The Rise of the Janissaries: Ottoman Military Revolution

0:06 This video is sponsored by Heroes of History.

0:09 In the heart of a rising empire, a new kind of army was born.

0:13 Not bound by blood nor by tribe but by supreme loyalty alone.

0:18 They were called the Janissaries.

0:20 Forged from the children of conquered lands and taken far from home,

0:24 they were reshaped, mind, body, and spirit,

0:27 within the walls of the Sultan’s palace.

0:29 Trained to fight without fear, they were conditioned to obey without question

0:34 and stand at the very forefront of battle.

0:36 They marched as one.

0:38 They fought as one.

0:39 They became the sharpest edge of the Ottoman sword.

0:42 Today, in our new series on the history and evolution of the Ottoman military,

0:47 we will examine the origins of the renowned Janissary military corps,

0:50 the first standing army in Europe since the time of the Ancient Romans.

0:56 You should also start putting your own elite unit together,

0:59 by playing our sponsor today, Heroes of History.

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2:18 Creation of the Kapıkulu and Devshirme:

2:19 With the creation of the Yaya and Müsellem corps,

2:20 as well as the new provincial Timarli Sipahi corps,

2:23 the Ottoman state had taken its first steps in establishing a military

2:27 that would one day strike fear into the hearts of its enemies.

2:30 However, the question of a professional standing army controlled

2:33 directly by the sultan was yet to be addressed,

2:36 but such an answer was just around the corner in the form of a slave army.

2:41 During the reign of the second Ottoman ruler,

2:44 Orhan Gazi, military slaves served as royal guards;

2:46 however, their numbers were limited,

2:48 and they did not form a distinct military unit.

2:52 In fact, they were part of the sultan’s private staff at his capital,

2:56 called the ‘Nöker.’ They were composed

2:58 of distinguished individuals personally chosen by the sultan,

3:02 and they also assumed additional roles,

3:05 such as messengers, ambassadors, and hound keepers.

3:08 However, by the 1360s, Ottoman leaders,

3:10 such as Grand Vizier Çandarlı Kara Halil Pasha,

3:14 recognized the need for an elite force for the state and founded an indigenous,

3:19 slave-based standing army.

3:20 Known as the ‘Kapıkulu Ocakları’ or ‘Hearths

3:22 of Gate Slaves,’ this new corps would prove to be the deciding factor

3:27 for the eventual success of the classical Ottoman army.

3:30 At the core of this new standing army was

3:33 the famous subunit known as the ‘Janissaries,’ also referred

3:36 to as the ‘New Soldiers,’ which would serve

3:39 the Ottoman state until the beginning of the nineteenth century.

3:43 In 1363, a new ‘Pençik Law’ was introduced,

3:46 which imposed a tax under which the sultan could extract one

3:50 out of every five slaves captured by his soldiers during military campaigns.

3:55 Most slaves were Christians captured in the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine,

3:59 Bulgarian, and Serbian lands in the Balkans.

4:02 Only physically fit, young slaves were chosen by state officials

4:06 and trained and organized in special training centers

4:09 called the ‘Acemi Ocağı’ or ‘Hearth

4:11 of the Inexperienced.’ After two years of military training,

4:14 they would then be inducted into the ranks of the Janissary corps.

4:18 However, by the end of the decade,

4:20 the training system for such slaves was altered drastically,

4:23 which saw young slaves first sent to Turkish farmlands in Anatolia,

4:27 where they became accustomed to Turkish culture

4:30 and language before finally converting to Islam.

4:33 After this initial period, which lasted around four to eight years,

4:37 they were taken to the Acemi Ocağı to begin proper military training.

4:41 Trainees learned to fight as infantry, using various weapons,

4:44 and obey their superiors' orders without question.

4:47 They also performed menial tasks,

4:49 such as firefighting and transporting state goods,

4:52 but never engaged in craftwork.

4:54 Any Acemi who learned a craft or owned

4:57 a private business was dismissed from the corps,

4:59 as their first and only duty to the state was to be the hammer of the sultan.

5:04 After four to eight years of training,

5:06 the Acemi would be assigned to their regiment within the Janissary corps.

