Ottoman Siege Competency

[Fluffy_Fishy]

I was watching the new trailer for Ottomans in the Civ6 expansion today and it reminded me of the quite confusing and inaccurate depiction that seems almost universal that the Turks are good in sieges. EU4 is another one of these examples with the age ability "The Guns of Urban" granting +33% siege ability. The reality is that Ottomans often struggled to take quite lightly defended fortifications and are also behind the longest continuous siege in history.

As far as I can work out it mainly comes from their conquest of Constantinople, but then the city was taken in much more difficult circumstances in 1204. Meanwhile large Ottoman forces really struggled to take fortifications where they vastly outnumbered their enemies such as in Dalmatia, where a defending army in an outdated fort of 960 men thwarted an Ottoman force of over 40,000, there are other examples such as Famagusta where an Ottoman force of around 200,000 took a year to take a city defended by 8,500 men and Malta where The Turks failed to capture the city with their 35-40,000 strong army against 6-9000 men.

There are just far more examples of the Ottomans being bad at taking fortified positions than there are of them taking disputed positions with relative ease so it seems unfair that cultural history has assigned them with this strange ability to take land with dramatic speed. Its also worth mentioning in the more notable examples of Ottoman sieges I have come across the loss of Turkish life is staggering.

Why do they get this ahistorical reputation, and why don't more people question it?

 

[Kovax]

Another fine example would be the sieges of Eger in Hungary. The first time, the heavily outnumbered defenders withstood a lengthy siege and a determined assault, stalling the Ottoman advance and forcing their eventual withdrawl. A few years later, they returned, and the Hungarians relied on their Austrian allies to defend Eger while the main Hungarian army fought the Ottomans elsewhere. The Austrians assigned a group of mercenaries to the task, who fled at the first sign of the Ottomans' approach. The fortress was taken without any resistance, so the Ottomans were able to advance further and eventually besiege Vienna.

Indications are, from what I've read, that the Ottoman army carried a small amount of better equipment for sieging than a lot of other armies of the time had. On the other hand, it didn't make particularly brilliant use of the little that it had, relying more on costly direct assaults on many occasions, and manpower-intensive tunneling and undermining of the walls on others. The technical capabilities were there, apparently, but possibly not in sufficient quantity, or not properly utilized in many or most cases.

 

[Chamboozer]

Why do they get this ahistorical reputation, and why don't more people question it?

It's possible to identify particular instances in which Ottoman siegecraft failed, as one could do with any army, but on the whole academic historians have a positive impression of Ottoman capabilities.

From Gábor Ágoston, Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: CUP, 2005), p. 194.

Until well into the seventeenth century, but especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Ottoman artillery proved to be superior against European fortifications. In the Central European theater of war, by 1526 the Ottomans had conquered all the key forts of the Hungarian defense system that had guarded the southern borders of the kingdom and that successfully halted Ottoman advance in the fifteenth century. Between 1521 and 1566 only thirteen Hungarian forts were able to resist Ottoman firepower for more than 10 days, merely nine castles for more than twenty days, and altogether four fortresses were able to fully withstand Ottoman assaults. However, only one fortress, Koszeg, was besieged by the main military force of the Sultan. [...] Three of the four fortresses were later captured, within one, ten, and forty-four years, respectively, despite Habsburg efforts at reinforcement and modernization.

 

[Arilou]

Its also notable that sieges were really, really difficult to prosecute. Casualties are almost always incredibly lopsided for the attacker, and having a very small garrison keeping a ton of enemies tied up is exactly what fortresses are for.

These kinds of "civ style", "X was good at Y" discussions misses a lot of context though, the Ottoman Empire lasted for hundreds of years after all. But ottoman siege tactics (and to some extent organization) was considered fairly impressive, not just in their artillery park, but also in their ability to build counterfortifiactions, mines, etc.

