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From Slaves to Superpower: The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Janissaries · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, follow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
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  Speaker 1: the myth, the legend, our super producer Max, the free train, Williams.
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  Speaker 2: To choo, you know, potato klimata, everything but the poop poop.
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  Speaker 1: So we just for the silly rhyme that is none
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  Speaker 1: other than mister Noel Brown. Noel, how you're feeling today?
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  Speaker 2: And now I'm feeling fine, feeling fancy the footloosen, fancy
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  Speaker 2: free as they say. Excited to talk about some Ottoman
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  Speaker 2: Empire history with you today, sir, Oh.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, sir, Yes, without a cravat. They do call me
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  Speaker 1: Ben Bull and check out our ongoing conversation about what
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  Speaker 1: doth define a cravat today. As you said, Noel, we
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  Speaker 1: are returning to something that's been fascinating us for a while.
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  Speaker 1: It's the Automan Empire.
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  Speaker 2: Af you.
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  Speaker 1: A while back, I can't remember what year it was,
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  Speaker 1: we looked into something called the harem system of the
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  Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire, which is not necessarily what we think of
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  Speaker 1: when we think of harems here in the West, but
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  Speaker 1: we also even more recently. Know, we've also spent some
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  Speaker 1: time exploring the fact in fiction the myth and legends
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  Speaker 1: surrounding elite fighting forces like Nights or Berserkers.
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  Speaker 2: Bat back. I love those guys. Yeah, really charming, grated parties,
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  Speaker 2: super fun hangs. Also jumping real quick.
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  Speaker 3: It was July second and fourth of twenty twenty four,
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  Speaker 3: which is kind of wild that that was over two
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  Speaker 3: years ago that we did that episode about the Harems.
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  Speaker 2: And another thing that's wild, Max, that you pointed out
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  Speaker 2: to Ben and I off Mike, is that I believe
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  Speaker 2: we've got something of a ridiculous anniversary coming up. Oh yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it was ridiculous diversity.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, our nine year show of versary.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, talk about that on base camp.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, it's this October, folks, so wish us luck, Pat
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  Speaker 1: us on the back, feed us orange slices, like folks
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  Speaker 1: at the end of a marathon, right thing, orange slices.
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  Speaker 2: That's vaguely Harem codd you know, like batting you with
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  Speaker 2: like with palm leaves and feeding you fruits. You know,
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  Speaker 2: was it wasn't?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Marlon Renders running out with an orange peel in
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  Speaker 3: his mouth and Godfather and choke.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, he was right, a silly goofy granddad. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And the cat who stole the show and the Godfather
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  Speaker 1: was apparently I just learned this guy's a stray cat
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  Speaker 1: that wandered on set and Marlin just said, I want
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  Speaker 1: him in the.
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  Speaker 2: Show, dude. Speaking of stuff like that, Ben, I just
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  Speaker 2: found out. I don't know. This is not a spoiler,
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  Speaker 2: but if you guys haven't seen Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey yet,
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  Speaker 2: I look forward to chatting with you about it. But
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  Speaker 2: there is a scene where it's just the most epic
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  Speaker 2: sweeping ship kind of wide shot and there is just
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  Speaker 2: a pod of dolphins that just are like leaping in
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  Speaker 2: sync and it's like they see gi that. Nope, they
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  Speaker 2: were just there and Nolan just kept the camera rolling.
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  Speaker 2: I mean Nolan kept it rolling. It's incredible. It's honestly
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  Speaker 2: one of the most memorable shots in the movie because
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  Speaker 2: it just feels magic. It's I wasn't in love with
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  Speaker 2: it at first, but the more I think about it,
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  Speaker 2: and as I got further into it, I really began
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  Speaker 2: to get invested. And I've been thinking about it a lot,
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  Speaker 2: and I look forward to seeing it again.
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  Speaker 1: And we can't wait to hear your thoughts on the
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  Speaker 1: Odyssey and ancient empires, folks. The Automan Empire is quite
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  Speaker 1: anomalous to a lot of Western discourse because it bridges
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  Speaker 1: this gap between the medieval to the modern era. And
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  Speaker 1: as we're going to learn in today's episode, they had
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  Speaker 1: an elite fighting force all their own that began as
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  Speaker 1: slaves and over time evolved into a ridiculous superpower. Their
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  Speaker 1: name may be familiar to some of us who play
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  Speaker 1: video games. This is the story of the Janissaries.
