Armenia and Circassia, who were torn | the most formidable revolts in Turkish from their parents in early life, cir- history originated with them; and the cumcised, and bred up in the Moham- overturning of their camp-kettles, the anedan faith. Being thus severed from well-known signal of the commencetheir families, and accustomed to look ment of such disorders, was more up alone to the Sultan as their military dreaded by the Divan than the apchief, they formed for long a numerous proach of a hostile army. Sultan Mah. and faithful body of guards, the terror moud, the then reigning sovereign, as of Christendom, and the cause of the some check on their violence, had most brilliant triumphs in former days greatly augmented the topjees, or argained by the Ottoman arms. They tillerymen, who were at last raised to were possessed of the privilege, after 20,000 men; but the janizaries were twenty years' service, of settling as still in unbroken strength in their tradesmen in any town of the empire, barracks, and, being highly disconstill remaining, however, liable to be tented at the preference given to the called out occasionally if the service of topjees, there was already presaged the the state required it, and retaining terrible catastrophe by which their their arms and military accoutrements. power was terminated. Thus they were on a footing very much resembling in this respect, though by no means in others, the old foot-guards in London, who, on the days in which they were not on duty, pursued their ordinary pacific avocations. About 25,000 to 40,000 of these troops usually were stationed in Constantinople and its vicinity. Their numbers over the whole empire exceeded 200,000, and they constituted the entire infantry of the army until the recent changes of Sultan Mahmoud. Of this number there were, in 1776, 113,403 men actually enrolled and in the service, and their number down to the end of the century was still 100,000.* In time, however, there arose among them the usual vices of household troops: if they rivalled the Prætorians in valour, they did so not less in arrogance and insubordination. Conscious of their own strength, having no rival force to dread, they aspired to dictate to the Government, and to select their own prince of the imperial house for a sultan. They would submit to no changes or improvements in discipline. Many of *Eton gives the following as the military strength of Turkey in the end of the eighteenth century:Cavalry,

Janizary infantry,

Deduct for garrisons, &c.,
Disposable,

VOL. II.

181,000 207,000

388,000
202,000

186,000

-ETON'S Survey of Turkish Empire, 372.

45. The great military strength of the Turks, as of all Oriental nations, consisted formerly in their cavalry. Accustomed to ride from their infancy, the Turks are daring and skilful horsemen, and in the use of the sabre decidedly superior to any nation of Christendom. Travelling of every sort is performed on horseback, and, from constant practice, a degree of skill and hardihood is acquired in the management of their steeds rarely attained either in the manège or the huntingfield of western Europe. The Turkish cavalier plunges into ravines, descends breakneck scaurs, ascends precipices, and scales hill-sides, from which the boldest English hunters would recoil with dread. Seated on his high saddle, with a formidable peak before and behind, with stirrups so short that his knees are up to his elbows, and the reins of a powerful bit in his hands, the Turkish horseman pushes on with fearless hardihood at the gal lop, confident in his sure-footed steed, and in his own power, if occasion requires, instantly to pull him back on his haunches. With equal readiness he gallops, with his redoubtable sabre in his hand, up to the muzzles of the enemy's muskets, or charges his heaviest batteries, or plunges down a precipitous path on which a chasseur can with difficulty keep his footing. Woe to the enemy which incautiously advances into a rocky country without

Y

having his flanks and rear adequately explored! Two or three turbans are first seen cautiously peeping above the summit of the ravines, or through the brushwood by which the bridle-path is beset; for a few seconds they disappear, when suddenly a rush is heard, the clatter of sabres and hoofs rings on all sides, and these redoubtable horsemen, with deafening shouts, precipitate themselves from all quarters on the unfortunate battalion which has advanced into the toils. The glorious victory of Bajazet over the French chivalry at Varna, in 1453, and that of the Grand Vizier over Peter the Great, on the Pruth, in 1711, were mainly gained by the aid of these incomparable horsemen.

plains; and, strange to say, in the present (1853) war with the Russians, the principal deficiency which the Turks have experienced is in light horse.

