The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It - Course Information

112 ~ THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE WORLD AROUND IT ~
~ Societies of frontiersmen
Even a good supply system cannot easily make up for problems of manpower
and in this field the Ottomans had also developed tactics which resembled those
of their western opponents. 70 Ottoman wars were only in part fought out by regular
soldiers paid by the central government, or by the musket-wielding
mercenaries who made up the household forces of a typical seventeenth- or
eighteenth-century provincial governor. In addition, like the Uskoks and free
peasants of the Austrian Militärgrenze (see Chapter 2), the Ottomans also
employed forces whose job it was to secure the borders while at the same time
their members eked out their incomes by raiding. As we have seen, on both sides
of the Ottoman–Habsburg frontier, there was a tacit agreement that minor violations
of this kind would not be regarded as breaches of the peace. However, there
always existed a ‘grey zone’ of major raids that might be regarded as ‘ordinary’
border fighting that had got out of hand, or else as the beginning of ‘real’ war.
Thus the Long War (1593–1606/1001–15), according to some authors, actually
began in 1591/999–1000, because of the unusually large Ottoman raids taking
place in that year.
On the Ottoman–Habsburg frontier, offence and defence alike were based on
sites fortified by wooden palisades (palankas), castles built of stone-faced earth
and more populous walled towns. Hungarian archaeologists have excavated several
such Ottoman fortifications and brought to light evidence concerning the
way of life of the soldiers manning them. 71 Officers could afford some ‘Ottomanstyle’
luxuries, which accounts for the fragments of Iznik pottery that have come
to light in some of these places. Many of the frontiersmen manning fortresses in
Hungary were Bosnians, that is Muslim Slavs. Apart from the limited cultural
resources available in any border province, this fact helps to explain why the
material culture of Istanbul’s upper classes made only a timid appearance in
Hungary’s castle towns. 72 Moreover, many fortresses changed hands several
times during the wars following 1526/932–3, the Long War, and/or the 1683–99/
1094–1111 confrontation. This must have resulted in the loss of many items of
material culture. Due to the military character of the Hungarian–Ottoman border
provinces, high-quality arms formed one of the more coveted luxury goods, and
such items are in fact documented in significant numbers. 73
While the Ottoman–Habsburg frontier thus was characterized by a soldiery
inhabiting fortified points, the situation was quite different in the territories to the
north of the Black Sea. Here the Cossacks and Tatars confronted one another in a
wide-open steppe land crossed by major rivers; on both sides of the border,
livestock-breeding was much more important than crop-growing. 74 Towns were
weakly developed on both the Cossack and the Tatar territories, with the exception
of the khans’ capital of Bahçesaray. By contrast, the other northern Black
Sea towns of some importance, such as Kefe (Feodosiya), Akkerman and Kilia
were under direct Ottoman control.