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  Speaker 2: What I'm assuming this is from an assassin's creed situation.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the video game reference for sure. Okay, Max and
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  Speaker 1: I we're actually talking a little bit off air about this,
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  Speaker 1: sax to want to do it.
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  Speaker 2: Never been a world that I've dipped my toe in,
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  Speaker 2: but you guys are always screaming about I need to
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  Speaker 2: give it a try.
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  Speaker 3: This is from Seventh Street Revelations, which is I mean,
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  Speaker 3: I think the SEO trilogy. It's the only one the
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  Speaker 3: only games where they have the same assassin, same hero
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  Speaker 3: amongst three. This is the third and final one, which
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  Speaker 3: is cool because it bridges the SEO trilogy with the
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  Speaker 3: with the original original protagonist all Tai Year it's really
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  Speaker 3: cool because you're in Constantinople or by that point it's
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  Speaker 3: just then.
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  Speaker 2: Why cons down to no, we'll get them. That's business.
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  Speaker 2: It's nobody's business but the Turks. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: But talking about the Turks, yeah, you deal with a
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  Speaker 3: good bit of janissaries in the game, and man, they
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  Speaker 3: are not fun when you run into a janisary, at
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  Speaker 3: least not first.
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  Speaker 1: Right, because they're an elite fighting force. Let's learn about
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  Speaker 1: their origin story. First things first, fellow ridiculous historians, The
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  Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire loved slavery.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, that's one way of letting it get right to it.
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  Speaker 2: I love that. And you know what, I don't love that.
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  Speaker 2: Don't love slavery. Just loved them to turn a phrase.
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  Speaker 2: You know what else? They loved them upholstered furniture. What
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  Speaker 2: other empire gets like a piece of furniture that still
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  Speaker 2: remains named directly after them and that is so functional
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  Speaker 2: and good looking the autumn. Yeah, bad guys really into slavery.
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  Speaker 1: Super duper into it. Their empire depended upon the practice
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  Speaker 1: of enslaving conquered people. And we learned about this a
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  Speaker 1: little bit now our previous exploration of the Harem system
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  Speaker 1: The Automan Empire was such a big deal from the
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  Speaker 1: late twelve hundreds CE up until the early nineteen hundreds
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  Speaker 1: and before it fell, the Ottoman Empire stretched across three
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  Speaker 1: separate continents. They gobbled up parts of Western Asia, Eastern Europe,
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  Speaker 1: North Africa. This is still, in twenty twenty six, one
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  Speaker 1: of the largest and longest lasting empires in history.
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  Speaker 2: It sure was. And you know, that love of slavery,
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  Speaker 2: they didn't come up with it on their own. They
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  Speaker 2: inherited it from the previous empire, the Byzantine Empire. Then,
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  Speaker 2: when people refer to something as being Byzantine, doesn't that
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  Speaker 2: mean kind of like a little bit overly elaborate. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it means very complex, Labytine. Yeah, there we go, because
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  Speaker 2: they were into all that kind of stuff. Uh, yeah, they.
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  Speaker 1: Were into They very much had a complex system of adjudication,
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  Speaker 1: rule of law, and so on. And I love your point.
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  Speaker 3: They were the Romans when the Romans got too far
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  Speaker 3: up their own ass.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, take from the Roman Empire.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, they came after the fall of Rome as
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  Speaker 1: a less successful spin off, is the way Kevin Page
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  Speaker 1: would put it. From Marvel And with this, you know,
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  Speaker 1: hands on misery to man, as Philip Larkin said, and
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  Speaker 1: I love the point you're making there, knowl that the
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  Speaker 1: Ottomans didn't come up with this idea of slavery on
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  Speaker 1: their own. They got up from the Byzantines, and they
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  Speaker 1: also combined it with Islamic thought, which at that point
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  Speaker 1: was already an established institution. And you know, as villainous
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  Speaker 1: as it is, as unclean as it is, we have
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  Speaker 1: to realize that for a great deal of human history
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  Speaker 1: in slaving other people was kind of more the rule
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  Speaker 1: that it was the exception.
