Category: History

The Janissaries: The History and Legacy of the Ottoman Empire’s Elite Infantry Units by Charles River Editors
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Overview: In the wake of taking Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire would spend the next few centuries expanding its size, power, and influence, bumping up against Eastern Europe and becoming one of the world’s most important geopolitical players. It was a rise that would not truly start to wane until the 19th century.

Among those who were responsible for the projection of Ottoman power, few deserve as much credit as the Janissaries. Established by Murad I, the Janissaries became an elite infantry force that was loyal only to the sultan. Their mission was to protect only him and in battles they were always the closest to him, forming a human shield. Originally, they consisted of non-Muslim slaves, mainly Christian boys from Byzantium. Jewish boys were not taken as soldiers and Muslims could not, by law, be enslaved. Murad had instituted a tax of one fifth on all the slaves taken in war, and the idea of only taking boys fit for fighting was called Devshirme, or blood tax. The slaves went through a very strict training, first learning to speak Turkish and practicing Ottoman traditions by living with a family chosen by the sultan. The boys also were forcibly converted to Islam, forbidden from wearing a beard and lived under monastic circumstances in celibacy. They were overseen by eunuchs and trained in special schools, enhancing their personal abilities. The main difference between these and other slaves was that they were being paid for their services. This served as a motivator and kept the soldiers loyal.
The Janissaries were at first a hated institution by the subjugated Christian minorities. Rather than having their sons taken away, it happened that the parents disfigured their children so as to make them weak and unsuitable for Devshirme. But the status of the Janissaries grew, and in time, they became men of high learning and an ascetic nature, favored by the sultan. As they grew in numbers, they also became very influential in the capital and their skills as warriors made them feared far beyond the borders of the empire.

The Janissary corps was the first of its kind and a groundbreaking contributor to the success of Ottoman warfare. At the time of Murad’s reign, they were fewer and less respected than what they would become at a later stage, but they were quite significant for Ottoman victories in the Balkans, and as such, they became notorious in Europe. One of the first major battles in which the Janissaries participated occurred when Murad’s successor, Bayazid, managed to inflict a decisive defeat on a European army near Nikopol, where the Janissaries used pointed stakes and skillfully adapted to the terrain to repulse enemy knights. In general, the Janissaries were positioned at the front lines of the Ottoman army and were armed with various weapons, including bows and arrows, swords, spears, and shields. The Janissaries quickly became renowned for their disciplined formation and their ability to execute complex military maneuvers.

As the Janissaries gained importance, they became guardians of the territorial integrity of the centralized state and ensured that other military groups were loyal to the sultan. Over time, however, the Janissary units became less and less effective in conflicts with European armies, especially from the 17th century on. The reasons for the decline in efficiency also lay in the fact that, over time, becoming a Janissary was an extremely lucrative position. Therefore, many rich and influential Muslims sent their children to become Janissaries, and thanks to corruption, they avoided having the children undergo military training, so on paper, they were excellent soldiers, but in reality that wasn’t always the case. Moreover, rapid industrialization in Europe and the improvement of war techniques and weapons, including the increase in the firepower of Christian armies, meant the Janissaries no longer enjoyed technical superiority over their traditional enemies.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History



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The Jugurthine War: The History of the Roman Republic’s Controversial Conflict with the Numidians by Charles River Editors
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Overview: Numida was the complete opposite of the North African stereotype of a desolate place – it was a land of plenty, the home of rich agricultural land that provided a good share of the Roman Empire’s food. Numidia was also home to the Numidian people, who were known for their horsemanship skills, bellicosity, and capriciousness when it came to their friends and allies. From the 3rd century BCE until the mid-1st century BCE, the Numidians ruled their land as independent kingdoms that dealt with their more powerful neighbors on a relatively equal footing. As was the case with most non-Hellenic peoples, the Numidians and their culture simultaneously intrigued and repulsed the Romans, but as with all the other peoples, the Numidians also eventually became part of the Roman Empire.

Their most famous conflict with the Romans was the Jugurthine War, even though the Romans do not appear to have officially declared war on Numidia. The Romans entered Numidia determined to defeat Jugurtha and his Numidian army in a very conventional way, but having fought alongside and against the Numidians in the Punic Wars, the Romans should have known better, as Jugurtha knew that he had little chance of defeating the Romans in head-to-head combat. Numidia was rich, but it was not as rich as Rome in resources or people, and although the Numidian military was among the best in the Mediterranean at the time, it was not equipped to defeat the Romans.

