The army primarily enlisted Albanians and sometimes Circassians as bashi-bazouks,[1] but recruits came from all ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire, including slaves from Europe or Africa.

[2] Bashi-bazouks had a reputation for being undisciplined and brutal, notorious for looting and preying on civilians as a result of a lack of regulation and of the expectation that they would support themselves off the land.

[3] The Ottoman army consisted of the following: Many Afro-Turks, Albanians, Crimean Tatars, Muslim Roma, and Pomaks were bashi-bazouks in Rumelia.

An attempt by Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha to disband his Albanian bashi-bazouks in favor of his regular forces began the rioting which led to the establishment of Muhammad Ali's Khedivate of Egypt.

During the 1903 Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising in Ottoman Macedonia, these troops burned 119 villages and destroyed 8400 houses, and over 50,000 Bulgarian refugees had to flee into the mountains.