Topçu

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Sanjak of the Topçu
Miniature of an Ottoman artilleryman (Swedish caption: "Tobitzij - styckeiunkare")

Topçu ( Ottoman طوپجی اوجاغی İA Ṭopcı Ocaġı ), plural Topçular ( German  "artillerists, gunners" ), is the name of the artillery troops of the Ottoman Empire , a type of weapon within the Ottoman army . Through Marsigli's work Stato militare dell'Imperio Ottomanno , the name Topey has partly become established in European literature . This is based on a reading error ("e" instead of "c") by the typesetter or a copyist. Even today, the Topçular Mescidi in Istanbul (مسجد, masjid, "place of prostration", a smaller mosque, in which no Friday prayers take place) and the Topçular ferry port on the Marmara Sea (on the south bank of the entrance to İzmit Korfezi ) these traditional names.

Emergence

From the first half of the 14th century, black powder was used for guns in Europe. However, the effect was initially only noticeable during sieges and almost insignificant for field battles. The mobile field artillery of the Hussites and the sometimes successful use of the new weapon by the Burgundian Duke Charles the Bold were exceptions.

The Ottoman Empire very soon began to build up artillery, according to Buchmann around 1389, although classic throwing machines ( catapult , ballista ) were also included in the early days . The organization of the Topçular went back to Sultan Mehmed II . Nicolae Iorga narrates his vision: [...] that the use of powder opened a new, different age in the development of the art of war .

organization

The Topçular were barracked in the Serratkuli troops' bases in Anatolia and Rumelia . But it was a unit of the Kapıkulu , directly to their general, the Topçu Başı  /طوپجی باشی, subordinated and this directly to the Sultan. The Topçu Başı, called Topey Pasha by Marsigli , was one of the highest-ranking military dignitaries. Marsigli reports: [...] has a despotic power over all those who work on the cannons; he must always be informed about the state of affairs in the magazines [...] . He was on an equal footing with the Janissary Agha and the Pashas and belonged to the group of "stirrup aghas" ​​who took part in the Dīwān meetings but had to stand. After Hans Miksch he was automatically a member of the War Ministry, chaired by the Janissary Agha. At the circumcision ceremony of four princes, celebrated for three weeks by Suleyman the Magnificent , he was one of the guests of honor at the Sultan's banquet. The Topçular included the fighting artillery troops , the Artillery Train ( Top Arabacı  /طوپ عربه جی), the gun and ammunition foundries ( Cebeci  /جبه جی) and the miners who are responsible for the construction of trenches and tunnels ( Lağımcı  /لغمجی) and mine laying ( Humbaracı  /خمبره جی) were responsible.

Build a gun

The gunsmith was a "general contractor"; he built and operated the cannons. Siege guns (mostly mortars ) were very often cast on site because of their enormous size. A cannon foundry was set up in Belgrade because of the long transport routes. The casting material and the molds were delivered from Istanbul (see also Topčider ). According to Marsigli, "[...] when the cannons have been completed, the Grand Vizier and the most important ministers of the gate are present".

A famous gunmaster is about the piece coater Orban (Urban), a Christ from Eastern Europe, the. Devised a large number of guns for Mehmet II and built, initially for two castles Anadoluhisarı and Rumeli which blocked the Bosporus at its narrowest point . A Venetian galley is said to have been sunk with the first finished gun during a test fire . In 1464, the gunsmith Mimir Ali constructed the Dardanelles gun with a barrel length of 5.18 m and a caliber of 63 cm, the largest Ottoman bronze gun that has survived to this day. It is now on display at the Royal Armories in Hampshire, England. In the same year, after the unsuccessful siege of Jajce , the Ottomans had to sink the large artillery that was cast by the piece master Jörg von Nürnberg in the river Vrbas . The Hungarians recovered them and continued to use them.

Guns

Turks with a Nuremberg field snake, etching by Albrecht Dürer
Topçu (front left) during the successful Ottoman siege of Becse an der Theiss in 1551
Mehmed II the Conqueror has a giant cannon placed in front of Constantinople.
The Mufti consecrates the cannons before the battle.