 

[Eusebio]

Meanwhile large Ottoman forces really struggled to take fortifications where they vastly outnumbered their enemies such as in Dalmatia, where a defending army in an outdated fort of 960 men thwarted an Ottoman force of over 40,000, there are other examples such as Famagusta where an Ottoman force of around 200,000 took a year to take a city defended by 8,500 men and Malta where The Turks failed to capture the city with their 35-40,000 strong army against 6-9000 men.

8,500 men? 6-9,000 men? In a single fortified city? In the 16th century? Two of your examples are of the Ottomans having difficulty taking what would have been some of the most heavily defended cities in the world at the time. Like yeah, no crap that they might have laboured to capture state of the art fortifications defended by an entire army and requiring blockade by both land and sea at the end of a thousand mile long supply chain. To even manage to land an army on Malta would have been a seriously impressive military operation by the standards of the time, let alone take it within a few months.

 

[MCMartel]

I was watching the new trailer for Ottomans in the Civ6 expansion today and it reminded me of the quite confusing and inaccurate depiction that seems almost universal that the Turks are good in sieges. EU4 is another one of these examples with the age ability "The Guns of Urban" granting +33% siege ability. The reality is that Ottomans often struggled to take quite lightly defended fortifications and are also behind the longest continuous siege in history.

As far as I can work out it mainly comes from their conquest of Constantinople, but then the city was taken in much more difficult circumstances in 1204. Meanwhile large Ottoman forces really struggled to take fortifications where they vastly outnumbered their enemies such as in Dalmatia, where a defending army in an outdated fort of 960 men thwarted an Ottoman force of over 40,000, there are other examples such as Famagusta where an Ottoman force of around 200,000 took a year to take a city defended by 8,500 men and Malta where The Turks failed to capture the city with their 35-40,000 strong army against 6-9000 men.

There are just far more examples of the Ottomans being bad at taking fortified positions than there are of them taking disputed positions with relative ease so it seems unfair that cultural history has assigned them with this strange ability to take land with dramatic speed. Its also worth mentioning in the more notable examples of Ottoman sieges I have come across the loss of Turkish life is staggering.

Why do they get this ahistorical reputation, and why don't more people question it?

1. It isn't ahistorical.
2. They took rhodes, every ventian colony, the entirety of the balkans, all of anatolia, and more, much of which had elaborate and touch fortifications. They were incredibly good at siege warfare, remember, this is a time when large countries like France struggled to take single fortresses in Belgium or italy. Trace itallian fortifications are INCREDIBLY hard to take.

What you are highlighting are a couple of failures out of basically capturing the entire Mediterranean basis east of Italy, much of which has elaborate fortifications.
Also as a note RE: malta
3. They struggled at malta because they were at the very edge of their supply lines operating on a tight schedule because of it, and by ~1550, sieges had swung decisively back in favor of the defenders with the trace italliane.

If you want a good book on the changing nature of siege warfare in the early modern period, check out out "The Military Revolution" by Georffrey Parker, which is one of the definitive books on the changes in military matters in the early modern period.
https://www.amazon.com/Military-Revolution-Innovation-Rise-1500-1800/dp/0521479584

As a final note, the military reputation of the Ottomans primarily suffers from recency bias, when they were weak during the early 20th century. But for most of the 16th and 17th centuries they were the most powerful state in all Europe, bar none.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

1. It isn't ahistorical.
2. They took rhodes, every ventian colony, the entirety of the balkans, all of anatolia, and more, much of which had elaborate and touch fortifications. They were incredibly good at siege warfare, remember, this is a time when large countries like France struggled to take single fortresses in Belgium or italy. Trace itallian fortifications are INCREDIBLY hard to take.

They didn't take every Venetian colony, Venice held onto Dalmatia and the Ionian islands, Corfu is even just another example of multiple failed Ottoman sieges where multiple times the island denied the much larger ottoman forces. Trade Italian fortifications doesn't really justify the examples of Famagusta and the Dalmatian fort I sadly forget, both forts were incredibly out of date, with Famagusta holding out for a year while outnumbered more than 23:1 at the start and 166:1 by the end. Ottomans simply weren't nearly as good at siege warfare as people think, they aren't terrible but relied on overrunning positions with huge numbers, they probably compare as roughly similar to any European power when it comes to siege warfare.