Jugurtha looked west for aid to the Moorish king, Bocchus, as the Romans elected a new consul, Gaius Marius, to take control of the Roman army in 107 BCE. As legate in the Jugurthine conflict, Marius was in effect Metellus’s right hand man and the de facto military commander. The military success Marius had in Africa gave him the impetus to make a serious run for the consulship in 108 BCE, but Metellus did not want him to leave the campaign in North Africa and did not sanction his return to Rome. Undeterred, Marius began campaigning, partly galvanized, according to Sallust, by a fortune teller who told him that the gods so favored him that he would inevitably succeed in all his endeavors.

It was also while on campaign in Africa that Marius honed his “common touch,” a trait that was to stand him in good stead in his political career. He ate with his troops and even undertook manual labor with them. Marius’s reputation as a military commander and the growing unrest at the length of time Metellus was taking to bring Jugurtha to heel all combined to ensure that he was elected consul for 107 BCE.

While Marius took responsibility for the infantry, the cavalry was placed under the command of his quaestor, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, but Jugurtha continued to avoid battles where he could. Consequently, the Numidians resorted to hit and run, guerrilla warfare tactics, and Marius soon found that the previous Roman tactics of gradually cutting off the Numidians’ supplies and reinforcements was not so ineffective after all.

The most significant aspect of the Jugurthine War was the rivalry that it produced between Marius and Sulla. As was tradition, the commander, Marius, received the credit for the victory, but Sulla resented that his own part was downplayed, in particular his personal success in taking Jugurtha into custody. His supporters spread the story of Jugurtha’s capture around Rome and sought to undermine Marius’s image by making certain that everyone knew it had been Sulla, not the consul, who was responsible for putting an end to the war in Numidia. So began the rivalry that would end in civil war several years later and establish Sulla as a temporary dictator, a course of events that would inspire Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar a generation later.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History



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The Aceh War: The History of the Bloody Conflict that Imposed Dutch Rule Over Indonesia by Charles River Editors
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 7.92 Mb
Overview: During the 17th century, the Netherlands, despite having only 1.5 million people in 1600, became a global maritime and trading power. By contrast, France at the time had 20 million people, Spain had 8 million, and England had 5 million. Nevertheless, Amsterdam became one of the most important urban centers in the world and the location of the world’s first stock market, and Dutch merchant ships and pirates plied the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. The Dutch acquired colonies in the East Indies, where they seized control of the spice trade from the Portuguese, and in the West Indies, they acquired a number of islands from the Spanish (several of which are still Dutch today). They became the only Westerners who were allowed to trade with Shogunate Japan from a small island next to Nagasaki, and they settled the town that ultimately became New York City. Naturally, all of this imperialism generated enormous amounts of wealth that flowed into the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has had a complex and turbulent history involving the interplay of multiple political entities, ethnicities, and languages. The term “Netherlands” (Nederland in Dutch, Pay-Bas in French) refers to the low-lying topography of the region and today is used specifically to describe the country bordering Germany and Belgium, but historically it referred to the entire region occupied by Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. What made the Netherlands’ global influence in the 17th century all the more remarkable is that the Dutch had only recently achieved political independence through the process of fighting a long and brutal war of resistance against rule by the Spanish Hapsburgs, starting in 1568. In 1581, the seven northern provinces – Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Friesland, and Groningen – declared their independence, and fighting took place back and forth on land and sea for decades, with the Dutch receiving some much-needed assistance from England’s Queen Elizabeth I. Thousands of civilians were massacred by the rampaging Spanish armies, and on the water, Dutch “sea beggars” attacked and harassed the Spanish fleet. Pro-Spanish privateers operating out of Dunkirk did the same against Dutch shipping.

All of this positioned the Dutch to wield massive imperialistic influence across the world, and a Dutch company dominated international waters while searching for conquest and riches. The Dutch East India Company, also known as VOC, was established around the beginning of the 17th century, and this nautical behemoth of a corporation was determined to squeeze everyone else out of the market. Vested with the power to wage war and exterminate any who dared stand in their way, the rest of the world stood by as the unstoppable force took over the whole of international maritime trade. The company would fight opponents across the globe, establishing a monopoly on the global spice trade that would not only rock the world but forever change the course of modern business history.