47. Deprived of the powerful aid of their light horse, the main strength of the Turkish armies is now to be found in the skill with which they manage their arms, the perfection of their mark, either with muskets or cannon, and the facility with which the same men can, from their previous habits of life, discharge the duties either of a foot-soldier or cavalier. Every Turk is armed-the more easy in circumstances, magnificently so. Most of the better class have either a horse, or have been trained from infancy to the 46. But the Osmanlis have lost this duties of horsemanship. If a spahi great advantage by the results of the loses his steed, he throws himself into wars with Russia during the last cen- the ranks of the infantry, seizes the tury. By the successive acquisitions first firelock he can find, and makes of the Crimea, Oczakov with its terri a steady grenadier; if a janizary loses tory, and Bessarabia, the Russians his musket, he mounts the first horse have not only got a valuable sea-coast, he can seize, and uses his redoubtable on which they have built the rising scimitar as skilfully as any cavalier in harbour of Odessa-the Dantzic of the the army. This thorough command Euxine-but they have gained the ad- of all the exercises of war, which is vantage, inestimable in Eastern war, universal in the Turkish population, of having got the nomad tribes on their who are, literally speaking, a nation side-of having arrayed against Asia of warriors, renders them at once more the forces of Asia itself. Immense formidable as individuals, and less so has been the influence of this decisive in masses, than the soldier of western change on the relative positions and Europe, who has no such individual fortunes of the great contending powers prowess to fall back upon, and trusts on the banks of the Danube. The only to his steadiness in the ranks, and territory thus acquired by Russia, the standing shoulder to shoulder with his Scythia of the ancients, is precisely comrades. If worsted in a serious that from whence the clouds of horse- encounter, the Turks, in their own men have issued who have determined country, and knowing its by-paths, so many important events in history generally disperse; the Russians, far -who repelled the invasion of Cyrus from their home and kindred, fall back -who destroyed the army of Darius-upon their fellow-soldiers, and combat, who rolled back the phalanx of Alex- back to back, to the last man. The ander. What the Russians have gained Ottoman array, like the Vendeans or by these important acquisitions the Spaniards, dissolves upon defeat, and Turks have lost, and this has entirely the late commander of a mighty host altered the relative positions of the finds himself surrounded only by a few contending parties. The fate which attendants. "When you have once befell Peter the Great on the Pruth in given the Turks a good beating,” said 1711-that of being starved out in the one who knew them well (Prince Comidst of his armed squares by clouds bourg), "you are at ease with them of light horse would now be the for the whole campaign." But the inevitable fate of any Turkish army armed force often reassembles as quickly which should advance into the same as it had dissolved. and, again issuing

rom their homes and their retreats, | ditch. A few bastions or round towers he undaunted Turks enter a second ime on the career of glory and lunder.

here and there project beyond the general line, and form kind of salient angles, often filled with enormous gabions. Along the crest of the parapet is placed a line of gabions, between which are the embrasures, from behind which the besieged fire in perfect security on the besiegers. Along the parapet is also placed, at certain distances, square loopholed blockhouses, built of brick, intended to sweep the ramparts in the event of the breach being mounted, which often occasions a serious loss to the besiegers. They have a way also of stationing musketeers at the bottom of the ditch, who communicate with each other, and effect a retreat, in case of need, by a subterraneous passage worked out below the ramparts.

48. The Turkish armies are little to be apprehended now in pitched battles in the open field, and their strength consists rather in the defence of a woody, broken, or intricate country, where the individual courage and skill in the use of arms which they possess may be brought into play. We read frequently, in the ancient wars of the Ottomans with the Austrians and Russians, of bodies of seventeen, twenty, or twenty-five thousand men defeating a hundred and a hundred and fifty thousand Turks; and this would probably still be the fate of a Turkish array, should it venture to meet the disciplined battalions of Europe in the open field. But the case is very different when they come to fight in a broken or woody country. The rolling fire of the Russian square generally, in the plains, repels the fierce charge of the Turkish swarm; but the case is widely different when the Osmanlis are posted on the rocks or in the thickets of the Balkan, where they can at leisure, and comparatively free from danger, take aim at their adversaries. There their cool and practised eye and steady hand tell with desperate effect upon the hostile columns, and the brave and steady array of the Mus--and on such occasions they are great covites often melts away before the deadly fire of an unseen but indomitable opponent.