In addition to the giant cannons and mortars, which were mostly made for specific sieges, a number of gun types developed over time. They are mentioned several times in the records of the keeper of the seals Hasan Ağa about the campaigns of his master, the Grand Vizier Köprülü Fâzıl Ahmed Pascha in 1663 and 1664 . Two categories can be identified, although the boundaries are fluid (caliber information from Vajda, conversion errors due to translations possible):

The siege and fortress guns

  • Balyemez , folk etymology (Turkish: “never eats honey!”) Derived from the German “lazy bitch ” , from the Italian pallamezza (medium bullet) or mezzo bombarda (half main rifle ), bullet weight 25 to 35 kg, caliber ≈ 21 cm
  • Sultan Suleyman cannons, with names like Delitop (great cannon) or Karadeve (black camel)
  • Mortars, high-speed guns with very large ammunition weight

The field guns

  • Kolomborna , Kolubrine, Couleuvrine (French), field snake, ball weight 1 to 2 kg, caliber ≈ 18.5 cm
  • Şahî cannon (Turkish şâhî = royal, or şahin = king falcon), light field gun, similar to the falconet (light field snake), caliber 2.8 cm
  • Şayka cannon, mainly on the Danube ships ( Tschaiken , Turkish / Serbian şayka)

Since the army reform from 1725, the Topçular have been converted more and more to modern Western weapons, partly through imports, partly through replicas (see also the paragraph on time after 1683 ).

History until 1683

In his History of the Ottoman Empire, Hammer-Purgstall reports on the use of gunsmith Heider's guns in the first battle on the Amselfeld (1389) . However, other sources don't mention this.

For the closure of the Strait of the Bosphorus and the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II promoted the construction of huge calibers. Orban's giant gun, which could fire 500 kg bullets, was brought into position with a train of 50 pairs of oxen. At the siege of Belgrade (1456) there were […] two and twenty colossal cannons, no less than 27 feet in length, and seven enormous mortars from which stone balls of unprecedented size were hurled. The smaller siege gun is said to have amounted to more than 300 fire throats of different caliber [...], writes Johann Wilhelm Zinkeisen . When the Ottomans withdrew, they had to be given up, but the Sultan had them nailed up beforehand (i.e. an iron pin was driven into the ignition hole, rendering them unusable). Such guns were also used by Mehmed during the siege of Otranto in southern Italy (1480).

Suleyman the Magnificent conquered Rhodes from the Knights of St. John in 1522 . To destroy the fortifications, he had a mortar built that fired stone balls with a circumference of 3 m. In the Battle of Mohács (1526) he defeated the Hungarians with massive artillery use. The first assault on Vienna failed because Suleyman left the heavy siege artillery in Buda . For the unsuccessful attempt at conquering Malta , his opponents were the Johanniter for the second time, he had the naval artillery equipped with very large calibers. Monsieur de Petremol, France's ambassador to the Sublime Porte, reported to Paris: […] twenty guns of excessive size and of enormous caliber were cast […]. But there is one piece in particular that makes you think that no ship is big enough to take on board.

For the first time in 1596 in the battle of Mezökeresztes , the Austrian artillery was superior to the Ottoman Topçu. But the weak military leader Archduke Maximilian III gambled away . this advantage against the Sultan Mehmed III. The Ottomans nevertheless continued to trust their artillery power, they overlooked the progress of the Occident in fortification technology. Hasan Ağa writes about the bombardment of Neuhäusl in 1663: [...] opened fire from the guns. A total of 21 Balyemez guns were set up around the fortress […]. But the fortress was so strong that the guns couldn't touch it. It was only when the miners were deployed that breaches for the storm troops blew up in the walls. And so, during the second Turkish siege of Vienna, the city held out against the bombardment long enough until the relief army arrived. This also ended the phase of Ottoman expansion to the west.

