Army of the classical Ottoman Empire

It resulted from a major reorganization of the standing army dating from the time of Sultan Orhan (r. 1323/4–1362), which had centred on janissaries who were paid by salary rather than rewarded with booty or fiefs.

Sultan Mahmud II forced this army to disband on 15 June 1826 in what is known as Auspicious Incident, which followed a century-long[citation needed] reform effort.

Steadily the Ottoman military power became outdated, but when the Janissaries felt their privileges were being threatened, or outsiders wanted to modernize them, or they might be superseded by their cavalry rivals, they rose in rebellion.

The history of Yaya goes to the early Ottoman military forces consisted of irregular nomadic cavalry and volunteer light infantry.

These units were efficient against local Byzantine feudal lords but were unable to capture fortified castles by direct assault.

Infantry soldiers had to enlist as serdengecti (literally means giver of his head) and survive suicide missions to join the Silahdar division.

(Persian: "soldier") Sipahi refers to all freeborn heavy cavalry other than akıncıs and tribal horsemen in the Ottoman army.

The Akıncıs continued to serve until 1595 when after a major rout in Wallachia they were dissolved by Grand Vezir Koca Sinan Paşa.

In the siege of Baghdad where the Ottomans retook the city from the Persians (1638), gunners of European descent served on the lines.

[10][11] The Ottoman armies were distinguished from their contemporaries in the West not by numerical predominance of its military forces but by the thoroughness of the administrative backup and general support that maintained them in the field.

By rehabilitating the Derbendcis, the Ottomans released conventional military units from routine internal duties, such as guarding and repairing roads, bridges.

Kapi Kulu Units are : Infantry (Janissary, Yaya) Cavalry (Silahtar, Sipahi) Artillery (Topçu, Cebeci, Humbaracı) Non-Combatant (Military band) A kazasker was a chief judge over the cases involving soldiers.

Provincial units are: Timariot Sipahi, Akıncı, Derbendcis Military flags occupied an important position.

The nomadic Mongols, close neighbors of the Turkish tribes, had from antiquity used totemic standards that were a kind of metal, wood, and animal hair, which Ottoman military continued on their flag pools (tug).

The first caliphs tried to maintain an original simplicity in their signs, appropriate to an ascetic and fighting religion, but soon, under Persian influence, the style evolved into one using more representative and pompous images.

In order to man the force, Murad II developed the devşirme system of recruiting youths in the form of taxes from Christians in the empire.

Murad used the strength of the kapikulus and played them off against the nobility, forcing them to pay taxes or land so that the treasury could obtain the money it needed to maintain the Kapikulu army.

Initially they favored Greeks, Albanians (who also supplied many gendarmes), usually selecting about one in five boys of ages seven to fourteen but the numbers could be changed to correspond with the need for soldiers.

This new force of irregular infantrymen was called the azabs and they were used in many ways: to build roads and bridges for the army, to support the supplies for the front-line, and sometimes they were even used as cannon fodder to slow down enemy advance.

It corresponds to a modern definition of an officer, which is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority.

At the school, young cadets would be selected for their talents in different areas to train as engineers, artisans, riflemen, clerics, archers, artillery, etc.

[26] Sultan Mehmed II erected many cannon-foundries in Istanbul, the most famous of which is the Tophane foundry which produced bronze cannons for siege warfare.

45 tonnes of copper and tin are said to be placed in two furnaces constructed out of large stone blocks, laid with cement and covered by fire bricks and smeared in clay.

In the 16th century it became known as the Tersâne-i Âmire and was greatly expanded, with 140 docks and a perimeter wall to keep prying eyes away from naval secrets; it took over from the main shipyard at Gallipoli.

One of the greatest advancements in Ottoman fire arms came in the reign of Beyazid II who improved the design of field artillery pieces and many other firearms ranging from muskets to 'tufeks'.

To add to this the 16th century brought the latest technical advancements in gun making to the Ottomans; in the form of Jews fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition.

Ottoman artillery was famous for the size of its cannon, and their number; from the highly mobile anti-personnel Abus gun to the massive Great Turkish Bombard.

Although such weapons being primarily used in sieges; where they were cast on site due to the logistical difficulties attributed to transport them there, they were used as late as 1809 massive stone-firing guns were used with some effect against British ships during the Dardanelles Operation, throwing 1000-pound marble with a range of 1 mile.

The Fall of Constantinople was perhaps "the first event of supreme importance whose result was determined by the use of artillery", when the huge bronze cannons of Mehmed II breached the city's walls, ending the Byzantine Empire, according to Sir Charles Oman.

[12] Although the payroll registry records were not good at keeping up with the number of gunners because the comrades of those deceased collected the money on their behalf, the table below gives us a clear view of the trends.