Subject: başıbozuk 'broken head' irregular infantry
Culture: Albanian/Arnaut
Setting: Ottoman empire late 18th-19thc
Evolution:
Context (Event Photos, Primary Sources, Secondary Sources, Field Notes)
* Elgood 1995 p94
"[P]eoples of the Balkans, particularly from the impoverished mountain regions such as Albania and Montenegro, had a traditional occupation as mercenaries or bashi bazouks in the Ottoman army ...."
* Nicolle/McBride 1998 p9
"As the Janissaries declined in effectiveness, so other infantry formations arose. Troops raised by other provincial governors tended to be called sıratkulu and included pioneers, miners and hisarlıs who helped the garrison artillery. The Albanians also achieved a military prominence not seen at any other period in Albanian history."
* Gerolymatos 2002 p112
"In the eighteenth century, as the military effectiveness of the Janissaries continued to decline, the Ottoman authorities began to rely on Albanian mercenaries with increasing frequency. Eventually, their military reputation rose to such heights that it invited emulation of method, and soon ... the Albanians even set the fashion for Balkan warriors with their kilts."
* Mugnai 2022 p26
"... Albanian clansmen and mercenaries, migrating from a region that was relatively densely populated at the time, found a place in most of the great retinues of Ottoman Europe during the eighteenth century, especially in Constantinople, and often went much further afield to Syria, North Africa and Egypt. Alongside the Muslims of Bosnia they became the leading mercenaries on the European side. However, they could be difficult to control because of their powerful kinship relations. Largely employed in Greece during the war of 1768-74, the Albanian arnavut mercenaries then settled down as predators and usurers, and had to be rooted out long after the war had ended.
"The havoc created in the Peloponnese by the Albanian soldiers in the 1770s caused a great portion of the Greeks there to migrate, some into the Pindus Mountains as far as they could go to Italia, to Austria and even to Russia, but above all to the Sporades islands and the Anatolian shore opposite Greece. Many Greeks from the Peloponnese were also sold as slaves during the nine-year Albanian occupation."
* Elgood 1995 p95-96
"It may be said that the Balkans produced more warriors and arms than could be absorbed locally. The description of mercenaries as Albanian often covered levies from a considerably wider area; Albanians had a high reputation as skirmishers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries:
... the Albanians are a militia from Bosnia, Albania and Macedonia, most of them on foot; they are counted amongst the volunteers. They serve by contract ... they are recruited in this fashion: a Turkish officer proposes to raise a corps of eight to ten thousand men, whom he will arm and maintain in consideration of ten crowns [ecus] per month for each man; and this contract is normally for one campaign of five months. If these have further need of these troops, the contract is renewed ..."'
* Mugnai 2022 p132-133
"By focusing on the fluid military employment practices of the highlander arnavuts, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, some factors reinserted these irregular bands into the political turmoil of the period. Rather than rogue bandits, these mercenaries constituted a significant group of military labourers offering their services to several patrons. Bosnian and Albanian mercenaries' motivation for joining the army was, at best, questionable. Yet, there were no promising means for replacing them. The veteran Yusuf Paşa of Serres, who became commander in Patras and Lepanto in 1822, criticised most of the Albanian mercenary troops he could mobilise for his upcoming role. He complained that the soldiers, who would be of great importance if dispatched according to the right conditions -- which stipulated basically the mobilisation of adult and able males in arms in return for tax exemptions -- did not meet expectations, as the bulk of the soldiery were merely peasants and shepherds. Several Ottoman commanders and officials complained about these mercenaries. Süleyman Penah Efendi, a seasoned bureaucrat in the military accounting offices, refers to the Albanians' disorder and ferocity, which caused untold suffering and flight after their arrival in the Peloponnese to suppress the rebellion in 1770. The irregulars were nothing but scum who would obey no one. Furthermore, they spoke Albanian among themselves and did not understand Turkish, so they were untrustworthy and difficult to train.
