The Ottoman Army had a significant effect on the history of the modern world and particularly on that of the Middle East and Europe. This study, written by a Turkish and an American scholar, is a revision and corrective to western accounts because it is based on Turkish interpretations, rather than European interpretations, of events. As the world's dominant military machine from 1300 to the mid-1700's, the Ottoman Army led the way in military institutions, organizational structures, technology, and tactics. In decline thereafter, it nevertheless remained a considerable force to be counted in the balance of power through 1918. From its nomadic origins, it underwent revolutions in military affairs as well as several transformations which enabled it to compete on favorable terms with the best of armies of the day. This study tracks the growth of the Ottoman Army as a professional institution from the perspective of the Ottomans themselves, by using previously untapped Ottoman source materials. Additionally, the impact of important commanders and the role of politics, as these affected the army, are examined. The study concludes with the Ottoman legacy and its effect on the Republic and modern Turkish Army. This is a study survey that combines an introductory view of this subject with fresh and original reference-level information. Divided into distinct periods, Uyar and Erickson open with a brief overview of the establishment of the Ottoman Empire and the military systems that shaped the early military patterns. The Ottoman army emerged forcefully in 1453 during the siege of Constantinople and became a dominant social and political force for nearly two hundred years following Mehmed's capture of the city. When the army began to show signs of decay during the mid-seventeenth century, successive Sultans actively sought to transform the institution that protected their power. The reforms and transformations that began frist in 1606 successfully preserved the army until the outbreak of the Ottoman-Russian War in 1876. Though the war was brief, its impact was enormous as nationalistic and republican strains placed increasing pressure on the Sultan and his army until, finally, in 1918, those strains proved too great to overcome. By 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk emerged as the leader of a unified national state ruled by a new National Parliament. As Uyar and Erickson demonstrate, the old army of the Sultan had become the army of the Republic, symbolizing the transformation of a dying empire to the new Turkish state make clear that throughout much of its existence, the Ottoman Army was an effective fighting force with professional military institutions and organizational structures. Publisher The Ottoman Empire was founded by and named for a Turk from Asia Minor, Ghazi Osman, whose first victory was over the Byzantines at the Battle of Baphaeum in 1301. From then until the early 20th century, Ottoman Turks held power in the Eastern Mediterranean. The height of the empire was in the 16th century, under Suleyman I, known as "the Magnificent" to European, North African, and Persian armies that feared his military might. Ottoman ships roamed the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean; Suleyman's troops attacked Belgrade, Rhodes, Hungary, Algeria, Iran, and even Vienna. Yet, by the end, the Ottomans barely held onto Anatolia, the European side shrunken to only a few miles west of Istanbul. The empire, unable to recover from defeats in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 and WW I, fell in 1923 to an uprising led by Kemal Ataturk. There has long been a need for a military history of the Ottomans in English, and Uyar (Turkish Military Academy) and Erickson (US Marine Corps) provide a very complete one. There may be more focused studies on Ottoman campaigns but little better on the Ottoman army and nothing better in a single volume. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. K. R. DeVries Loyola University Maryland Choice, Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, July 2010 English languages of the Ottoman empire have generally glossed over information regarding the makeup of the military, relating the battles from a European perspective. Uyar (international relations, Turkish Military Academy) and Erickson (military history, United States Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA) both officers with combat experience, tell the story of the Ottoman military organization and how it managed to conquer most of the Near East, North Africa, the Balkans and almost the Hapsburg empire. The authors begin with the arrival of the Ottoman Turks in the fourteenth century and end with the fall of the empire and the start of a secular state under Ataturk. Weapons, strategy and personalities of the leaders are all covered as well as the composition of the rank and file. The role of the Janissaries, that uniquely Ottoman institution, is explained as well. The battles most known in the west, the taking of Constantinople in 1453 and the failure to take Vienna in 1683, are both examined from the Ottoman point of view, using documents not available to most western scholars. This book fills a formerly blank space in the history of Eastern Europe and the Near East. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Reference & Research Book News, 02/01/2010 THE UNKNOWN SOLDIERS David Barchard Lord Curzon, rather unflatteringly, said that the Turks were a nation of private soldiers. Bu drop the “private” and many Turks, until very recently, would have agreed with him. Considering the prominence of the army in Turkish society throughout the country’s history, it is surprising, how little substantial history has been written about it – leaving books on “civil-military relations” to one side. Now the gap has been filled with this fine account by Mesut Uyar and Edward J. Erickson. It helps that both men have a military background themselves. Colonel Uyar is not only a military historian but also a serving officer in the Turkish army with something most historians these days do not have; plenty of active service experience. In fewer than 300 action-packed pages, the book takes the reader from the very earliest Ottoman fighting units, described as “a steppe nomadic cavalry force”, up to 1919 and the death of the empire, when “almost overnight, regiment after regiment…changed its loyalty from the sultan to the Turkish nationalist cause”. This is an aspect of the establishment of the republic that is usually overlooked. By the end, the Turkish army, though battered and impoverished, had for several decades been a modern army organized along European lines. The book covers the classical age of Ottoman military supremacy and the conquest of Anatolia, the Arab Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans, followed by a long period of decline after the mid-17th century. The Ottoman military were technologically resourceful long after the rest of Turkish society appeared to have frozen in time, and by the 1730s the first attempts to import military science from Europe were taking place. However, the largest section of the book covers the period between 1826 – when the traditional Ottoman forces, the Janissaries, were disposed of in a blaze of grapeshot, to be replaced by a modern army – and the end of the First World War. Throughout this time, military collapse and partition seemed imminent, and the non-Turkish provinces of the empire were peeled away in a series of military defeats. But the military reforms - and the officer corps they produced – were sufficient to enable Atatürk and his fellow officers to win the War of Independence and create modern Turkey. His account focuses both on the close-up details of military history – how battles ad campaigns were fought, and why they were won or lost – and on deeper long-term issues, including shortages of skills and resources, and sultans who often spent more time designing uniforms than working on organisation. The authors write damningly that the earliest period of reform, 1826 to 1853, “was probably more valuable for Ottoman military in the destruction o its antique institutions than for any long-lasting changes which emerged”. One recurrent tendency was for newly created corps of army officers to see themselves as guardians of society. At the time of the Young Turk revolution, the officer corps became convinced of the wisdom of an enlightened military dictatorship. The English occasionally falters, but this account is written with intelligence, verve and very deep knowledge of Ottoman history. It is a book to which military historians, as well as students of the Ottoman world, will surely return to again and again. Cornucopia, vol.7, no.44, Autumn 2010, p.22