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  Speaker 2: It was the name of the game. And I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I know I said they were bad guys, I'm sure
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  Speaker 2: there were some some good folks among them. We also
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  Speaker 2: have to remember that a lot of our forefathers, you know,
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  Speaker 2: in these United States, were slave owners. And this isn't
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  Speaker 2: giving anyone a path, but it is sometimes needs to
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  Speaker 2: be tempered a little bit. This idea of they were horrible,
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  Speaker 2: horrific people. You need to take a little bit of
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  Speaker 2: an account of what was going on historically.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was definitely normal for people empower for a
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  Speaker 1: long time to enslave others. And part of this was
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  Speaker 1: because most rulers back in the day thought they were
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  Speaker 1: divinely chosen to run everything. They didn't see a problem
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  Speaker 1: with it at all, because they thought slavery was just
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  Speaker 1: another job perk of being better than everyone else. But
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  Speaker 1: it is interesting, Nola Max that slavery was incredibly complex
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  Speaker 1: in the Ottoman Empire and was distinct from the system
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  Speaker 1: of later slavery in the United States.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And it wasn't as directly race based as it
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  Speaker 2: became like in the United States, Like wouldn't people be
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  Speaker 2: enslaved if they were conquered, for example? It was like
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  Speaker 2: there was lots of different criteria for qualifying to be
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  Speaker 2: a slave, right.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, in slavery, in chattel slavery in the United States,
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  Speaker 1: the slave and overseers were first off, they were very
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  Speaker 1: racially based. Obviously, they were entirely racially based. And they
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  Speaker 1: were not incentivized to keep these people, they're victims alive.
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  Speaker 1: They were overworking folks in horrific conditions, and they said, look,
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  Speaker 1: these are not people, these are property. They're cheap, they're
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  Speaker 1: easily replaceable. So it is more economically feasible, say the
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  Speaker 1: American slave owners, to push people to the breaking point
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  Speaker 1: and then just buy more people as our original victims
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  Speaker 1: die from abuse, malnutrition, fatigue, disease, and most slaves in
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  Speaker 1: the United States systems were black or native people. So
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  Speaker 1: to these slave owners, this class would have booked at
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  Speaker 1: the idea of what they saw as a white or
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  Speaker 1: European slave. The Automan Empire had it, as you were saying,
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  Speaker 1: entirely based on religion more so than skin color. They
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  Speaker 1: thought God was telling them who it was okay to enslave,
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  Speaker 1: but it was God telling them if this person doesn't
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  Speaker 1: follow Islam or your version of Islam, then they're up
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  Speaker 1: for grabs.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and once these folks were conquered and captured, they
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  Speaker 2: would be sold at a market. They were then placed
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  Speaker 2: in a variety of jobs, not all just hard labor.
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  Speaker 2: Some would of course be that some involved joining the military. Others,
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  Speaker 2: depending on the abilities of the folks that enslave, might
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  Speaker 2: become craftsmen or members of guilds harems as we mentioned
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  Speaker 2: before on that other episode that apparently happened quite a
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  Speaker 2: long time ago. Or it could even be a post
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  Speaker 2: in kind of an admin role, like overseeing bureaucracy, you know,
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  Speaker 2: administering paperwork and things like that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this meant real idea where this religious rubric
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  Speaker 1: for enslavement meant that the Ottoman Empire would snatch people
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  Speaker 1: from Eastern Europe, the Caucuses, Central Asia, et cetera, and
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  Speaker 1: war captives where they're primary victims. And one thing that, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I love that you're pointing this out. It escapes a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people in the West. Some slaves had the
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  Speaker 1: Automan equivalent of an office job. So let's just imagine, guys,
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  Speaker 1: if you go to your local DMV and you realize
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  Speaker 1: everybody on the other side of the counter is an
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  Speaker 1: enslaved prisoner of war from a few years back, and
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  Speaker 1: you know sometimes the DMV does act like that.
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  Speaker 2: That's fair.