5:10 Within only thirty years after the foundation of the Janissary corps,

5:14 a new mode of recruitment was introduced,

5:16 called the ‘Devshirme.’ The new recruitment method involved

5:19 the forced conscription of Christian children around the sultanate,

5:23 who were used as military slaves after extensive training by the state.

5:27 This practice was common, as the Seljuks of old previously took children

5:31 from Christian families for court duties in their capitals.

5:34 The Ottoman administration continued these practices,

5:37 integrating them with the well-established military slave system

5:40 that had been practiced by the Mamluk Dynasty of Egypt.

5:44 Early enlistment aimed to train young recruits,

5:47 as prisoners or captured slaves were usually

5:49 adult men less receptive to military training.

5:52 Children were seen as more responsive to the training,

5:55 and their bodies and minds were easily moulded to meet the military's needs.

5:59 As a result, the Janissary corps was the first

6:02 standing regular army since the time of the Ancient

6:05 Romans and thus became a symbol of centralization

6:08 of the military within the greater Ottoman framework.

6:11 However, such centralization would be slow,

6:13 as the ranks of the elite corps numbered only 1

6:16 to 2,000 men by the end of the fourteenth century,

6:19 far from the numbers seen in later centuries.

6:22 During the early years of the young Ottoman Beylik,

6:25 the equally young Janissary corps was not yet armed

6:28 with the muskets for which they would later become famous.

6:31 Instead, they were primarily elite infantry archers.

6:33 Their primary weapon was a powerful composite bow, crafted from wood and horn,

6:39 designed to deliver rapid, accurate shots from a distance.

6:42 For close combat, they carried straight or slightly curved swords,

6:46 such as ‘kilij’ or early ‘yatagan’ sabre, as well as small hand axes or maces.

6:51 Long polearms, such as spears, were sometimes used to defend against cavalry.

6:55 Armour varied depending on rank and wealth.

6:58 Many wore padded cloth armour called ‘kazaghand’,

7:02 sometimes reinforced with metal plates or mail.

7:05 Helmets were conical, frequently with a nasal guard,

7:08 while their distinctive white felt headgear,

7:10 the börk, served as a symbol of the corps.

7:13 Shields were small and round, typically made of leather over a wooden frame.

7:17 In addition to the elite Janissary infantry, the Kapıkulu also included cavalry.

7:22 Known as the ‘Kapıkulu Süvarileri Ocağı' or ‘Hearth of the Cavalrymen of Gate

7:27 Slaves,' the corps was founded during the reign of Sultan Murad I.

7:31 Nevertheless, these elite heavy cavalrymen also numbered

7:34 only a few hundred during the same period.

7:37 Most members of this small unit,

7:39 later known as ‘Kapıkulu Sipahi,’ were royal pages and guards to the sultan,

7:44 instead of a real fighting unit in battle.

7:46 After crossing into Europe during the 1360s,

7:49 Ottoman marcher lords had played a pivotal role

7:52 in conquering large swathes of land in the Balkans

7:54 but remained attuned to preserving the freedoms

7:57 of their newly captured holdings from the central government.

8:00 Some famous Akıncı families, such as the Evrenos,

8:03 Mihal, Turahan, and Malkoç houses,

8:05 had vast wealth and power bases in the Balkans during this period

8:08 and were a constant source of trouble for the sultan’s royal court in Edirne.

8:12 But as the decades passed and the ranks

8:15 of the Kapıkulu grew in numbers and prestige,

8:18 the power base of the semi-independent marcher lords dwindled,

8:21 paving the way for the sultan's centralization

8:23 of power in the Balkans during the fifteenth century.

8:27 Creation of the Azabs: The Jannisaries and heavy cavalry of the Kapıkulu

8:29 were the elite units of the sultan,

8:31 and as such, were very costly to maintain and train.

8:34 As a result, the Ottoman army still required a large number

8:37 of infantry units that were more expendable and easier to replace.

8:41 The solution was to introduce an irregular infantry corps,

8:44 the ‘Azabs’, generally financed by the provinces of the sultanate.

8:48 Comprising mainly Turcomans from Western Anatolia,

8:51 the new unit would be vital to future Ottoman battlefield successes.