Picture gallery 1

  • 15th century bomb, powder chamber and tube dismantled for transport

  • Stone cannon balls from the battle for the St. John fortress Rhodes

  • Stone and iron bullets

  • Cannon Hall in the Istanbul Military Museum

Time after 1683

1. Mobile Guard artillery in front of the Topcu barracks in Istanbul

The failed second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 was a turning point in history, from now on the Ottoman Empire was on the defensive. But the Topçular continued to be important. An army of Peter the Great of Russia was shot at by the Ottomans with 470 field guns in their fortified camp on the Prut in 1711 and forced to surrender. Under Sultan Mahmud I , the French Comte Claude Alexandre de Bonneval (Ahmet Pascha) reorganized the army and thus also the Topçular according to the European model. In 1770 the Swedish Baron de Tott formed the coastal artillery of the Dardanelles successfully against the attack of a Russian fleet from the Aegean Sea. The uprising of the Janissaries against the army reform in 1826 was bloodily suppressed by the new artillery troops (the so-called “Charitable Event”) . During the Russo-Ottoman War 1877–1878 , this troop was already 15,000 strong, with 540 modern guns. The giant gun that defended the Dardanelles in 1915 was produced by the German company Krupp .

With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, the army also disbanded. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk reformed the armed forces after the founding of the republic in 1923 .

Picture gallery 2

  • Mountain war at Sarikamiş Pass, 1914

  • Heavy artillery at the Dardanelles in 1915

  • Heavy artillery at the Dardanelles in 1915

  • Camouflaged position at the Dardanelles in 1915

Trivia

Artilleryman on a camel cannon, LF v. Marsigli 1737

Count Marsigli shows the copper engraving of a "camel cannon" in his work. A light gun was attached to the left and right of the saddle of a camel, which the artilleryman seated above could fire with a fuse. Probably more dangerous for dromedaries and gunners than for the enemy.

During the second Turkish siege of Vienna, the nineteen Kolomborna guns, the heaviest of Kara Mustafa Pasha's calibers , were fired six to eight rounds per hour by the Turkish gunners. But because most of them were too high or too short, a rumor soon spread in the besieged city: Ahmed Bey, the Topçu-Pasha in the Grand Vizier's army, was plagued by remorse in view of Vienna's church towers and deliberately let his cannons fire. Indeed, he was a French Capuchin brother who had converted to Islam. The real reason is probably that the Turkish artillery was already quite out of date by the end of the 17th century (mostly hand-made stone balls and solid iron balls were still used, hardly any grenades).