 

[MCMartel]

1. Corfu was taken by the ottomans
2. Sorry, you're right, they just took almost all the Venetian colonies, and all the one's that had been important (Crete, Cypress, Euboa, and Koron/Modon)
3. You need higher numbers to win a siege, that's the case everywhere. Getting large numbers of troops there is the hardest part of any siege (and any war)
4. You're basically cherry-picking the failures versus the literally dozens of successful sieges the ottomans conducted that allowed them to become the largest and most powerful state in Europe. Do you think they took over virtually the entirety of the eastern Mediterranean by being bad at sieges?

 

[gagenater]

Generally speaking, in that era of history, the vast majority of sieges were won by the defenders in relatively short order. Most attackers lacked the ability to maintain a siege for anything longer than a single campaign season. The mere fact that the Ottomans had the ability to attempt longer or more difficult sieges (and sometimes win them) is an indication of how vastly more capable they were than their contemporaries.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

1. Corfu was taken by the ottomans
2. Sorry, you're right, they just took almost all the Venetian colonies, and all the one's that had been important (Crete, Cypress, Euboa, and Koron/Modon)
3. You need higher numbers to win a siege, that's the case everywhere. Getting large numbers of troops there is the hardest part of any siege (and any war)
4. You're basically cherry-picking the failures versus the literally dozens of successful sieges the ottomans conducted that allowed them to become the largest and most powerful state in Europe. Do you think they took over virtually the entirety of the eastern Mediterranean by being bad at sieges?

1. Corfu was never taken by the Ottomans, they failed major sieges in 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716. It remains one of the few places in Greece never taken by the Turks.
2. The loss of land wasn't being disputed, but made a point of how incredibly difficult and the massive loss of life incurred taking incredibly minor land gains, with Candia arguably being the key point that lead to the ottoman decline.
3. There is higher numbers and ridiculous numbers with large early modern sieges typically sucking up about 20-30,000 men rather than well over 100,000.
4. They Ottoman forces were much more focused towards land battles, thats how they took territory, their hordes of cavalry and light infantry weren't really set up for protracted warfare, they took land mainly due to the sheer number of men they threw into their conquests. Places were overrun by sheer numbers with little care or attention payed to the human cost of their conquests.

 

[Arilou]

3. There is higher numbers and ridiculous numbers with large early modern sieges typically sucking up about 20-30,000 men rather than well over 100,000.

It should be noted that a lot of those very high numbers are disputed, in most cases if you end up with a weirdly disproportionate number the numbers are wrong.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

It should be noted that a lot of those very high numbers are disputed, in most cases if you end up with a weirdly disproportionate number the numbers are wrong.

Sources from both sides claim those high numbers, its not something that is really disputed by modern historians in this case. Ottomans had the manpower, it was how they spread similarly to russian tactics in ww2 but this is getting off topic now.

 

[gagenater]

It should be noted that a lot of those very high numbers are disputed, in most cases if you end up with a weirdly disproportionate number the numbers are wrong.

Highly disproportionate numbers to win medieval or early gunpowder era seiges are/were the norm. If the attacker couldn't bring overwhelming forces to bear, they usually lost. When people hear about a force of 30,000 loosing to a garrison of 5 or 6,000 as in Fluffy Fish's example, it sounds like they outnumber them by a ridiculous amount, but actually they don't. There are credible well documented cases of castles with garrisons in the low 100's holding off literally thousands of attackers for months on end. The modern era's ease of movement and assault really don't give a proper idea of the difficulties involved in this sort of seige warfare.

