The Janizaries

The Turkish military force known as the Janizaries (Yeni Askari, new soldier) was originally made up by Sultan Orkhan, about the year A.D. 1330, of Christian captives, who were compelled to embrace Mohammedanism. They were not regularly organized until 1362, when Amurath I., after conquering the southern Slavic kingdom, claimed one-fifth of the able-bodied young captives, to be converted to Islamism, and educated as soldiers. This was done with extraordinary care; and they soon became a formidable means of defence, and the body-guard of the Sultan.

Originally they numbered 1,000, but Amurath increased the number to 10,000; and in the seventeenth century there were about 100,000 of them serving in the line throughout the empire.

Under Solyman the Magnificent, the Janizaries formed the best disciplined force in Europe, and were noted for the wild impetuosity of their attack; but after the death of Solyman they began to decline.

The history of the Janizaries abounds in conspiracies, assassinations of Sultans, and atrocities of every kind; so that they finally became more dangerous to the Sultan than his foreign enemies.

The lowest officer of this force was the cook, for whom the soldiers manifested the greatest reverence. They never appeared without a wooden spoon in their turbans, and on great occasions always assembled around their kettles; their revolts were always proclaimed by reversing the kettles; and to lose one of these utensils in battle was as much of a disgrace as it is in our day to lose the colors.

The attempts of the Sultans to reform or dissolve the Janizaries were always unsuccessful until Mahmoud II. came to the throne, in 1826. He matured a plan for ridding himself of them, and published a decree that one hundred and fifty of every regiment should become regularly disciplined soldiers.

This, as was expected, led to a revolt; but, the Sultan being prepared for it, the Janizaries were beaten on every side.

Burned alive in their barracks, cannonaded in the Atmeidan where they made their most desperate stand, and massacred singly in the streets, they were, in three months, entirely destroyed as a force.

Fifteen thousand of them were executed, twenty thousand condemned to exile; and in July, 1826, the Sultan issued a proclamation declaring the Janizary forces forever dissolved.

In the arsenal of the ancient palace of the Sultans at Constantinople are to be seen some wax effigies of the Janizaries.

At the taking of Constantinople by the Turks (May 29, 1453), the Janizaries played an important part. The Sultan had promised doubled pay to his victorious troops; and, according to Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," he had said, in addressing the military chiefs of his army, "Many are the provinces of my empire: the intrepid soldier who first ascends the walls of Constantinople shall be rewarded with the government of the fairest and most wealthy, and my gratitude shall accumulate his honors and fortunes above the measure of his own hopes." The history goes on to relate, "The first who deserved the Sultan's reward was Hassan the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength. With his cimeter in one hand, and his buckler in the other, he ascended the outward fortification: of the thirty Janizaries who were emulous of his valor, eighteen perished in the bold adventure. Hassan and his twelve companions had reached the summit: the giant was precipitated from the rampart; he rose on one knee, and was again oppressed by a shower of darts and stones. But his success had proved that the achievement was possible; the walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks: and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage-ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multitudes. . . . It was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople, which had defied the power of Chosroes, the Chagan, and the caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet the Second."