JANISSARIES

After the conquest of Constantinople and the Balkans, the Ottomans created a supremely important force composed of slave troops.  Through an institution known as the devshirme, the Ottomans required the Christian population of the Balkan to contribute young boys to become slaves of the sultan.  The boys received special training, learned Turkish, and converted to Islam. According to individual ability, they entered the Ottoman civilian administration or the military.  Those who became slave soldiers were known as Janissaries, from the Turkish yeni cheri, or “new troops”.  i

The Janissaries quickly gained a reputation for esprit de corps, loyalty to the sultan, and readiness to employ new technology—especially with gunpowder weapons. They also allowed the sultan to personally possess a powerful military force to counterbalance the ethnic, religious, and tribal interests of the vast empire.  Though later altered, Janissaries were not allowed to marry and their children were forbidden to become a member of the Corps, thus insuring that positions continued to given to the most talented devshirme recruits.

COSSACKS

The term Cossack was developed for the Turkish word kazak, meaning “adventurer” or “free man”.  Cossacks were a group of people who fled serfdom from Polish and Lithuanian lords and Russian boyars and settled in the hinterlands of the Black and Caspian Seas. They had a tradition of independence and  received privileges from the Russian government as free, self-governing military communities in southwest Russia.  As talented but undisciplined horsemen, Russian Czars employed the Cossacks as scouts, raiders, skirmishers and explorers. One famed example was when Yermak Timofeyevich led 840 musket-armed me into Siberia and force tribesmen to submit to Russian rule.

BANNERMEN

The Manchu tribes of northern China were able to overthrow the Ming rulers to create the Qing Dynasty because of the Banner system of military organization. Manchu leader Nurhachi organized his warriors into companies of men distinguished by different colors. Eventually, all of Nurhachi’s followers were organized into the Banner system as both a military and administrative system which included taxation, conscription, and registration of the population. Each bannerman lived, farmed, and worked with their families during times of peace, and in times of war each banner contributed a certain number of fighting men.  Over time, new banners were formed to include eight Han Chinese and eight Mongol groups.