 

[Arilou]

Highly disproportionate numbers to win medieval or early gunpowder era seiges are/were the norm. If the attacker couldn't bring overwhelming forces to bear, they usually lost. When people hear about a force of 30,000 loosing to a garrison of 5 or 6,000 as in Fluffy Fish's example, it sounds like they outnumber them by a ridiculous amount, but actually they don't. There are credible well documented cases of castles with garrisons in the low 100's holding off literally thousands of attackers for months on end. The modern era's ease of movement and assault really don't give a proper idea of the difficulties involved in this sort of seige warfare.

30,000 is for the time a huge army, 200,000 is almost certainly fantasy.

 

[MCMartel]

1. Corfu was never taken by the Ottomans, they failed major sieges in 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716. It remains one of the few places in Greece never taken by the Turks.
2. The loss of land wasn't being disputed, but made a point of how incredibly difficult and the massive loss of life incurred taking incredibly minor land gains, with Candia arguably being the key point that lead to the ottoman decline.
3. There is higher numbers and ridiculous numbers with large early modern sieges typically sucking up about 20-30,000 men rather than well over 100,000.
4. They Ottoman forces were much more focused towards land battles, thats how they took territory, their hordes of cavalry and light infantry weren't really set up for protracted warfare, they took land mainly due to the sheer number of men they threw into their conquests. Places were overrun by sheer numbers with little care or attention payed to the human cost of their conquests.

1. What do you call the takeoer in 1798 if not conquest?
2. That's literally all sieges.
3. Not sure what you mean here?
4. "Hordes" is almost never a neutral or accurate descriptor, so I feel like you're giving away your hand a bit here. You clearly don't know anything about otoman history as they had a larger capacity for continued war than any nation in Europe, evidenced by the large number of sustained wars they had.
Frankly, you seem to be uninterested in any evidence that proves you wrong so I'm not sure there's much worth continuing.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

Excuse me if I've missed a fairly major point in international identity but France isn't the Ottomans and neither is Russia? Turkish assistance was limited and the campaign was lead by the large Russian fleet which is why the Septinsular Republic was a Russian protectorate, not Turkish...

Not at all, as pointed out earlier some lasted days with fairly large gains. The various surprise offensives given in a few Ottoman wars even include examples where sieges lasted a few days or weeks, some were pointed out earlier.

a typical large siege would take about the numbers I provided, there are numerous and confirmed examples of Turkish forces amassing over 3x those quoted above.

Hordes is quite a good descriptive way of describing ottoman warfare, typically consisting of massed light infantry and cavalry that outmaneuver and overrun smaller forces. Its not insulting, subjective or inaccurate.

 

[gagenater]

30,000 is for the time a huge army, 200,000 is almost certainly fantasy.

In the case of 200,000 at Famagusta, that’s an error of some sort. Credible numbers say 60,000 were committed to taking Cyprus as a whole island in the 2 year campaign from 1570 to 1571. The actual number at that particular siege in the campaign was surely much lower - perhaps 20,000 is a realistic number.

 

[pithorr]

From my point of view, the Ottomans were pretty competent during the Siege of Kamieniec in 1672

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

From my point of view, the Ottomans were pretty competent during the Siege of Kamieniec in 1672

Thanks for the example, it was an interesting read.

 

[Henry IX]

Hordes is quite a good descriptive way of describing ottoman warfare, typically consisting of massed light infantry and cavalry that outmaneuver and overrun smaller forces. Its not insulting, subjective or inaccurate.

It may not be insulting (although it can be used in that way), but it is inaccurate. The core of the Ottoman forces was always the Janissary Corps, which was well armed, highly disciplined and professional. They were amongst the best soldiers in the world in the 16th century and remained as good as anything fielded by the Christian powers until the end of the 17th.

The Ottomans did use extensive levies in their armies, and these supplied light infantry and cavalry, however they were always considered as auxiliary to the Janissaries, even when they made up a numerical majority of the army. In smaller, local campaigns not under central control the Ottomans did make extensive use of local forces, who were often just a poorly disciplined mass, however, this is really no different from the local provincial militia used extensively within Europe.