8:55 At the start of each campaigning season,

8:58 local Ottoman governors collected the necessary funds to raise

9:01 the number of Azabs allocated to their governed population,

9:04 which was one Azab per 20-30 households.

9:06 Recruitment into the corps was less strict

9:09 than that of the Timarli and Kapıkulu soldiers,

9:12 as many unemployed and ambitious people

9:15 with some military experience signed up in droves.

9:18 They essentially became the main light infantry of the Ottoman army,

9:21 armed primarily with composite bows, spears, and swords.

9:25 Azabs routinely carried out dangerous missions, fought on the front lines,

9:29 and were tasked with wearing down the enemy.

9:32 As a result, their casualty rates were very high,

9:35 but their rewards were equally significant.

9:38 Sometimes, for heroic combat achievements and meritorious service,

9:41 they received timar or permanent positions in the army,

9:45 and most later became guards at frontier castles around the sultanate.

9:49 Classical Ottoman Battle Formation:

9:50 The first time every unit of the Ottoman army came together as a single fighting

9:53 force against a European power was at the Battle

9:56 of Kosovo against the Serbians in 1389.

9:58 By this period, the combined strength

10:00 of the Ottoman army had grown to around 40,000-50,000,

10:04 compared to the 5,000-strong army that Osman Gazi

10:07 had commanded at the start of the century.

10:10 This combined power of the marcher lords, the provincial army,

10:13 and the sultan’s household troops would

10:16 form the classical Ottoman battlefield formation,

10:18 which was used to some extent until the end of the seventeenth century.

10:22 Often at the vanguard of the army were the irregular Azab light infantry,

10:26 stationed in fortified entrenchments with stakes facing out against the enemy,

10:30 in which they were equipped mainly with bows, axes, and polarms.

10:34 Their primary role was to bog down the enemy in the center of the battlefield

10:38 while the more professional units of the Ottoman

10:40 army circled them on the flanks.

10:42 On the left and right wings were often

10:45 stationed the army of Anatolia and the Balkans, also known as Rumelia.

10:49 It was here that the heavy and medium

10:51 ranks of the Timarli Sipahi cavalry were stationed.

10:53 Often, they were joined by Akıncı light cavalry

10:56 on the far wings led by marcher lords of the realm,

11:00 whose purpose was to harass enemy lines

11:02 from a distance and conduct reconnaissance for the entire army.

11:04 The wings of the army were often led by the princes of the House of Osman,

11:09 called ‘Şehzades,’ but actual military authority lay in the hands

11:13 of the ‘beylerbey’ or ‘governor-general’ of Anatolia and Rumelia.

11:16 By the 1360s, the Ottoman Sultanate was divided into the two central provinces

11:22 of Anatolia and Rumelia to better

11:24 manage the state’s military and political administration.

11:26 This was due to communication and travel between

11:29 the two halves of the sultanate being frequently cut off

11:33 by the naval blockades imposed by European powers

11:35 at the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits during the time period.

11:39 Meanwhile, at the center of the army, stationed in the rear,

11:43 were the Kapıkulu corps of the elite

11:45 Janissary infantry and heavy Sipahi cavalry.

11:47 These units were held in reserve and used

11:49 only after the entire army had engaged the enemy.

11:52 These units were led by the sultan himself

11:55 and his ‘grand vizier.’ Ottoman Army Developments (1389-1448):

11:58 Although the classical Ottoman battle formation

11:59 emerged in the late fourteenth century, it was far from the capable formation

12:03 that would strike fear across Europe and Asia.

12:06 During the Battle of Kosovo,

12:08 the army suffered heavy casualties and barely gained

12:11 the upper hand until the very end of the engagement.

12:14 The Janissary corps and other elite Kapikuli units were still too

12:17 small to affect the outcome of the battle and, as a result,

12:20 Sultan Murad I was slain on the battlefield.

12:23 The Azabs, with their light armour,

12:25 were no match against heavily armoured Serbian infantry cavalry.

12:29 The Akıncıs were essentially raiders with limited conventional cavalry capacity,

12:33 and the Timarlı Sipahi corps was still in its infancy,

12:37 with various shortcomings,

12:38 including maintaining unit cohesion during the heat of battle.