49. It results, from the same circumstances, that the Turks are the most formidable of all enemies in the defence of fortified places. The Turkish system of fortification and mode of defence are essentially different from those of western Europe. It has few outworks, often none; and scarce any of the appliances which the genius of Vauban invented to add to the natural strength of places. There are neither ravelins, nor lunettes, nor coveredways around their fortified places. The town, in the form which the natural circumstances of the ground has given it, is surrounded by a high and strong wall, in front of which lies a deep

50. Their mode of defending these fortified towns is as peculiar, and as different from the European, as the fortifications themselves. They disquiet themselves little with the enemy's approaches, seldom even fire at the working parties in the trenches, but occasionally amuse themselves with discharging round shot from their guns at single figures in the distance. Even the breaching of the rampart, considered as so serious a matter in ordinary European war, gives them very little uneasiness. Their whole efforts

indeed-are concentrated on the interior defences within the rampart, which is chiefly valued as affording a covering to their construction. The whole approaches to the interior of the city are there retrenched in the strongest manner: huge barricades of wood bar the entrance into the streets; while at every door, every window, every aperture, are stationed two or more Turks, armed with their excellent fusils, who, with deadly aim, open a close and sustained fire on their assailants. The house-tops, which are all flat, are crowded with musketeers, who in like manner rain a shower of balls upon the enemy. So great is the effect of this concentric fire, that in general the head of the assaulting column is swept away the moment it

string. Thus the Turks in fortified towns make a resolute defence, for the same reason that the Russians do in the open field: they have no hope of safety in flight, their only chance is in standing resolutely together.

reaches the summit of the trench; for has lost his fortress from the bowthe fire is quite incessant, as each Turk has two muskets, and a pair of pistols in his girdle, which they aim with practised skill. If these dangers are surmounted, and the assaulting column succeeds in making its way into the streets or gardens within the rampart, 52. Although the Turks, prior to the a danger not less formidable awaits great change made by Sultan Mahthem; for it is instantly assailed on moud in the military organisation of all sides by a mass of Turks, with their the empire, had few regular troops, scimitar in their right hand, and their and none disciplined after the Eurodagger in their left, with which they pean fashion, yet the vast feudal micut at their opponents, and parry their litia they could at any time call out thrusts; and in that mortal strife it was extremely formidable, from the has been often proved that the Euro- perfect arms, and entire command of pean bayonet is no match for the Turk- them, which every member of it posish sabre. So deadly are these me- sessed, and the individual courage by thods of defence, that several repelled which they were animated. The Rus assaults of ill-fortified Turkish towns sians and Austrians, at least till the have cost more to the besiegers than more recent wars, were almost always the entire reduction of the best-con- greatly inferior in number; and as so structed citadels of Vauban and Co-large a proportion of the Turkish arhorn. Witness the unsuccessful as sault on Roudschuck in 1810, which cost the besiegers 8000 men; and that of Brahilov in 1828, which was repulsed with the loss of 3000 men killed and wounded.

:

51. A very simple cause explains this obstinate defence of fortified cities by the Turks it is Necessity. The whole male inhabitants capable of bearing arms are arrayed in defence of the place. A city of 30,000 citizens will array on its walls 10,000 warriors, each of whom, trained from infancy to the use of arms, and splendidly equipped with his own weapons of defence, forms at once a valuable soldier. They fight desperately, because, like the citizens of towns in antiquity, they have nothing to hope in the event of capture. The male inhabitants will all be put to the sword, the young women sold for slaves, or swept into the Turkish harem; the entire fortunes of the inhabitants drawn into the coffers of the Sultan or victorious pacha. The commander himself, if he escape death at the hands of the assailants, is almost sure to meet it at those of the Sultan. Misfortune is punished in the same way as misconduct, and no amount of previous skill or valour in defence can save the governor who

mies in those days was cavalry, this disproportion, by enabling the enemy to surround them, often exposed the Christian forces to the greatest danger, especially as the scene of conflict generally was the level country on the banks of the Danube. They were thus driven by necessity to adopt the tactics which could alone, in the open field, enable them to resist such formidable and superior enemies. This consisted in constantly forming square when the moment of decisive action arrived. These squares were generally of five or six battalions each, with artillery at the angles, capable of firing on either side which might be assailed. They advanced into battle drawn up in this form, and the squares moved forward in echelon; so that the leading square was protected at least on one side and rear by the fire of those which followed it. If broken, the square endeavoured to form a still smaller body in the same array, and often became reduced to knots of a dozen men; for the troops were all aware that flight was instant death under the sabre of the Osmanlis, and their only chance of salvation was in the rolling fire which issued from the sides of their steady squares.

53. Notwithstanding the declining