Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know by Michael D. Greaney

Author:Michael D. Greaney [Greaney, Michael D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2018-01-15T06:00:00+00:00

HISTORICAL NOTE: THROUGH THE GATES OF BLISS

Outside the walls of Istanbul, near a lower-class district called Davut Pasa, was a meadow. This was normally used for pasturing the flocks belonging to the ubiquitous nomads. From the fifteenth until the nineteenth century, when the janissaries were disbanded, however, the field was turned into a tent city every year immediately following Ramadan. This was the sultan’s war camp.

Once the encampment had been completed, down to the last detail a recreation of a typical Ottoman city, even to the sultan’s seraglio or harem, the janissaries raised a gilded staff bearing the war standard in front of the sultan’s tent. This was the signal for the fighting men of the empire to assemble.

Each beylerbey, or “beglar bey,” as the provincial governors were called, mustered a contingent of sipahis, the Turkish heavy cavalry, each of whom held their timars, or fiefs, in return for military service. Each sipahi furnished his own horse and equipment, rather like the Roman republican equestrian class. Sipahis were analogous to the famed Polish hussaria, from whom western Europe derived its hussars, similar in name though not in function.

The sipahis were usually armed with both a saber for close-in fighting and a long straight sword for charges. These weapons were typically inherited from fathers and grandfathers. As late as the eighteenth century, sipahis wore steel breastplates over coats of mail and plumed steel helmets.

As the weeks passed, long columns of horsemen converged on the Golden Horn. Most of these were sipahis, but would also include akinjis, the irregular, lightly armed raiders.

Infantry units included companies of segmens or sharpshooters who were armed with harquebuses and short swords. There were also the tüfekçis or harquebusiers, typically dressed in short red coats and tall red conical hats. Bands of Tartar light cavalry, armed with their short but powerful compound bows and each one accompanied with his string of spare ponies, could usually be counted on to appear in large numbers.

As detachments came in, they would be listed and checked against the muster roles. Each sipahi would pass inspection. Every firearm was carefully checked. All rations were sealed and certified by imperial officials.

At the center of the camp was the sultan’s pavilion, surrounded by the quarters of the janissaries and the sultan’s household troops. Specific times were set aside each day for drilling. This consisted of massed charges and the firing of guns in the face of the opposing side.

Beyond the imperial enclosure, each orta, or regiment, arranged its tents in a grid around the regimental cooking pot. Dispossession of the common cauldron was a mark of shame akin to the ancient Spartan who lost his shield.

Even further away were the kapikulu süvarileri, the sultan’s household cavalry. Unlike the sipahis, these were equipped at the sultan’s expense. They had the finest horses and were well armed with lance, sword, or bow, defending themselves with heavy chain mail coats and capped with turbans wrapped around spiked metal helmets.

The Turkish muster was not just a military event, however.

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