"Another acute observer, the English artillery officer William Wittman, reports that in February 1800 a corps of 600 Albanian infantrymen, who had joined the army before Jaffa a few days before, suddenly left the camp and headed to Acre, 'and the defection was supposed to have been occasioned by the want of money and provisions at the encampment'. Two years before, a similar incident occurred when Kircaali (Turkish speaking inhabitants of the Kircaali valley in Thracia) and Albanian irregulars marching into Greece to embark for Egypt became the object of the government's complaints. Since they were waiting for their salaries, the soldiers refused to leave the army whether their service duration was complete or not, and their chiefs demanded extra payment for this delay. The Ottoman authorities laconically informed the Porte that 'the mercenaries did not fight for the Sultan or religion, but money', and because of the lack of money the soldiers, led by their own chiefs, plundered villages and towns."
* Elgood 2009 p42
"Hobhouse continues: 'Their love of arms is so ardent, that those who fear too long an interval of peace in their own country enter into the service of the Pashas in every part of the Turkish empire. The guard of the sacred banner from Mecca to Constantinople used to be entrusted to one hundred and fifty of them, armed and dressed in their own fashion.' Leake says that the Albanians 'justly hold both Janissaries and Yaruks cheap in comparison of themselves; but they have a considerable respect for the Turkish cavalry'. He describes the Turks as looking upon the Albanians 'with a mixture of fear and contempt'."
Costume
* Nicolle/McBride 1998 p46 (reconstructing an Albanian chieftain, early 19th century)
"During the early 19th century the exotic Balkan costumes caught the imagination of western European artists and writers. None were more magnificent than those of the Albanians. The appearance and indeed the weaponry of the élite were highly decorated, and the Muslims generally carried more weaponry than the Christians. In fact, non-Muslims were theoretically barred from bearing arms at all."
* Harrold/Legg 1978 p122-124
"The men's costumes are ... in two styles, with trousers or, alternatively, a pleated skirt, or foustanella. The Ghegs wear white or black woollen trousers that fit tightly to the ankles; the seams are decorated with black braid. A white shirt with long sleeves, either loose or with cuffs is worn under a white and braided sleeveless waistcoat. Waistcoats vary between the villages. In Kukes, in the north-east, a rust-red waistcoat with dark-blue facings is worn with a broad-striped sash, rust-coloured socks and black leather sandals. In the south-east black baggy trousers are tucked into white felt gaiters and tied under the knees with black cord. The costume is completed with a red sash and a black jacket decorated with gold braid. Loose sleeves hang down the back. The unusual white shirt that is worn has a small round collar and wide loose sleeves reaching to the elbows, underneath which long tight sleeves reach to the wrists. Shoes are black and edged with red. The most popular form of hat is the white felt fez.
"The pleated white linen skirt, or foustanella, is less full than those worn in Greece and reaches to the knees. Long white woollen tight trousers are worn underneath this skirt. A plain white woollen sleeveless waistcoat edged with black braid is worn with a white, wide-sleeved shirt and a black-fringed coloured sash. Over this is a black jacket with loose hanging sleeves. The white shirt has sleeves gathered into cuffs, and black or light brown leather sandals with large black pompoms are worn. A white fez or black forage-cap type of hat are the alternative head-gear.
"Colours used throughout Albania are black, white and a particular shade of rust-red, as well as a range of pastels. Designs are geometric with zigzags, squares, triangles and an occasional floral pattern."
* Mugnai 2022 p337-340
"[T]he Albanian xhamadan ... was a traditional short jacket still worn as traditional Albanian costume in modern-day Albania, as well as in Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro. Scholars state that here are more than 200 different kinds of clothing in all Albania and the Albanian inhabited regions. The xhamadan was shorter compared to the Bosnian jacket, but could carry the same elaborated decoration on the breast. Another difference between koret and xhamadan was the occasional presence in the latter of long open sleeves.
"The attire of the Albanian irregulars must have appeared to Europeans as a mixture of the barbaric and the exotic, but definitively it aroused a unanimous impression of magnificence. All this is evident when Morier describes the war dress of the Albanian irregulars he saw in Egypt:
They wear a breastplate of silver, and a species of armour covers their legs; many of them walk in sandals; the fore part of the head, as far as the middle of the crown, is shaved, and only a tuft of hair hangs loose on the back part of the head; a red scull cup of cloth comes far over their eyebrows, and gives them a very fierce look. Their fire-arms are in general beautifully ornamented in silver and gold; their muskets are light and are made like a tomahawk at the but-end. I imagine to be used in self-defence in cases of necessity.
