JANISSARIES IN ALGIERS – PART 5

(This post is a continuation of Janissaries in Algiers – Parts 1 – 4. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read those posts before continuing on here.)

The janissaries of Algiers, remember, were professional soldiers—a professional army. Like the modern professional fighting forces we are familiar with, janissaries had a rigid formal rank structure and a formal method for being promoted through the ranks.

Algerine janissaries were organized into units of ten or twenty men (apparently, the size varied). These men, known as yoldachs, were the equivalent of privates (the word yoldach is also sometimes used simply to designate janissaries in general). There was an ascending ladder of janissary ranks, but the main ones were the Odabaşı, (the equivalent of Lieutenant), the Bölükbaşı (the equivalent of Captain), and the Yáyábaşı (the equivalent of Colonel). The supreme commander of the janissaries was the Agha.

The Divan—the governing council of Algiers—was essentially a janissary affair. It consisted of the city’s Yáyábaşıs, Bölükbaşıs, and Odabaşıs and was presided over by the Agha. The Aghas were elected to two-month terms.

Promotion in the Algerine janissaries was based on time in service. So in theory, any simple yoldach who put in enough years of service could eventually become an Agha.

Like all professional soldiers, janissaries drew regular pay.

When men joined the Algerine janissaries, they were given a uniform, a sword, and a harquebus (a matchlock musket). They were also automatically enrolled on the payment list and received their pay every two months—in cash, i.e., in silver coins. Each year, the yoldach’s bi-monthly pay went up until, after fifteen years, it plateaued. Officers’ pay was, of course, higher than that of the simple yoldach. Not only did Algerine janissaries receive regular bi-monthly pay; if they lasted long enough to be promoted through the ranks, they also received a pension when they retired from active-duty service.

As well as this regular pay, janissaries received a daily ration of four loaves of bread. They were also entitled to a one-third discount on any meat they bought in the city. They were also exempt from all taxes, and they were not subject to the regular laws of Algiers. If a janissary committed any sort of ‘crime,’ he was judged internally by his superiors.

The Algerine janissaries lived communally in large barracks—as is common with professional militaries the world over. There were seven or eight of these barracks in Algiers, housing between 700 – 800 to upwards of 2,000 janissaries each. They had a reputation for being well built, well organized, very clean places. It was common for janissary officers to own slaves, and the work required to keep the janissary barracks in good order was done in large part by those slaves.

Chains hung across the entrance doors to the janissary barracks. By tradition, if a person being chased by the city authorities was able to grab hold of one of these chains, he was immune from seizure. Like churches, janissary barracks provided sanctuary.

The combination of a regular cash salary and the various perks that accompanied their position made the Algerine janissaries elite citizens.

A janissary could walk into a shop, help himself to what he wanted, and walk out again—and there was precious little the shop owner could do about it. He might try lodging a complaint with the Divan, but that was unlikely to produce much of a result. And he could not physically restrain the janissary. By law in Algiers, people were forbidden to lay hands on a janissary. The official punishment was severe: amputation of the offending hand.

Janissaries not only constituted the elites of the city. They were also the most formidable power block.

Algerine power politics was complicated. Nominally, Algiers was an Ottoman Regency. That is, the city was part of the Ottoman Empire and owed allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan. The reality was more complicated than that.

The janissaries had originally been sent to Algiers, remember, to shore up the rule of Hayreddin Barbarossa, whom the Sultan had appointed Beylerbey. Within a few decades, however, the janissaries had virtually taken over the city and were appointing (and manipulating) the Beylerbeys themselves. This period of the “rule” of the Beylerbeys lasted a little over seventy years (1515-1587).

By then, the Ottoman Sultans were getting fed up. Algiers was on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire, and so difficult to control. They were willing to allow the city a certain amount of autonomy, but the janissaries had virtually stopped sending tribute to Istanbul. That, the Sultans were not willing to accept.

So starting in 1587, the Sultans sent Pashas (Governors) to Algiers. These Pashas served three-year terms. They had a great deal of authority—they were, after all, the Sultan’s direct representative—but they had little real power. The janissaries continued to be the major power block in the city. This was partly because of the obvious fact that they had the monopoly on brute physical force, since nobody else in the city was armed and organized as they were.

They also had another hold over the pashas, though.

Pashas essentially bought their positions, lavishing bribes on the appropriate officials in Istanbul to gain their position. They did this because three years as Pasha in Algiers could make a man very rich. The Pasha got a direct cut of all the slaves and all the booty the Algerine corsairs brought into the city. He also got to collect a variety of taxes. Pashas typically spent their three years milking these revenue streams for all they were worth.

But there was a complication.

Pashas were personally responsible for paying the entire janissary corps of Algiers.

If a Pasha was unable to pay the janissaries on time, the consequences could be severe. A contingent of janissaries would arrest and imprison him until the payment arrived. They might torture him to encourage him to speed up the process. If it looked like he would be unable to pay, they might even execute him—they executed one Pasha by blowing him out of the muzzle of a large cannon—as a way to encourage future Pashas to take the issue of janissary pay seriously.

As the above should make clear, janissaries were the true rulers of Algiers. They held and wielded the power, both physically (their armed might) and institutionally (their dominance of the Divan).

Like every group who wields power, janissaries were jealous of their position and their privileges, and they were prone to abusing those they held power over. On one famous occasion, this abuse gave rise to a bloody rebellion—of the janissaries’ own children.

For the story of this rebellion, see the next post in this series here in this blog.