See also

literature

  • Bertrand Michael Buchmann: Austria and the Ottoman Empire. A bilateral story. WUV University Press, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85114-479-1 .
  • Nicolae Jorga: History of the Ottoman Empire based on the sources, Volume 2: 1451-1538. Perthes, Gotha 1908–1913, reprint Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1993, ISBN 3-534-13738-8 .
  • Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill: The Ottoman Empire 1300-1922. The story of a great power. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0336-3 .
  • Hans Miksch: See you at the Golden Apple. Requirements, basics and early development of the Ottoman Empire. In: The struggle of the emperors and caliphs. Volume 1. Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1986, ISBN 3-7637-5472-5 .
  • Hans Miksch: Hungary between cross and crescent. In: The struggle of the emperors and caliphs. Volume 2. Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1990, ISBN 3-7637-5473-3 .
  • Hans Miksch: Vienna - the Stalingrad of the Ottomans. In: The struggle of the emperors and caliphs. Volume 3. Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1990, ISBN 3-7637-5474-1 .
  • Rhoads Murphey: Ottoman Warfare. 1500-1700. Putgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ 1999, ISBN 0-8135-2684-1 . (translated by Mr. Ing.Hans-Michael Reibnagel, Vienna)
  • Erich Prokosch: War and Victory in Hungary. The Hungarian campaigns of the Grand Vizier Köprülüzâde Fâzil Ahmed Pascha in 1663 and 1664 based on the “gems of history” of his keeper Hasan Ağa. In: Ottoman historians. Volume 8, Verlag Styria, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1976, ISBN 3-222-10470-0 .
  • Stephan Vajda The siege, report on the Turkish year 1683. ORAC publishing house, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-85368-921-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bertrand Michael Buchmann: Austria and the Ottoman Empire. A bilateral story. WUV-Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85114-479-1 , p. 83.
  2. ↑ Nicolae Iorga: History of the Ottoman Empire based on the sources, Volume 2: 1451-1538. Perthes, Gotha 1908–1913, reprint Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1993, ISBN 3-534-13738-8 .
  3. ↑ a b Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli: Stato Militare dell'Imperio Ottomanno. Quoted from Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill: Das Ottmanische Reich 1300–1922. The story of a great power. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0336-3 , p. 25.
  4. ^ Bertrand Michael Buchmann: Austria and the Ottoman Empire. A bilateral story. WUV-Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85114-479-1 , pp. 69, 70.
  5. ↑ Hans Miksch: See you at the Golden Apple. Requirements, basics and early development of the Ottoman Empire. In: The struggle of the emperors and caliphs. Volume 1. Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1986, ISBN 3-7637-5472-5 , Appendix: Table p. 377.
  6. ↑ Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill: The Ottoman Empire 1300-1922. The story of a great power. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0336-3 , p. 75.
  7. ↑ Rhoads Murphey: Ottoman Warfare 1500-1700 , p. 36ff.
  8. ↑ Erich Prokosch: War and Victory in Hungary. The Hungarian campaigns of the Grand Vizier Köprülüzâde Fâzil Ahmed Pascha in 1663 and 1664 based on the “gems of history” of his keeper Hasan Ağa. In: Ottoman historians. Volume 8. Verlag Styria, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1976, ISBN 3-222-10470-0 , p. 143.
  9. ↑ Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill: The Ottoman Empire 1300-1922. The story of a great power. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0336-3 , p. 158.
  10. ↑ Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill: The Ottoman Empire 1300-1922. The story of a great power. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0336-3 , p. 171.
  11. ↑ Erich Prokosch: War and Victory in Hungary. The Hungarian campaigns of the Grand Vizier Köprülüzâde Fâzil Ahmed Pascha in 1663 and 1664 based on the “gems of history” of his keeper Hasan Ağa. In: Ottoman historians. Volume 8. Verlag Styria, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1976, ISBN 3-222-10470-0 .
  12. ^ Stephan Vajda: The siege. Report on the Turkish year 1683 . ORAC publishing house, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-85368-921-3 , p. 37.
  13. ↑ Hasan Ağa, p. 68 and much more
  14. ↑ Hasan Ağa, pp. 105, 117
  15. ↑ Hasan Ağa, p. 202
  16. ↑ Hasan Ağa, pp. 124, 143
  17. ↑ Hasan Ağa, p. 93
  18. ↑ Hasan Ağa, p. 93
  19. ↑ J. v. Hammer-Purgstall History of the Ottoman Empire. Quoted from Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill: Das Ottmanische Reich 1300–1922. The story of a great power. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0336-3 , p. 117.
  20. ^ Bertrand Michael Buchmann: Austria and the Ottoman Empire. A bilateral story. WUV-Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85114-479-1 , p. 41.
  21. ^ Johann Wilhelm Zinkeisen: History of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Quoted from Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill: Das Ottmanische Reich 1300–1922. The story of a great power. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0336-3 , p. 166.
  22. ↑ Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill: The Ottoman Empire 1300-1922. The story of a great power. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0336-3 , p. 37.
  23. ↑ Erich Prokosch: War and Victory in Hungary. The Hungarian campaigns of the Grand Vizier Köprülüzâde Fâzil Ahmed Pascha in 1663 and 1664 based on the “gems of history” of his keeper Hasan Ağa. In: Ottoman historians. Volume 8. Verlag Styria, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1976, ISBN 3-222-10470-0 , p. 68.
  24. ^ Bertrand Michael Buchmann: Austria and the Ottoman Empire. A bilateral story. WUV-Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85114-479-1 , p. 167.
  25. ↑ Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill: The Ottoman Empire 1300-1922. The story of a great power. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0336-3 , picture on p. 219.
  26. ↑ Stephan Vayda Die Siege, report on the Turkish year 1683. ORAC Verlag, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-85368-921-3 , pp. 102, 103.