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  Speaker 3: Also, if I can jump in he real quick, I'm
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  Speaker 3: going to reference the Futurama episode here. I don't know
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  Speaker 3: if this is aged perfectly, but it's in Futurama, so
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  Speaker 3: get mad at them. But there's an episode where they
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  Speaker 3: go looks basically a space like Egypt, and Bender becomes
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  Speaker 3: the Pharaoh, and there is a scene where like Bender's
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  Speaker 3: is always whipping everybody where they're basically the guys, like
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  Speaker 3: the architects, and then they're in their suits, they're looking
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  Speaker 3: at it and they' getting whipped And that's exactly what
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  Speaker 3: I thought about when you reference that.
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  Speaker 1: Then, right, yeah, bender Pharaoh Futurama episode, let's see which
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  Speaker 1: one that is. Oh, it is a pharaoh to remember
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  Speaker 1: the seventeenth episode of the third season of Futurama.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm gonna check that one out. Oh, like an
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  Speaker 2: affair to remember? Okay, thank you? Oh oh and unrelated,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: but guys, there's a new season of King of the
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Hill and Hulu that just dropped a whole new season. It's
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: so good.
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  Speaker 1: That's great, I'll check it out.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
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  Speaker 1: We also have to recognize, you know, your earlier point
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  Speaker 1: there Noel about people being enslaved and becoming prominent members
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  Speaker 1: of the administration. This meant that slaves could and did
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  Speaker 1: attain these astonishing levels of influence and power within Ottoman society.
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  Speaker 1: Was still terrible obviously being enslaved, but arguably.
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  Speaker 2: Form of meritocracy kind of like isolated, you know, like
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  Speaker 2: I mean, they could rise in the ranks potentially, I guess,
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  Speaker 2: is what we're saying.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and arguably it's still not as bad as
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  Speaker 1: the American system of dyeing and cotton and cane fields,
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  Speaker 1: where your life expectancy could be as little as like
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  Speaker 1: six years.
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  Speaker 2: And again, just to be clear, we are not saying
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  Speaker 2: like they did slavery better, even though they kind of did.
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  Speaker 2: But slavery is bad no matter how you do it. So,
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  Speaker 2: but I think the kind of weighing the two systems
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  Speaker 2: makes sense.
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  Speaker 3: If a very good looking poop.
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  Speaker 1: There we go, that's a that's a great way to
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  Speaker 1: say its so for our purposes tonight, now you have
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of context about the Ottoman Empire, do
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: check out our episodes on how harems actually worked. We
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  Speaker 1: want to talk about another aspect of their intricate dare
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  Speaker 1: we say Byzantine slavery system.
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  Speaker 2: It's the child tax.
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  Speaker 1: This is the origin of the janissaries.
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  Speaker 2: Oh.
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  Speaker 1: Janissary, by the way, comes from a Turkish word that
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  Speaker 1: means new soldier or like looking.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so what would happen is Ottoman forests would conquer,
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  Speaker 2: you know, they would move out in search of conquest,
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  Speaker 2: conquer it take on these slaves. This often involved calling
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  Speaker 2: the population in terms of like you know, separating the
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  Speaker 2: old wheat from the chaff aka, killing old people and
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  Speaker 2: then enslaving young men, making them into galley slaves or soldiers. Women.
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  Speaker 2: Of course, would be targeted to become sex workers and
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  Speaker 2: part of these harems or housemaids, handmaids, that kind of thing,
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  Speaker 2: how servants. So the government then instituted a one fifth
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  Speaker 2: tax on slaves taken during war, and from this pool
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  Speaker 2: of manpower, either the sultan at the time Oran or
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  Speaker 2: his son Murai came up with the idea of kind
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  Speaker 2: of sorting them out into these janissaries or elite groups
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  Speaker 2: of soldiers. In this case, this would be to create
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  Speaker 2: a personal army, like answering only to the sultan himself.
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  Speaker 2: So it's like like the King's guard in Game of
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  Speaker 2: Thrones world right, right.