Naturally, not everybody welcomed the Europeans, and some of the fiercest opposition came from the Sultanate of Aceh. Aceh is now a part of Indonesia, but the people have stubbornly maintained a unique sense of self-identity based on a quite distinct and separate history. Once a major political and military power in the Indian Ocean, its power gradually declined over a period of several centuries, but Aceh successfully maintained its independence until 1873, when the Dutch invaded. The war between the Dutch and the Acehnese was the longest and bloodiest of the many Dutch military campaigns in Indonesia. Even after the Dutch technically subdued them, insurgency campaigns would last well into the 20th century, and sporadic fighting was still ongoing as the Japanese pushed across the Pacific in the 1930s and 1940s.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History



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Arzawa: The History and Legacy of a Forgotten Ancient Kingdom in Anatolia by Charles River Editors
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Overview: The Late Bronze Age Near East (c. 1550-1200 BCE) was a time and place of unprecedented wealth and stability. The major kingdoms of Egypt, Babylonia, Hatti, Mitanni, Assyria, and other regional powers established trade networks and diplomatic ties with each other, creating one of the world’s first global geopolitical systems in the process. There was war and conflict during this era, but most of the wars were border skirmishes that involved proxies, rarely changing the borders very much in the process. Modern scholars have divided the countries in this system into two groups: the major powers, which included those listed above along with a few others, and those who were usually ruled over or colonized by the major powers. But things were not always so black and white.

The major power of Mitanni was eliminated from the club and replaced by Assyria, while other kingdoms seemingly defy categorization in the system, or at least their placement is problematic and a source of historical debate. For example, Elam was certainly a major power and had diplomatic and trade ties with Babylonia, but because it had limited to no direct contact with the other major powers, most historians do not consider it one of the “Great Powers.” Likewise, the status of the mysterious country Alashiya is also the topic of many inquiries. Alashiya is mentioned in some of the Amarna Letters as a Great Power, and most modern scholars have agreed with that categorization, but where the country was and how long it held such a powerful status is hotly debated.

The equally mysterious land of Arzawa is another Late Bronze Age kingdom whose Great Power status has been questioned by some archaeologists and historians. Arzawa was a state or a collection of states in western Anatolia that challenged the Hittites for supremacy in the region. Although Arzawa never extended its borders beyond Anatolia, even at the apex of its military, diplomatic, and economic power, it did draw the attention of the Egyptians and is mentioned in in two of the famous Amarna Letters. For that reason, many scholars have labeled Arzawa a Late Bronze Age Great Power, but the designation has done little to flesh out the details of their enigmatic culture. Historians, archaeologists, and philologists still argue over many elements of Arzawa and its people, including who they were, how powerful the kingdom was, and even where it was located. It is likely that not all of these questions will ever be answered, but an examination of Arzawa’s culture and history, especially its relations with the Hittites, does help bring this Bronze Age culture into better focus.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History



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The Secret World: Behind the Curtain of British Intelligence in World War II and the Cold War by Hugh Trevor-Roper
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 13.6mb
Overview: During World War II, Britain enjoyed spectacular success in the secret war between hostile intelligence services, enabling a substantial and successful expansion of British counter-espionage. Hugh Trevor-Roper’s experiences working for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) during the war had a profound impact on him and he later observed the world of intelligence with particular sharpness. To him, the subjects of wartime espionage and the complex espionage networks that developed in the Cold War period were as worthy of profound investigation and reflection as events from the more distant past. Expressing his observations through some of his most ironic and entertaining correspondence, articles and reviews, Trevor-Roper wrote vividly about some of the greatest intelligence characters of the age – from Kim Philby and Michael Straight to the Germans Admiral Canaris and Otto John. Including some previously unpublished material, this book is a sharp, revealing and personal first-hand account of the intelligence world in World War II and the Cold War.
Review
“Superlatively entertaining” ― The Guardian
“A humorous, waspish and intriguing performance” ― The Times
“An extraordinarily rich record of an unusually rich mind – one of the most interesting people in recent English intellectual life, caught at one of the most vital moments in English history.” ― Standpoint
About the Author
Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003) was Regius Professor of History at the University of Oxford, UK for over twenty years, a member of the House of Lords from 1979 and Master of Peterhouse College, University of Cambridge, UK 1980-87. His historical interests included England during the 17th century civil wars, the history of ideas during the Renaissance and Enlightenment, 20th-century espionage and treason, and Hitler’s Germany. Trevor-Roper was a senior wartime Intelligence officer, and retained his links with the security services until the 1970s. He also travelled widely overseas as a highly regarded special correspondent for the Sunday Times.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History



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