The area of origin of the Balkan warriors could be identified also by their footwear. Usually, the populations of the plains or the coast had opanke or bivce, consisting of a linen sock collected in a sole of bound skin with strings over the foot, and then passed around the ankle. Volunteers from the mountains also wore woollen gaiters, usually in dark brown or black, high to mid calf, or below the knee. The gaiters were decorated with coloured cord, small pieces of glass or metal buckles; the season determined their thickness. The sold was attached to the foot as in the opanke, but the name of the footwear tozluci or terluci, reveals its Illyrian-Albanian origin. Albanian irregulars also wore gaiters of bright colours with elaborated embroidery, laces and accessories, and these were widespread also among teh population coming from the coast."
* Evans 1938 p248-249
"In mountainous Albania are found costumes that are decidedly Turkish in cut and type of decoration as a result of the continued occupation of the country by the Turks from their conquest of it in the fifteenth century until 1913. The picturesque effect of the baggy white or colored woolen trousers of the men is heightened by the rich black silk braiding often intermingled with red, down the sides and across the back. Tight-fitting at the ankles they are held at the waist by a broad belt over which is wound a brilliant red sash or cummerbund that serves as a pocket for holding small accessories and the formidable array of pistols with beautifully embossed handles. The white shirt has sleeves that, at the wrist, are baggy and full like the trousers. Reaching to the top of the broad sash is a bolero jacket of black rendered extremely decorative with finely wrought embroidery of gold threads, while fringe edges the short black wool coat whose sleeves display the puffs of the shirt sleeves at the wrist.
"A long chain of woven silver strands is worn around the neck, and the fez, of white felt for the Albanians, of red for the Turks, covers the closely-cropped head. The feet are shod in opingas, leather shoes whose ends turn upward and which are bound to the feet with thongs of leather."
* Kinglake p12-13 (writing ca.1839)
"Though the province of Servia generally has obtained a kind of independence, yet Belgrade, as being a place of strength on the frontier, is still garrisoned by Turkish troops under the command of a Pasha. Whether the men who now surrounded us were soldiers or peaceful inhabitants I did not understand; they wore the old Turkish costume; vests and jackets of many and brilliant colours divided from the loose petticoat-trowsers by heavy volumes of shawl, so thickly folded around their waists as to give the meagre wearers something of the dignity of true corpulence. This cincture enclosed a whole bundle of weapons; no man bore less than one brace of immensely long pistols and a yataghan (or cutlass), with a dagger or two of various shapes and sizes; most of these arms were inlaid with silver highly burnished, and they shone all the more lustrously for being worn along with garments decayed and even tattered (this carefulness of his arms is a point of honour with the Osmanlee; he never allows his bright yataghan to suffer from his own adversity): then the long drooping mustachios, and the ample folds of the once white turbans that lowered over the piercing eyes, and the haggard features of the men, gave them an air of gloomy pride, and that appearance of trying to be disdainful under difficulties which one almost always sees in those of the Ottoman people who live and remember old times; they looked as if they would have thought themselves more usefully, more honourably, and more piously employed in cutting our throats than in carrying our portmanteaus."
* Racinet 1988 p284 f3.2
"A well-off Arnaout from Ioannina, wearing a tall fez of red felt with a long puskul of blue silk; a wrap-over waistcoat, or djamadan, with a straight waistcoat, or yeleck, on top; a jacket or tchepken, with long open sleeves; and a leather belt. The toes of his elegant shoes curl up beneath a white fistan.
[....] "A middle-class Arnaout, who has discarded the djamadan. He is wearing a yeleck, a tchepken and dizlik, or gaiters, all made from fine wool and embroidered with silk."
Musket
* Mugnai 2022 p360
"Since the previous [seventeeth] century, a musket shaped with a characteristic stock had begun to spread. It was the tanictsa, the typical firearm of the Albanian arnavuts. A marked difference between the tancitsa and the Ottoman tüfek lay in the length. In fac the Balkan weapons could reach a total of 165 cm, the calibre rarely exceeded 14 mm and also the weight was much lower. These muskets were equipped with a mechanism identical to the Ottoman ones and were easily reognisable by the curved and very thin stock, ending in the shape of a fish tail. Thet parts in wood were often covered with iron, stones or silver, and abundantly decorated in the same style as the yataghan daggers. Similar in length, but with a different cross, the Bosnian weapons were equally decorated with metal."