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  Speaker 1: Right, or like those guys on January sixth. This is
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  Speaker 1: one of the things. Yeah right, Okay, we walked out
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  Speaker 1: the three for it. It's fine, But this is one
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  Speaker 1: of the this is brilliant. Well, this is one of
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  Speaker 1: the world's first actual standing armies. We have to remember
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: before this point in this part of the world, most
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: fighting forces were civilian conscripts or mercenaries. So after a
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: big fight is over, after your big Daddy makes you
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  Speaker 1: go and risk your life, if you survive, you go
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: back to your normal job, which is statistically going to
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: be small scale farming. You're a surf again, you hunt
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you fish.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Speaking a big dad. He's been the only beef I had.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: One of very few with The Odyssey was the fact
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: that little Tom holland little baby boy character kept referring
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: to Odysseus as my dad. I gotta go find my dad.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: It just it took me out of it every time
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: he said. And he would vacillate between that and father.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: But I'm like, pick a lane and make it be father,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: because saying dad and being dressed in the sword and
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: sandals garb. But just it felt odd. And I know
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of people have made that complaint, but there
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: you go.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Also, one thing I can say about Chris's duist film
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: is that no Greeks were harmed in the production because
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: there were no Greeks in there.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: That's true. That also did become the base of a
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: pretty gnarly, you know, racist take on the casting, which
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem to have harmed the box office take.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Just leave it absolutely not. Yeah, and this is so
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: what we're saying is all of the other empires and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: would be world rulers and doctor dooms in the area,
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  Speaker 1: they did not have a standing army. The Automan Empire
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  Speaker 1: figured it out with this slave army of the Janis series.
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  Speaker 1: They were one thing and one thing only fighting men.
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  Speaker 2: Ooh, I wonder if this would have been I'm sorry,
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  Speaker 2: I keep Game of Thrones of fying things. But the
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  Speaker 2: Unsullied remember that that was like a yeah, they were
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  Speaker 2: they A lot of them were slaves. They were slaves
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  Speaker 2: and they were.
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  Speaker 1: Not castrated.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: That's right, but some of the just correct. But but
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: I think there are some historical parallels. As we know,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: mister Martin does love to do that. It feels like
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  Speaker 2: he maybe was thinking a little bit about the Turks.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Alle hundred percent. There's a lot of Near Eastern or
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Western Asian history wrapped up in in the Song of
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Ice and Fire series. And George, if you're tuning in, man,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: don't stress out. Just publish Winds of Winter.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: You can catch your back to do it. Man. I
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: don't think he's gonna do it. I hope he does,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: you know. I saw a take on that that I
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: thought was very interesting because of how hated the conclusion
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: of the teach this series was. I think he's just
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: stuck where he's like, well, that was kind of how
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I was going to do it now, I got to
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: do it different, and I don't know how to proceed,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: so I'm just going to work on literally anything else.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: And I don't need the money, so you.
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  Speaker 1: Know, right right, And he also George, thank you for
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: tuning in. George also knows one of the big turns
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  Speaker 1: for the janissaries here. The Empire has instituted this practice
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: of a child tax or dev serme, and this is
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: a system of tribute where every five years or so,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Christian kids, boys ranging from the age of eight to eighteen,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: are abducted from their homes, largely in the Balkan provinces.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: At first, they're drafted into Ottoman service just like the
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: unsullied Dude great comparison. They get subjected to strict rules,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: including celibacy for the length of their.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Careers, conditioning, mental and physical. Yep, they're forced to convert
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: to Islam, swear fealty to the Sultan on pain of death.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: They have to live in these barracks away from society.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: They're also forcefully circumcised, which you know, for anybody who
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: has been circumcised, it usually occurs shortly after your birth,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: So imagine being seventeen good at that and then a
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: lot of this too reminds me of some conversations we've
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: had on stuff they don't want you to know about
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Seer School and about like some of the elite, you know,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: special ops, you know, forces in the US military that
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: are subjected to these really really intense regimens of like
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: psychological conditioning in order to you know, basically feel no
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: pain and be able to be complete warmish.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Like how the Unsullied spoiler three to one spoilers are
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: are invited to raise a puppy and then have to
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: kill it as part of their training. So after you
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: after you survive this indoctrination, after you get your shaken
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: bake and you're booted in, you're called a chenne or
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: a chemi. We don't speak Turkish folks very well, which
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: just means new recruit. And you have to go to
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: a special cadet school in the capital city and then
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you get you get the equivalent of the ottoman asvab
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: asvab is what people joining the military in the US
