"Ottoman Army War Elephants?" Topic

"The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1988) was on television the other day. For a fantasy-adventure film, it gave an interesting portrayal of a European walled city besieged by an extremely colorful Ottoman Turkish army, complete with a unit of armored war elephants sporting howdahs armed with light guns.

I don't recall ever seeing references to the Ottomans employing elephants in their field armies. Was this pure fantasy on the part of the film producers, or did Turkish armies ever take elephants with them on their European campaigns?

There is no record of that taking place, and from the standpoint of biology even the recoil from a light gun would break an elephants back.

However..

THAT was Baron Munchausen, one f the patron saints of war gamers (and congenital liars) and it's a game and a hobby so what the heck why not.

I have them for my Imagi-nation Ikean army based on the Ottomans. Four war Elephants with baby cannons on their backs. They look cool.

The Mughals supposedly used guns on elephants during the 16th century.

did Turkish armies ever take elephants with them on their European campaigns?

There is Execution of Prisoners by Elephant, Belgrade, from the Suleymanname

Druzhina
Ottoman Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

No warfare usage that I am aware of. Camels were depicted during the siege of Vienna (though also not in action) – its hard to imagine that the printers back then would have missed a sensation like an elephant if any of these would have shown up before western eyes.

Thank you for all the replies!

"Execution of Prisoners by Elephant." What a great subject for a tabletop vignette! I may try that with my 54mm Russo-Turkish War collection, using the elephant from Armies in Plastic.

The Qajar Persians also liked to perform execution by elephant.

When no elephants were available Aga Mohammed Khan used horses fitted with special spiky horse-shoes. Presumably he kept a supply of these on hand for the purpose – he was a bit like that.

A Zand army had a command elephant with musician riders to direct manoeuvres.

Late 18th – Early 19th C Persians like to maintain a group of elephants but I could find no evidence of their use (other than the above) other than in royal parades, albeit they were next to military assets in the parade.

(There was occasional copying of military ideas between Persia and the Ottomans.)

Regards

David F Brown

There is also A portrait of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent and Elephant by Melchior Lorck

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Polish-Ottoman War 1621 in Eastern Europe

Pieter Snayers's painting usually mistakenly given as the battle of Vienna 1529 or Esztergom 1543 represents actually the battle of Khotyn 1621 in Moldavia (but today located in Ukraine) where the elephants taking part in the campaign are shown on the left near the bridge

During siege of Chocim (Khotyn) in 1621 Polish artillery managed to even kill one of those elephants.

@Lilian – on what are you basing theory that it's Snayers and painting of Chocim? I only seen it referenced as Vrancx, as one of two sieges you mentioned.

well I realized there were only four war elephants, probably you will mention them in your forthcoming Helion book ;)
reading your blog, there were the double :

Chocim (Khotyn) campaign of 1621 was one of the biggest achievement of Commonwealth's military in 17th century. Joint Polish-Lithuanian-Cossack army managed to defend their fortifications against massive Ottoman forces. Jan Czapliński, who served in Polish army as a volunteer during this battle, mentioned rather unusual feat of Polish artillery crews:
"There are many camels and oxen in enemy's camp but they only have eight elephants and one of them was killed by [our] cannons"

concerning the painting I caught that on the following Ukrainian reenactor and History facebook page "Ruthenia Militum"

link

An interesting discovery of Ukrainian historians. The painting by the artist Peter Snyers, which has always been described as either the siege of Vienna in 1529 or the Battle of Esztergom in 1543, actually turned out to be a picture of the Battle of Khotyn in 1621.
It is drawn from the left bank of the Dniester, to which the Turks crossed the newly built bridge (left in the picture) so that it was easier to fire on the Cossack and Polish camps.
If you look closely, you can see on the right Khotyn castle, and the destroyed bridge around it. To the left of it is the camp of the Commonwealth troops, and approximately in the middle is the Cossack camp.
Also in the picture you can see the fighting elephants (who actually took part in the campaign)

Will be very exciting if this is Chocim 👍. Fabulous picture, which ever way.

War elephants at Chocim ?! Now that is interesting 🧐.

but I wonder what they pretended to do with them at the time of the gunpowder and cannons?
intimidated the ennemy? really? Use them against a cavalry charge or rather something like a kind of prestigious weapon

Could the elephants have been for hauling guns rather than fighting.

… usually mistakenly given as the battle of Vienna 1529 or Esztergom 1543 represents actually the battle of Khotyn 1621 in Moldavia

That makes sense. The equipment, especially the artillery, looked too modern for 1529, so I never took this as a serious depiction of the siege – even before you look at the topography which is different at Vienna. Given the amount of written sources for Vienna I am also quite sure that Elephants would have been mentioned there.

Do you have a source on that issue? Seems like the one or other Wikipedia article using this painting could use an update.