"Ottoman forces 1584" Topic

I like buying old books and recently acquired a set of the Cassell's National Library circa 1896. One of the books in the set was 'Voyager's Tales' by Richard Haklyt – which is available free online at: gutenberg.org/ebooks/3752

One of the tales was about Thomas Sanders who apparently recorded quite a bit about the Turkish army. It's worth reading – can't scan all of it here, but one page is a list of 'The number of soldiers continually attending upon the Beglerbegs…etc'. For anyone looking into Ottoman armies of the day, it seems like a very useful read.

Impressive numbers. I assume there are local levied forces with varied training (if any), usually only going to war when war came to the province – or a campaign was to be fought next to the province and the army assembled there.

There are a lot of garrison troops, guards of local officials, port security, etc. that could very well be maintained on a permanent basis. I am guessing that this is what are listed. I doubt they are levies, but they probably also aren't a standing army the way we think of one.

The Sultan had a standing army estimated at 87,000 men in 1528 of whom 37,000 were holders of timar (military prebends- collecting taxes to support themselves and the men they raised)while the remaining 50,000 were on salary paid 4 times per year (James D. Tracy- Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War). To this you would add the various levies and such that Pustar mentions.