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: have to take. It's a test that decides what your
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: role is going to be. So if you've got a
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: great aim, you become a rifleman. As they figure out
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: firepower or an archer, artillery artisan, if you're very you know,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: good with your hands, engineers, if you can do math.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: You can't have any other job while you're a janissary
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: because you're still a slave, but you are increasingly slave.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Plus which sounds terrible to say, you get paid a
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: regular salary and if you survive.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: It's a path to retirement almost right.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, if you survive up to like your forties
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: or so that you can retire in the Ottoman Empire
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: pretty much as a person.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: And then jump in here again I have to reference
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: that Sam Few Drama said again a scene where Fry's
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: complaining and Fry goes, you know, the worst part about
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: being a slave is, Yeah, you have to work all day.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: You don't get paid. And Leila's like, Fry, that's like
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: the only part of being a slave.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: It's true. It's true, Leela's on it. So once you're retired, though,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Ben to your point, you could take a spouse, you
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: could even start a business. You were able to work
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: in government. Why you would want to do that after
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: all of that, I do not know. It seems like,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe the marrying, starting a business and just
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: taking it easy might be the move. Hell, maybe you
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: just really are craving bureaucracy. So similar to how joining
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the French Foreign Legion would eventually give legioneers citizenship French citizenship,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: former janissaries could in practice achieve a social position equal
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: to or even exceeding that of a non enslaved civilian who,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: you know, comparatively were born on third base. These janissaries
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: really had to work their way up through the ranks,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: but the system was designed for them to be able
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: to do that to a degree. Again, I gues it
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: keeps out on like we're like, good job, guys, you
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: did slavery so much better. But it did seem like
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: there was a path towards living a normal life. And
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: again to your point, Ben, that is if you survived
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: some very dangerous conditions, you know, protecting the Sultan. Yeah.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Because these guys are relied, they're like special operations,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and for centuries, the janissaries are the baddest boys on
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the block. They get this fearsome reputation because they are
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the first military corps to do stuff like use firearms
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: in a normalized way. They're always doing drills. They totally
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: outplass the pop up armies of foreign powers. This is
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: one of the main reasons why the Automan Empire expanded
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: so quickly across the Mediterranean and the Balkans. But the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Automan Empire wasn't always at war, right, So where do
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you put these enslaved killers in times of peace? You
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: make them palace guards, you make them local law enforcement,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: you make them firefighters, and more and more a lot
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: to your earlier point, they're no more and more. A
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: lot of regular folks envied the life of the janiss
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: area and they were like, this is less of a
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: death sentence. This is more like a really cool career.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Because some people, even some former janisaries, became governors of provinces.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: They one guy became the grand Vizier, which is the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: most powerful nonsultant office in the land.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. Wasn't that what Ja'afar was in Aladdin? He
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: was the grand Vizier. Yeah. Yeah, so you don't necessarily
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: have to be a beard stroking villain to be a
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: grand vizier. He was just a bad He was a
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: bad one. He was just a bad guy.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately coded in some ways that probably messed with kids' heads.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: But he uh, like think about it. Let's say the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: four of us are just regular civilians in the Ottoman Empire.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: We own a fruit stand. It's our businesses, fruit stand,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: cradle to grave, that's what we do. And then we
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: learned that a peasant boy from the Balkans had been
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: taken in abducted because of this child tax, this deshmih,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: and then they end up being a great commander of armies.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: They end up running the province where we've had a
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: fruit stand for two hundred and fifty years. We could
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: ever do this. And also if we asked that guy,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: that janissary was now a general, if we asked them
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: what their life was like in the Balkans, they might
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: have had a better life them specifically as a general,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: than they would have ever had as a surf in
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the suppressed region of Christian Europe.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: For sure. And you know, it's makes me wonder. I
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: guess this was an elite army that directly protected the sultan,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: but there would still have been a fighting force that
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: was not a volunteer base. But that would have there
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: would have been the conscription, I imagine. Yeah, there was conscription
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: very common with the citizen. Ye yeah, yeah.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: And also there were people who signed up to be
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the janissaries, great rivals from what would become them the cavalry,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the horse mounted guys, but the janissaries, they're getting more
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: and more power these centuries. Over time and their system
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: begins to change. It's so weird, folks, we were talking
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: about this of the research. If you were a student
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: of American history, the idea that any civilian would sign