12:42 It was only the individual maneuvers

12:44 and actions of the Sultan’s son, Şehzade Bayezid,

12:47 on the right wing that had granted the Ottoman

12:50 army victory at the end of the day.

12:52 The bloody lessons of Kosovo were learned by Ottoman leaders seven years later,

12:56 when each army corps worked together to crush

12:59 the crusader forces of Europe at the Battle of Nicopolis.

13:02 For the first time, the Janissaries made their presence felt and influenced

13:06 the outcome of the entire battle through successful defensive infantry tactics,

13:10 including the use of sharpened stakes

13:12 and ditches to annihilate the crusader heavy cavalry.

13:15 In a single day, some of the best warriors that Christendom had

13:19 to offer were slain and their bodies dumped in the Danube River.

13:23 During the reign of Bayezid I,

13:25 the Ottoman state expanded in the Balkans and Anatolia

13:28 in a series of lightning campaigns over the course of thirteen years.

13:33 During this period, the size of the Kapıkulu corps was increased,

13:36 thereby alienating many social groups

13:38 that had been empowered under previous sultans.

13:41 This, combined with the emergence

13:43 of a centralized sultanate and increased taxes,

13:46 alienated the Turcoman marcher lords,

13:49 who already felt threatened by the growing importance

13:51 and influence of the Sultan’s professional standing army.

13:54 Many segments of the Anatolian population viewed Bayezid I unfavorably,

13:59 prompting numerous former Turcoman beys to turn

14:02 to the mighty Timurid Empire for aid.

14:05 Timur, a self-established sultan of a significant Central Asian Turcoman state,

14:09 had recently completed his conquest of Iran and Azerbaijan

14:12 and had become an Ottoman neighbour by the early 1400s.

14:16 Eager to gain allies,

14:17 Timur gladly sought the support and cooperation of the Turcoman beys,

14:22 whom the Ottoman armies had recently subdued.

14:25 This alliance was a dangerous development,

14:27 as Bayezid’s excessive arrogance and overconfidence

14:30 in his military strength made conflict unavoidable.

14:34 At the Battle of Ankara in 1402, the far more numerous nomadic army of Timur

14:39 decimated the exhausted and outmaneuvered Ottoman army.

14:42 During the battle, many Turcoman beys had switched sides to the Timurid ruler,

14:47 thus resulting in the collapse of Bayezid’s wings,

14:49 which had been pivotal in his previous major victories at Kosovo and Nicopolis.

14:54 Although the Kapıkulu corps at the center maintained

14:57 their formation and courageously withstood the increasing attacks,

15:00 Bayezid refused to withdraw in time and was thus captured by the enemy.

15:04 The collapse of the Ottoman army at the Battle of Ankara was

15:08 the result of a clash of interests and divided loyalties within the army,

15:12 stemming from the rapid military transformation policies of the central state.

15:16 As a result, the rest of the century

15:18 would be marked by constant competition between the Devshirme-Kapıkulu

15:21 military and political class stationed across the Balkans

15:24 and the provincial Turkic military and political class,

15:28 mainly stationed across Anatolia.

15:30 After the fall of Bayezid, his realm was divided among his sons,

15:33 and a decade-long civil war ensued.

15:36 After much heavy fighting, Sultan Mehmed I reunited the realm by 1413,

15:41 and what followed was a significant restructuring of the military.

15:45 The twenty-seven-year-old Sultan began his reign

15:47 by reassembling the ranks of his personal council

15:49 by appointing men to positions of power who

15:52 had supported his cause during the civil war.

15:54 The leading groups that benefited from this restructuring

15:57 in government were the Turkic class,

15:59 who had long been neglected during the reign of Bayezid,

16:02 but had since regrouped around the new Sultan.

16:04 It was these same Turkic class that had made up

16:07 the core of Mehmed’s army during the wars of the last decade,

16:10 and it would be they who were now to play

16:12 a vital role in his government for the foreseeable future.

16:15 As a result of these political developments,

16:17 the formerly influential Kapıkulu and Devşirme classes were reduced

16:21 in size and sidelined in the new Ottoman administration.

16:25 Many soldiers in the Balkans,

16:26 who had supported Mehmed's rival claimant in the recent civil war,

16:30 also had their timars seized and redistributed by the state.