Insight into the Ottoman Military

This is a comprehensive new operational military history of the Ottoman Army during the First World War. Drawing from archives, official military histories, personal war narratives and sizeable Turkish secondary literature, it tells the incredible story of the Ottoman Army's struggle from the mountains of the Caucasus to the deserts of Arabia and the bloody shores of Gallipoli. The Ottoman Army, by opening new fronts, diverted and kept sizeable units of British, Russian and French forces away from the main theatres and even sent reinforcements to Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. Against all odds, the Ottoman Army ultimately achieved some striking successes, not only on the battlefield but in their total mobilisation of the empire's meagre human and economic resources. However, even by the standards of the First World War, these achievements came at a terrible price in casualties and, ultimately, loss of territory. Thus, instead of improving the integrity and security of the empire, the war effectively dismantled it and created situations and problems hitherto undreamt of by a besieged Ottoman leadership. In a unique account, Uyar revises our understanding of the war in the Middle East.

This study examines the sieges of Győr and Eger by the Ottoman Empire during the Long Turkish War (1591-1606). Grand Vizier Koca Sinan Pasha (1520-1596) led the Győr campaign and achieved a major victory over European coalition forces in 1594. The Ottoman army was able to coordinate a large army, artillery, and supplies. Mehmed III (r.1595-1603) ostensibly commanded the Eger operation, but his weak leadership made him defer to advisers. This campaign was also a success for many of the same reasons as the 1594 siege. The sultan was not a gifted military commander, but his presence did restore confidence to the army. Ottoman Turkish writers and traditional historiography often viewed this period as the beginning of general decline for the empire after the expansion under Sultan Suleiman I (r. 1520-1566). This paper demonstrates that the imperial military was still an effective fighting force and that the Habsburgs, the Vatican, and other European states viewed them as a major military power. The Ottomans also confronted internal crises of court factionalism, food shortages, and bandit insurgency in the empire, yet were still able to prosecute successful campaigns. Analysis of Ottoman operations during this period shows that the army retained institutional integrity and adapted to changing circumstances.

The Published version of this article (“Military Engineering in the Ottoman Empire”, in Military Engineers and the Development of the Early Modern European State, Bruce P. Lenman (ed.), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press in 2013, pp. 179-201), which is uploaded at sehir.academia.edu/KahramanSakul suffers from many omissions and additions, and interventions without prior approval of the author. This is the original version of the published chapter. Please read my review uploaded at the afore-mentioned website: Review: Bruce Lenman ed., Military Engineers and he Development of the Early-Modern European State (Dundee: Dundee University Press, 2013), Osmanlı Araştırmaları Dergisi-Journal of Ottoman Studies, 45 (2015): 386-397 Also, check my review at http://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/1845861205/ref=acr_dpx_see_all?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1