Pistol
* North 1985 p15-16
"Perhaps because of predominating Western influences in the 18th century, pistols were far more widely used in the Turkish Empire than in Turkey itself. Blunderbusses were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries as well as the type of pistol known to collectors as a 'Balkan'. These include the rat-tail stock type of pistol ..., usually fitted with an imported flintlock and mounted in silver; and a more Western-looking pistol with an oval butt, also mounted in embossed silver and fitted with an oval butt, also mounted in embossed silver and fitted with an imported flintlock. The stock decoration of this latter type is generally more restrained, consisting of flowers and trophies. The butts are often worked in a twisted design. Many of these are fitted with English locks."
* Wilkinson 1974 p40-41
"The flintlock pistol from the Balkans, including Albania, Greece, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Turkey in Asia Minor, again have certain features which distinguish them from those of Western Europe. As a generalisation it can be said that they are even more decorative than those of western Europe. The exact identification of these weapons is by no means certain, and much research still needs to be done before the provenance of particular pistols can be given with certainty. However it seems fairly certain that the very long thing so-called rat-tailed pistols were largely produced in Albania. They have an almost straight stock and butt and terminate in an onion-shaped pommel, but one of their most striking features is the stock which is either totally of metal or of wood completely covered with thin metal plates or bound with wire. Not only is metal decoration used, but semiprecious stones and coral are often set into the metal.
"Some of the Balkan pistols rather resemble those from western Europe of the 17th century, with their large pommels and butt caps, but even the most inexperienced collector is unlikely to confuse one with the other, for the quality of workmanship on the Balkan pistols does not usually compare with that of a 17th-century gunmaker. Frequently the western European inscriptions, such as makers' names, were copied, but the Balkan gunmaker, lacking any real understanding of the original, was often confused and consequently made simple mistakes. Many of these Balkan or Caucasian flintlocks lack a ramrod, for this item was carried separately mounted on a lanyard around the neck and was known as the suma. The metal case of the stock is often moulded to simulate a ramrod."
Yataghan
* Mugnai 2022 p349
"Several eyewitnesses recalled how the Albanian irregulars used a long yataghan instead of the sabre."
* Bošković 2006 p11-13
"[T]his was a weapon that was among the peoples of the Balkans and in the areas of the Austro-Turkish and Venetian/Dalmatian-Turkish military border that was extremely popular and well assimilated into the folk dress, as a sign of manliness, repute and status, irrespective of the cultural circle or religion of the population. And yet at the same time it was ascribed healing and apotropaic characteristics. For example, the yataghan was placed under the head of a woman about to give birth, or she would be supposed to drink water in which a yatagan had been steeped, in order to alleviate her pangs. Sickly and weakly children had yatagans placed in their beds to speed up their return to health, and it was supposed to be effective in numerous other illnesses. The jagluk (the long cloth, embroidered at the hem) with which the yatagan was wiped was used as a bandage for a wounded hero. Placed under the head of a corpse (or stuck in the ground above his head) a yatagan would prevent the deceased from being afflicted by lycanthropism. There can be no doubt that its miracle-working properties were produced or at least enhanced by the holy inscriptions from the Quran that it was common to engrave on or inlay into the blade of the weapon, to provide protection and long life, primarily to the possessor of the yatagan. The magic symbols (the seal of Solomon for instance) or the pieces of coral -- merdžani -- which embellished the hilt of the yatagan also served the same purpose. The sacredness of these invocations and symbols and their miraculous protection and power were probably identified to such an extent with the yatagan that it was probably that yatagans that did not have the same inscriptions and symbols on them nevertheless were ascribed to same properties."