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: up for slavery seems patently absurd. But by the sixteen hundreds,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the recruitment policy of janissaries began to relax, and civilians say,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: like our four friendly fruit stand owners, they saved up money,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: they bought their way into janissary membership because it would
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: approve their socioeconomic status.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: That's wild, man, I mean that this really was a
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: system that had some perks despite it literally being slavery. Yeah.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And the janissaries won the right to marry during their time.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: They also, perhaps more importantly in this kind of society,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: they won the right of hereditary secession, right so they
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: could enroll their own sons. Their sons didn't have to
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: be kidnapped from wherever. Instead, their sons could be raised
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: in a janissary household. They would get the perks. Also,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: janissaries could start their own businesses and outside trades. By
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: sixty ninety nine, at the height of the organization, there
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: were slightly less than sixty eight thousand of these folks.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they had in some ways, you know, especially the
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: folks that had been in the system for a while
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: and moved their way up, quite a significant number of privileges.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: The janissaries were indeed moving on up and became part
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: of the ruling class in a certain sense, with power
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: rivaling that of the traditional members of an aristocracy. From
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: the sault in the view, however, he's starting to worry
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: a little bit about them maybe getting a little too
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: big for their breeches and exactly how much potential political
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: power they might be able to wield.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we all know the tendency of humans. With
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: a little bit of power, they become protective of it,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: and typically they want more. So it is no surprise
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: that the janisaries became a reactionary conservative force by this point.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: We have to remember a lot of these guys were
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: in practice not really elite soldiers. They were shopkeepers with
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a pedigree. They were still getting their army pay. They
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: fought the government to get regular raises. They were way
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: more interested in protecting their perks than they weren't actually fighting.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: And this was a problem because the rest of the
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: powers in Western Europe are learning lessons continually they modernize
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: their military. The Ottoman forces are increasingly outdated and less
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: effective and then obsolete because whenever the Sultan seeks to
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: modernize the janissaries or modernize the military, the janissaries feel
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: their position, their catbird seed is under threat and they
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: start reacting with rebellion. The thing is they can execute
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: on their threats.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't unfounded that the Sultan might have been
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: a little concerned about the potential for them to organize,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: and they could indeed follow through with those threats. An
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: attempt by Osman the second to kind of get them,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: whip them back into shape, get them to get back
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: in line, involved cutting their pay, did not go well.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: He was executed at the hands of the janissaries. They
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: frequently were able to engineer palace various palace coups, and
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: one particular example of this, they conspire with officials of
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: the court to overthrow Ibraheim because he was as a
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: bad governor. He's a bad ruler, not good. So they
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: really did have all of this unintended, at least as
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: far as, like you know, the sultan is concerned power
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: and influence. This was the Automan equivalent of the kinds
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: of military cups we might see throughout history.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, even in the modern day. And so if
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: you were, if we're looking at the janissary perspective over
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: this time, they're very successful as a demographic right, as
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: a portion of the population. They get better treatment, they
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: get more money, they consider themselves increasingly above the rule
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: of law. These factors lead to the fall of the Janissaries,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: but not just that, they lead to the fall of
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire overall. So how did the world end
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: up putting their feet on the furniture of this once
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: terrifying nation.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question, man, a question the historians
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: have been asking for quite some time, and they many
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: of the folks looking into this trace the fall of
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: the Janissaries to something called the auspicious incident, which is.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: You could tell the Sultan wrote that one.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Very direct, Yeah, for sure. And this took place in
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: June of eighteen twenty six. So the janissaries did another
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: one of their revolts after learning of a new was
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: it a new fighting force.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Ben, Yeah, yeah, there's a new fighting force that the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Sultan is making. Says, hey, we've got to catch this
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: is like eighteen twenty six, right, like we said, the auspicious.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: They were falling behind, like you said, right, And so
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the Sultan rightly says, we need new modernized troops that
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: can fight toe to toe with these jerks from Western Europe.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: The Janissaries say, no way, we want to keep our thing.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: And thus Sultan Bachmud the second declares war on the Janissaries.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: He says, you were all rebels. Lay down your arms,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: you know, bend the knee. And the Janissaries say no,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: And so the Sultan has his new forces fire a