16:33 Lastly, the Sultan refrained from an offensive policy against his neighbours,

16:38 and the Ottoman military remained focused on internal conflicts,

16:41 such as suppressing rebellions in the Balkans and Anatolia.

16:44 However, Mehmed’s son and successor, Murad II,

16:47 immediately ended this appeasement policy and reconquered most

16:51 of the Anatolian lands lost after the Battle of Ankara.

16:55 The ranks of the Kapıkulu and Devşirme classes were expanded,

16:58 and they again became influential within the central government.

17:02 Despite this turnaround,

17:03 Murad’s aggressive policy would also cause a prolonged but minor

17:07 conflict with Venice and a sporadic yet significant one with Hungary.

17:12 Hungarian magnate John Hunyadi was the first

17:15 European commander to recognize the inherent

17:17 weaknesses of the Ottoman army at both the operational and tactical levels.

17:21 He launched attacks on the Ottomans' European territories,

17:24 exploiting the seasonal nature of their campaigns

17:27 and their tendency to demobilize their forces.

17:30 However, he gained his fame by widely employing

17:33 the Hussite war wagons against Ottoman cavalry charges.

17:37 These mobile fortresses, built from war wagons and light artillery,

17:41 proved highly effective against the lightly

17:43 armoured Ottoman cavalry and their arrow volleys.

17:45 Hunyadi also created a light cavalry corps for the Hungarian army,

17:49 known as the ‘hussars,’ a direct response to the highly

17:53 mobile Akıncı light horsemen of the Ottoman army,

17:56 which frequently raided across Eastern Europe.

17:59 Although Hunyadi had achieved some victories against

18:01 the Ottomans during the 1430s and 1440s,

18:04 his first real test against Murad was at the Battle of Varna in 1444.

18:09 During the fight, both Ottoman wings attacked

18:12 but were pushed back by the well-fortified, heavily armed Christian army.

18:16 However, when the Ottoman host began preparing to retreat,

18:19 the enemy center pursued.

18:21 The Polish-Hungarian king, Władysław III, led the charge,

18:25 which collided directly into Janissaries behind sharpened stakes and ditches.

18:29 After a hard struggle,

18:31 the Janissaries succeeded in surrounding the enemy and even killing the king.

18:35 Following the death of the enemy monarch and the sudden

18:38 arrival of the Ottoman wings back into the battle,

18:40 panic and chaos spread through the Christian army.

18:43 Hunyadi managed to escape,

18:44 but few of his fellow crusaders did in the blood bath that followed.

18:48 The lesson the Hungarian leader learned from his defeat at Varna was

18:52 that, while the Timarli Sipahis were relatively easy to dislocate and rout,

18:57 success on the wings was not enough to break the Ottomans.

19:00 The battle had to be won in the center.

19:03 The opportunity came four years later at the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448.

19:08 This time, the roles reversed as the Ottoman army stayed on the defensive behind

19:12 a long line of stakes and a ditch

19:14 palisade that stretched across the entire front.

19:17 In addition to this security measure,

19:19 the Kapıkulu corps in the center utilized the same

19:22 type of war wagons that Hunyadi had made famous.

19:25 In the years prior, Murad II had established a special military unit to operate

19:30 war wagons called ‘Top Arabacıları Ocağı’

19:33 or the ‘Artillery Wagoners’ Corps.’ As a result,

19:35 Hunyadi’s attack on the Ottoman center during the second day

19:39 of the battle was shattered under the weight of small firearms and cannons,

19:42 thus granting the sultan yet another victory.

19:45 The Second Battle of Kosovo convinced Europeans of the Ottoman

19:49 army’s invincibility and of the impossibility of reclaiming the Balkans.

19:53 From then on, their efforts would be directed

19:55 at stopping the Ottoman advance into Central Europe.

19:58 While the Ottoman Sultanate had achieved in creating a standing

20:01 army with specialized units and a standardized battle formation,

20:05 significant reforms were still needed to make it a fighting force that could

20:09 be wielded with great efficiency and speed in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

20:13 In the next episode of our series

20:15 on the history and evolution of the Ottoman military,

20:18 we will examine Sultan Mehmed’s reforms

20:20 and the birth of the classical Ottoman Army.

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