* Boeheim 1890 p279-280
"In den arabischen-türkischen Ländern bildete sich, veranlaßt durch die Streitweise, seit dem 16. Jahrhundert eine Waffenform heraus, welche, soweit hierher gehörig, in der Dimension und der Form der Klinge zwischen der Säbel und dem Dolchmesser in der Mitte steht; es ist dies der Khandschar, gemeiniglich Handschar gennant. Die große Handschar hat eine zweifach gebogene, in eine Spitze auslaufende Klinge. Die Schneide ist anfänglisch leicht konkav, gegen das Ende zu konvex gekrümmt. Der kleine Handschar, gewöhnlich auch Yatagan gennant, stammt in dieser Form aus Ostindien; seine Klinge ist messerartig spitz und leicht gekrUmmt. Der Griff des Handschars ist eigentümlich. Ursprünglich bestand er aus dem Ende eines Röhrenknochens, aus welcher Urform sich später jener charakteristische zweilappige Knauf (pommeau à oreilles) herausgebildet hat. Der Griff besitzt keine Parierstange. Die meist sehr reich in Tausia gezierte und mit orientalischen Inschriften, Koransprüchen u. dgl. ausgestattete Klinge staht mittelst einer Zwinge mit dem Griffe in Verbindung. Die Scheide, gewöhnlich von einem stark ovalen Querschnitte, hat einen Bezug von Leder, Stoffen, auch wohl Silberblech, welches in gepreßter Arbeit reich geziert ist. Handschars werden im Gürtel auf der Brust getragen."
* Evangelista 1995 p635
"YATAGAN. A Turkish sabre with an incurved blade. It had no hand guard. It was designed with a forward weight especially useful for making cuts from the wrist.
"The yatagan was normally worn thrust through the belt, and when going into combat, its owner would throw away the sword's scabbard. The reasoning was that if he won, he would have plenty of time to locate it, and if he lost, he would not really care." [CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS: Did soldiers on campaign really have time to locate discarded items at leisure? Wouldn't scouring the field break down an army's order and discipline, leaving it vulnerable to counterattack?]
* Wilkinson 1978 p139
"An edged weapon of the Balkans and Turkey was the yataghan which was a large, single-edged knife, usually with a slight curve to the blade, rather reminiscent of the Egyptian khopesh or the Greek kopis. The characteristic hilt had, in place of an ordinary pommel, two broad, round-angled wings at the end of the grip. The scabbard was often of metal or decorated with beaten sheets of metal."
* Coe/Connolly/Harding/Harris/Larocca/Richardson/North/Spring/Wilkinson 1993 p142-143 (Anthony North, "Swords of Islam" p136-147)
"The majority of yataghans date from the period 1750-1860, and from the number of plain, wooden-hilted weapons that survive in areas such as Vienna, unsuccessfully besieged by the Turks in 1683, they were honest fighting weapons as well as parade weapons. Occasionally blades were cut down from broadswords or cavalry swords, but in general the forward-curving single-edged blade was used. Verses in gold or silver are often laid along the blade, together with details of the owner and maker. Various hilt materials were employed -- wood, bone, ivory, silver -- and sometimes the hilt style betrays a particular place of origin, especially on examples made in the late eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. Silver hilts mounted with filigree and coral, for example, are associated with Bosnia; many of these are dated 1800 or thereabouts. The scabbards of the richest examples are of wood, entirely mounted with silver embossed in the flamboyant late Ottoman style. Having no guard, the yataghan fitted closely into the top of the scabbard; this was customarily worn thrust into a waist sash, retained by a hook. Many yataghan blades bear clearly stamped armourer's marks and many silver-mounted examples carry a tughra or Turkish reign mark. Sometimes the date and name of the owner are set into nielloed plaques on the hilt."
* Fryer 1969 p89
"Yatagan A Turkish sword with slightly recurved single-edged blade. The guardless hilt has grips of ivory, horn, silver, etc., often with large-eared pommel."
* Boskovic 2006 p53
"[W]e can conclude that the yatagans appeared and started to be used at the time when in the 18th century firearms -- flintlock muskets and pistols, and hand grenades -- had become sufficiently practical, certain and accessible -- and the outcome of the conflict mostly not depending only on cutting and disabling the opponent with cold steel (sword, sabre, mace, axe or some weapon on a pole). The tendency of armaments in western armies in the 18th century was toward soldiers being furnished with flintlock muskets (the miquelet mechanism), on which bayonets were starting to be used.
"We can assume that Ottoman tradition of the opulent decoration of arms and equipment, and of the need for rank and dignity of the owner of a weapon to be expressed visually in the spirit of imperial or sultanic luxury, it was precisely the yatagan that became a match and response to the new style of warfare with firearms and cannonry, and to the Western European bayonet." [CONTRA Vvedensky 2003 p125]
Pouch
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Bottle
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