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: bunch of cannons on the barracks where the Janissaries live.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Most of them are killed. Those who survive are taken prisoner,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: but not for long because a little bit after this,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the Sultan orders that six thousand of them be executed.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's true, man, And the goal of this, you know,
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: getting rid of the janissaries ultimately ended up being a
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: bit of a moot point, because this was all kind
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: of band aid stuff. Because the Ottoman Empire was woefully
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: behind the times in terms of other world powers, and
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: there was no way they were ever going to catch up.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: So the Janissaries were, you know, squashed, but it was
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: kind of all for because the Ottoman military power just
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: was never ever going to catch up to the West. Absolutely.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So the Janissaries are effectively disbanded, violently disbanded by
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Mahmud the second, and he goes on to create this
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: new modernized army or westernized army. After he recruits like
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: twelve thousand troops, he gives him a cool name, the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Trained Victorious Soldiers of Mohammed or the Mansur Army for short.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: They expand to like twenty seven thousand guys by eighteen
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: thirty eight. All fighting corps of the Ottoman Empire are
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: included in this. They change its name to the Ordered Troops.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: This last until the end of the empire, but it's
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: in a state of steady, deadly decline. Like you were saying,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the writing had been on the wall for a while.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: The defeat of the Ottoman Empire World War One, that's
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the nail in the coffin, right, that's the last veil
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: in the harem.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you may, you know, be asking yourself, gosh, I
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: haven't really heard of much about a sultan in recent memory,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: and that's because the sultanate as it was referred to,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: was officially abolished on the first of November nineteen twenty two.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: The very last sultan was Memed the sixth, who ran
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: from nineteen eighteen to nineteen twenty two and then was
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: exiled and left the country on the seventeenth of November
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: nineteen twenty two the same year. So, you know, the
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: age that we're describing here of the janisaries is long gone.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: There are, of course, cultural remnants of this system. Yeah.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. One of our favorites comes from Nawsa, Greece janissaries
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: and booze. This dates back to the seventeen hundreds. It's
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: supposed to celebrate an event in seventeen oh five when
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Turkish forces were attempting a child tax and the natives
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: rebelled and they fought off the Turkish guys trying to
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: steal their kids. The Ottomans came back, they killed tons
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: and tons of locals, and so the next year, instead
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: of holding a memorial service for the victims, the people
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: of this town in Greece put on costumes and masks
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: so that the Turks couldn't recognize them, and they re
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: enacted in public protests the events of seventeen oh five.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: That's the story. You can check it out now. The
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: festival still continues every year.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a carnival type cell. Yeah, very much so.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the masks are cool, the costumes are cool,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: The Janisaries are I think we could call them ridiculous
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: history because they rose from such harsh, evil conditions to
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: become a superpower and then became their own enemy.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: It did got a little big for their own bridges,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I suppose. But yeah, no, it's fascinating. I can't really
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: think of any other examples quite like it of this,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: you know, version of slavery that became almost like attractive
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: to non slaves. Yeah.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine it's so weird for us as Americans, folks.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine looking around and saying, well, that guy's
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: technically enslave, but hot dog is does he have a
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: good job.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: It'd be almost the equivalent of us being like, gosh,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: those inmates in prison they're getting their square meals and stuff.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: They really got it better. I mean, you know, you
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: have to be in a pretty gnarly situation to think that,
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: and that certainly was the case. But also some of
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: these janissaries did have some significant privileges, so you wouldn't
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: have even, like you said, it could have just been
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: these humble fruit stand owners that had like paid their
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: way and worked their whole lives to earn kind of
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: a menial income, and then seeing these enslaved people that
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: were rising away above their station.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm, exactly. I'm tired of coming home for twelve
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: hours of work, had to stand steaking of figs. Why
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: are these.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Guys so sneaking a fix? Why are these guys so ahead?
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Well, they were ahead for a time, but the times
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: they were And thank you so much for tuning in,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you Ben for putting this research together. This is
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: something that I was completely unfamiliar with. So I learned
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: something today, as I think we all strive to do
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: every day.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: At Speaking of learning, big big thanks to our super
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: producer Max Williams for the Futurama and the Assassin's Creed facts.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Big big thanks to aj Bahamas, Jacobs, the Puzzler and
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: a tepid nod of the cap to Jonathan Strickland aka
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the Quist.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Fine, how do you do indeed? Yeah? Like, instead of.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Saying hey, we just say his name correct, like.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Hey, Noel, Jonathan, Jonathan, Hey, we'll see you next time, folks.
• 38:51
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• 38:55
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