Осман әскеріндегі реформалар және жаңа әскерлер құру

Reforms in the military of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman military reforms began in the late 18th century.

The Janissary Corps had long been the mainstay of the Ottoman infantry and continued to remain so until its disbandment. However, estimates of the strength of the Corps vary greatly from 12,000 (2,000 combat) in 1790 in Istanbul alone yet when summoned for campaign in 1810 only 13,000 assembled. Various other estimates place the total strength from 150,000 400,000 of which only 50,000 were actual soldiers. Despite their backwardsness in terms of combat the corps possessed immense espirit de corps showing great initiative and often fighting to death, the Janissaries simultaneously mocked western soldiers who fought in closed order formations their old matchlock muskets despite being slower to fire were preferred over newer flintlocks due to their greater range and accuracy.

These were the palace guards of the empire and numbered no more than a few thousand throughout the period and were an elite reserve around Edirne and Istanbul.

In Antatolia the majority of local musketeers were Kurdish and the governor of Trabzon organised his own army and proclaimed his independence thought the majority of the Ayans remained loyal even those in the Caucauss with the Kabartay princes and their 30,000 soldiers remaining loyal to the Sultan.

Western military advisors were imported as advisors but their abilities to enact change were limited. A parade of French officers were brought in, and none of them could do a great deal. One example of an advisor who achieved limited success was the François Baron de Tott, a French officer. He did succeed in having a new foundry built to make artillery. As well he directed the construction of a new naval base. Unfortunately it was almost impossible for him to divert soldiers from the regular army into the new units. The new ships and guns that made it into service were too few to have much of an influence on the Ottoman army and de Tott returned home. He was succeeded by a Scot known as Ingiliz Mustafa. When they had requested French help, General Napoleon Bonaparte was to be sent to Constantinople in 1795 to help organize Ottoman artillery. He did not go, for just days before he was to embark for the Near East he proved himself useful to the Directory by putting down a Parisian mob in the whiff of grapeshot and was kept in France.

The most important change was the creation of an elite new infantry unit: the Nizam i Djedid was set up with western uniforms, weapons, and training. This group would offend the Janissaries. Once elite forces, the Janissaries had become a conservative elite using their military power to advance themselves commercially and politically. In 1806 the Janissaries, with support of the ulema and the provincial governors, revolted against the Sultan and his new force and replaced him with Mustafa IV.

In 1808 Mustafa IV was replaced by Mahmud II with martial law of Alemdar Mustafa Pasha who restarted the reform efforts. His first task was to ally with the Janissaries in order to break the power of the provincial governors. He then turned on the Janissaries, massacring them in their barracks in Istanbul and the provincial capitals in 1826, which is known as the Auspicious Incident. The Sultan now set himself to replace the Janissaries by other regular troops. The Russo Turkish War of 1828–1829 did not give him time to organize a new army, and the Sultan was forced to fight with these young and undisciplined recruits against the veterans of the Tsar. The war was brought to a close by the disastrous Treaty of Adrianople. While the reforms in question were mainly implemented to improve the military, the most notable development that arose out of these efforts was a series of schools teaching everything from math to medicine to train new officers.

Abdul Hamid II attached utmost importance to the reorganization of the military. As early as 1880 he sought, and two years later secured, German assistance, which culminated in the appointment of Lt. Col. Kohler and, finally, Colmar Von der Goltz as military advisors. The curriculum of Harbiye (War College) was specialized further to train staff officers in the European style. The school’s name was changed to Mekteb i Fununu Harb (School of War Science). It was during his reign that the officers’ training was upgraded and regularized, starting with the mid level military rt2diye and idadi schools and culminating in the Mekteb i Harbiye (War College) or, for the most capable, in the Erkan i Harbiye (Chiefs of Staff). The last, as a concept and an organization, was largely the work of von der Goltz. However, although the consensus that Abdulhamid favoured the modernization of the Ottoman army and the professionalization of the officer corps was fairly general, it seems that he neglected the military during the last fifteen years of his reign, and he also cut down the military budget. The problem with the army (numbering Ca. 700,000 at the end of the century) The annual army expenditures were some 7,756,000 liras out of a total national budget of 18,927,000 liras for 1897; when the Debt Administration claimed 6,483.000 liras, little was left for investment in economic development.