JANISSARIES IN ALGIERS – PART 3

(This post is a continuation of Janissaries in Algiers – Parts 1 & 2. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read those posts before continuing on here.)

The 2,000 janissaries that Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan, sent to Algiers around 1520 to shore up Hayreddin Barbarossa’s rule of that city changed dramatically the power dynamics in the region. Hayreddin now had a professional standing army at his command (as long as he remained loyal to the Sultan).

One of the janissaries’ first official acts in their new home was to efficiently (and brutally) put down a revolt against Hayreddin’s rule by local tribesmen. After quickly defeating the rebel forces, they displayed the severed heads of several hundred executed rebels as a public demonstration that a new military force had arrived.

The janissaries would have been unlike anything the indigenous Algerian tribesmen had ever see before. Most armies at this time—in both North Africa and Europe—were composed of conscripts, volunteers, and mercenaries brought together on a temporary basis for particular conflicts and then disbanded (maintaining a standing army was cripplingly expensive).

Janissaries were something very different: a professional military force. They wore matching uniforms (which few military forces of the time did), were well trained, had excellent discipline, and had strong esprit de corps. All of this made them formidable adversaries. More important in a practical sense, though, was the fact that they had mastered the use of firearms. Sixteenth century janissaries used the harquebus—the matchlock rifle. They were excellent marksmen and were among the first to perfect the use of volley firing (where one rank of harquebusiers fired in unison, then knelt to reload while another rank behind them took its turn to fire, and so on).

This combination of military discipline and devastating fire power was pretty much unstoppable, at least as far as the local North African tribesmen of the time were concerned.

The brutal effectiveness of the janissary units is illustrated by a story told of a rebellion that took place in Tlemcen, a city located about 500 kilometers/390 miles west of Algiers, and that was under Algerine rule.

A marabout (a holy man) in Tlemcen rose up and convinced his followers that it was time to throw off the hated Algerine yoke. He announced that he had received secret revelations from the Prophet Muhammad, who was angry to see their city under Algerine tyranny, and that the Prophet had given him the magical ability to protect his followers. The muskets of their enemies, he claimed, would misfire, and their swords would become blunt and useless.

This marabout gathered together a fighting force of no less than 10,000 men, all fanatically inspired by his preaching.

When word of this reached Algiers, a force of janissaries was sen to quell the rebellion.

Against the marabouts’ 10,000 men, 1,200 janissaries marched out of Algiers.

When the two forces met, and the rebels saw how few the janissaries were, they roared in wild excitement and, with the marabout urging them on, surged forward in a great howling mass, like a human tsunami, intent on overwhelming their enemy.

The janissaries, however, stood their ground and delivered withering volley after volley. Their harquebuses did not misfire, and their sabers did not grow dull.

The rebel tribesmen, stunned that their marabout’s promises had failed to come true, broke and fled.

The janissaries captured the marabout, along with thirty or so of the ringleaders of the revolt. They flayed these men alive on the spot, stuffed the bloody skins with straw, and brought them back to Algiers to parade them on poles though the streets as a brutal warning.

 

As this story makes clear, janissaries were highly effective troops. In the early days, though, when the original 2,000 were sent to Algiers, they were not enough.

Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan, was well aware of this. Located far from Istanbul, Algiers was part of the “wild west” of the Ottoman Empire. To keep the area pacified would require more than the janissary troops he had sent. He could not afford to send any more, though. Suleiman was in his mid-twenties at the time and had just ascended to the throne. He was busy trying to increase his empire. In total, he only had about 13,000 janissaries at his disposal. The 2,000 he sent to Algiers represented a significant portion of that force. He could not afford to send any more.

Algiers was too important lose, though. So the Sultan did something drastic, something that went against nearly 300 years of janissary tradition. He announced that any volunteers who went to Algiers to fight in the cause would receive all the freedoms and privileges—and the pay—granted to the janissaries. They would, in other words, become janissaries overnight.

This was a seriously radical step that changed forever the composition of the Algerine janissary force.

No fewer than 4,000 volunteers showed up, mostly from Anatolia (modern geographical Turkey).

Upon arrival, each new recruit received the following:

• a woolen blanket
• a canvas shirt
• a sleeveless jacket
• a pair of pants
• a red sash that served as a belt
• a cap
• a coat
• a pair of shoes (the heels of which were shod with rounded inserts of iron, rather like horseshoes)
• a sword
• an harquebus

After training—far less training that janissaries customarily received—the new recruits became janissaries.

Just like that.

It was a most profound change. The Algerine janissaries were now no longer slaves—of however exalted a status—for the 4,000 new recruits were Muslims, and the Koran expressly forbids the enslavement of Muslins.

This morphing of the janissaries into something other than the traditional, homogenous force of ex-Christian devşirme slaves was beginning to happen elsewhere in the empire—it was in the air, so to speak, as change often is—but nowhere at this time did it occur with such sudden and sweeping effect as in Algiers.

And once started, there was no going back.

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For more on the janissaries of Algiers, see the next post in this series here in this blog.