"An Illustrated history of the Ottoman Uniforms 1800-1918." Topic

"This is a non-political historical exploration of the various uniforms that developed over a 120 period. Until recently there has been very little available in the English language on the uniforms, flags and insignia worn by Ottoman Turkish forces covering the full period 1800 – 1918.

This study identifies over 460 different uniforms worn by the Ottoman Turkish army, and navy from 1800 till 1918, with examples taken from surviving uniforms, period illustrations, written descriptions, and photographs.

Many of the terms, phrases and spellings of ranks are also used, to preserve what may have been original pronunciations. For instance, between 1880 and 1916 commonly the Ottoman rank of major, is written in German, and British references as ‘Bimbashi'. Whereas in modern Turkish it is correctly spelled as Binbashi (from the Turkish – a chief of a thousand). In this particular case, it is known that ‘Bimbashi' is actually soldier Arabic, a pidgin of Arabic which developed among the Anglo-Egyptian military (used typically between 1870 and 1920)…"
See here
ottoman-uniforms.com

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

Thanks a bunch, Tango. Real interesting info.

Great site--lots of links! Bookmarked!

Very good!

Thank you ! Great stuff.

Best link I've seen in a long time, probably since cent-jours. Thanks!

Very useful. Thanks for sharing.

Thanx for rminding me I need to finish my Turks.

Happy you enjoyed the link my friends!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Great find, thanks for sharing

Great find my dear cousin.

oh the Russo-Turkish War is calling me…..

Happy you enjoyed it too Eleve and dear cousin!. (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

Outstanding!

Merci Beaucoups!

TVAG

A votre service mon cher ami!.

Amicalement
Armand

The man behind the site – Dr Chris Flaherty – is IMHO a genius!

Agree with you my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

The stuff on the early period could still do with some work.
On 1600 TILL 1800 JANISSARY CORPS

This picture:

needs a caption as by Hans Weigel, 1577

The long white ostrich feather plumes were not invented by Knotel, he based it on Nicolas de Nicolay, 1577

•The Janissary Corps Musketeers' buttoned kaftan is painted in various colours, yet was actually a uniform yellow or blue (as can be seen from these original pictures).

Knotel may have made up the stipes but Ottoman minatures show also green, red & black. I would have used 'solid colours' rather than "uniform" so as not to give the impression a unit all wore the same colour, unless he can proove they did in the 17th century

Pictures from an Album of Ottoman Soldiers dated 1805 which I wish he could have identified:

Have a long s: ſ in the captions.
Bimbaſcha should be Bimbascha not Bimbalcha.
Janitſcharen should be Janitscharen not Janitjcharen.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume and Soldiers

TMP went down for maintenance before I fixed all my typos in the above.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume and Soldiers

On the same page there is a link to my Janisary on my Melchior Lorck, 1570-83, site but no mention that Melchior Lorck has a Janisary with an enourmous plume

Figure A, as he notes in a footnote, appears in The Costume of Turkey, Illustrated by a Series of Engravings, 1802 as "a Spahi, belonging to one of the Asiatic provinces", so he should do away with

•Figure 'A': is identified specifically as a "SIPAHI TIMARIOTE" [1]. Which appears to identify him as a member of the Household cavalry.

I don't know much about 19th century Ottomans but on this page THE FIRST MODERN OTTOMAN ARMY UNIFORMS 1800 TILL 1826 has this claim:

It should be noted, that a print illustration of 1808 Ottoman new army soldier clearly identifies a soldier (which can be dated to 1807-08 by the particular headgear he is wearing), as a "Soldier of the Bostandjees, or Corps from the Sultan's Gardeners" (New York Public Library's Digital Gallery, the Vinkhuizjen Collection). This primary evidence presents a very different picture of the origins of the soldiers in the new army, as part of the Sultan's personnel household.

The Vinkhuizjen Collection is not a primary source. Vinkhuizjen cut pictures out of books and pasted them in albums, losing most of the provenance and most of any text in these books. The dates Vinkhuizjen penciled on these are often the date of publication rather than the date the image represents or the date of the art it is based on. This can vary by decades and centuries.
On the NAPOLEONIC OTTOMAN JANISSARY CORPS UNIFORMS page is this image:

which has been stitched together after Vinkhuizjen cut it into pieces (so he had more pictures).
More effort would be needed to find all Vinkhuizjen's sources.

This picture on the fantasy Janissary page:

may have appeared in 1880-1900 illustrated encyclopaedias, as noted, but it is from Elbicei Atika. Musée des Anciens Costumes Turcs de Constantinople, par Jean Brindesi, 1855. It also appeared on a set of Turkish postcards made in the 1950s.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume and Soldiers

There is no "print illustration of 1808 Ottoman new army soldier" with that date in the Vinkhuizjen Collection but this plate:

dated 1817 by Vinkhuizjen is the one referred to. Vinkhuizjen has cut the caption "Soldier of ditto" from the contents page of McLean's The Military Costume of Turkey. Without the line that appeared above it – the caption is useless.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Ottoman Costume & Soldiers

Druzhina – that is not to acknowledge that you are a genius too – your website is just STUPENDOUS! It must have taken hours and hours of work, and is a must see for anyone looking for info.

Thanks Mike, but I'm no genius just a collector.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Ottoman Costume & Soldiers