Recruitment in the Ottoman imperial army was achieved by the forced enlistment of Christian children every five years.
The Ottoman Empire, beginning with Murad I, felt a need to "counteract the power of Turkic nobles by developing Christian vassal soldiers and converted kapıkulu as his personal troops, independent of the regular army.
In times of need, every town, quarter, and village would be required to present a fully equipped conscript at the recruiting office.
A draft for non-Muslims was introduced in 1856, but the exemption tax in place was not forbidden, unlike a similar payment available for Muslims.
As the poll tax for non-Muslims had been abolished, the authorities were not encouraging military service for them, preferring the revenue.
In July 1909, a military service law was passed that made conscription compulsory for all Ottoman citizens.
The spokesmen of the Greek, Syrian, Armenian, and Bulgarian communities agreed to the new military service law in theory.
The government thought that keeping the Ottoman Empire as a single entity could not include an army that could decline to go to war because of their ethnic assignments.
Beginning with the 1910 Balkan Wars, and extending to World War I, at the grassroots level, many young Ottoman Christian men, especially Greeks, who could afford it and who had the overseas connections, opted to leave the country or hide as a draft dodger.