment. It seems that, tactically, units manoeuvred in blocks, defended in line and were split into two 'flanks' - not necessarily side to side.

Ortas were 'brigaded' into groups of one to six (possibly to even out numbers) with an average of 1,200 per 'brigade'.

Regular troops would be the Heavy/Line types, Provincial troops the Light/Skirmisher types, with about 1/3 actual open order troops.

I have a notation from the Napoleonic period, that I cannot put my hand on at the minute. It gives figures for an actual Ottoman army of 30,170 men.

11,900 foot
12,650 mounted
2,620 gunners
16 guns

These were in four groups, and Advance guard, Flank guard/s, Main body and Rear guard. 1/3 to 1/4 were securing towns on the route, and the main army consisted of 15-20,000.

Feel free to PM me if I can dig further through the heaps of snippets I have gleaned, or I could see what books I have on the shelves that might be useful.

[ArisK]

Alright, this is what I've been able to put together.
Mugnai's tables in "L'esercito ottomano..." are from of Marsigli's Stato militare dell' imperio Ottomano, so that should be easy to track down online.
As to the rest, from Chatzopoulos, a few more sources and Schulenburg's memoirs:

The Turkish army that besieged Sinj in August 1715. Contemporary Croatian historians put the number significantly lower than the 40-60,000 mentioned in this and other contemporary accounts, but the forces mix is a start.
   -12,000 Tatars
   -8,000 Asian Turks
   -10,000 Troops of the Pasha of Rumelia
   -1,000 Troops of the Pasha of Iconio
   -1,000 Troops of the Pasha of Albania and Montenegro
   -4,000 Albanians (1,000 horse, 3,000 foot)
   -2,000 Spahis and other troops from Herzegovina
   -3,000 Janissaries
   -6,000 Seymen
   -1,000 Spahis and other troops of the Pasha of Klis
   -12,000 Spahis and other troops of the Pasha of Bosnia
An earlier account of the troops available for Dalmatia has them at 7-8,000 (2,000 of them Janissaries), with a maximum of 20,000 if all neighboring areas' militias are also called up. In the 1716 fighting there's a mention of an ottoman force of 5,000 men, mostly horse, which fits nicely with that.

The Turkish army that besieged Corfu in 1716
from Chatzopoulos:
   -7,000 Janissaries
   -7,000 Albanians
   -1,500 Spahis
   -400 Topcis
   -plus other unspecified troops for a total of 25-30,000
from Prelli/Mugnai:
   -4-7,000 Janissaries
   -2-3,000 Gebezzis (armourers)
   -400-1,000 Topcis
   -1,500 Spahis
   -2,000 volunteers *
   -3,000 Albanians *
   -plus other unspecified troops for a total of 20-22,000
   (* not mentioned in all accounts)

Along the coast, in 1716-18:
   Butrinto: defended 50-75 men with 6 guns
   Modon: defended by ca. 1,000 men (one account says 400 janissaries, 800 spahis), with the Seraskier of the Peloponese at Castel di Morea with several thousand more.
   Prevesa: defended by 4-600 men, of which 80-100 horse, and a total of 30 guns
   Vonizza: defended by 2,000 infantry and 500 cavalry, with 30 guns and an equal number of old stone-shot mortars (there's also mention of the Seraskier of Vonizza attacking Sta. Maura with 2-3,000 men which fits niccely into this)
   Dulcigno: defended by 1,500 men, with the Pasha of Scutari leading 4-6,000 men as a relief force.

Hopefully this helps a bit!

Aris K.

[Gungadin]

That is really useful and interesting. thank you so much for the post.

Have you - or has anyone else - come across anything substantive about Mamelouks in Ottoman armies in Europe. I have seen somewhere suggestions that as the Mamelouk star rose - no pun intended - they became valued and favoured mercenary like additions to Ottoman forces in the Balkans or / and Bessarabia but it is hard finding anything really certain. Any ideas?
Thanks again - a fantastic post.
C.

[abu iskander]

Apologies for some minor threadomancy. But have embarked on a similar project.

My biggest challenge so far is the lack of resources on the Venetians who opposed the Ottomans 1714-1718. Hard to find good info on the army composition, outside of overall numbers.

Any help would be appreciated, obscure though the topic may be.

[fastolfrus]

Can't add any academic information, but the new BLB book Talon & Claw looks at GNW and Russo-Turkish encounters. I thought there was more on the GNW but anything is better than nothing.
By Fire and Sword is earlier (late 17th C), but they have brought out some supplementary books with quite a few Ottoman & Tartar forces.

[Gungadin]

Do you perchance have the references and titles to the Fire & Sword supplements you are referring to?
Thanks in advance.
C

[abu iskander]

fastolfrus - Thanks - I've read through the Talon and Claw book, which is what inspired me to look at the Venetians. While there are a few uniform illustrations, there as very little to go on with respect to organization, Thing is, it was such an eclectic army, it's hard to figure what the composition of the infantry might have looked like - everything from the Maltese to the Swiss were on board as mercenaries, from what I've read.  I even found a chapter on Academia.edu form a scholarly work, but unfortunately it was focused at a higher political echelon, so offered little in terms of detail.  There are some German language archives concerning the troops OOBs, but only after the Imperialists got involved to bail out the Venetians - so they describe only Austrian engagements. Perhaps these are the only extant records and I'll just have to go with an educated guess.

Gungadin - The second volume of the BFS rules, The Deluge, has just about every combatant force you could want listed in the Baltic and Balkan theaters (except the Venetians). Here's a link to the page with most of their rulebooks.

https://sklep.wargamer.pl/category/en/ogniem-i-mieczem-podreczniki

[ArisK]

Τhis is what Chatzopoulos shows for the garrison of the Morea at the outbreak of war:

Location/Number of Men/(Companies)

Nafplion: 1716 (30) - including ca. 350-400 cavalry
Corinth: 330 (5)
At the isthmus: 162 (3)
Rion: 786 (11) - including ca. 450-500 cavalry
Monemvasia: 261 (4)
Kelefas: 45 (1)
Zarnata: 83 (2)
Coron: 282 (5)
Modon: 691 (8  )
Aegina: 58 (1)
Cavalry was composed of three Dragoon regiments of 5 squadrons and a Croat regiment of 8 squadrons.
If you can read Italian the proveditor's report for 1711 has been published online, it's probably filled with useful information.
I'll check Favaloro and see if more detail is forthcoming.

Aris K.

[DintheDin]

Castle of Zarnata, Mani

and some pics from Kelefas, Laconia, near Itilo
http://www.greece.com/destinations/Peloponnese/Laconia/Village/Kelefas.html