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Posted By: Drew Hause What did the Turks know about gunmaking? - 02/26/21 03:18 PM
The topic here is 16th & 17th century Ottoman Turks, so please stifle the comments regarding the current offerings from Turkey wink

I've been working through all the documents on the website, replacing images and I hope improving the content.
I may be the only one, but find this very interesting
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a96zUR-euesc1odcVR-j7iNCjjoOz7TU8P-AAWf4p0Y/edit

There was a rapid exchange of technology back-and-forth between Western to Eastern Europe and Russia, and on to Turkey, the Indian sub-continent and China.
"Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, direct military conflicts, the employment of European military experts and, to a lesser degree, illegal trade in weaponry ensured relatively easy dissemination of up-to-date technologies and military know-how in the Sultan’s realms. Istanbul was more than a simple recipient of foreign technologies with its Turkish and Persian artisans and blacksmiths, Armenian and Greek miners and sappers, Turkish, Bosnian, Serbian, Hungarian, Italian, German, and later French, English and Dutch foundrymen and military engineers…Turkish, Arab and Persian blacksmiths added to their expertise of metallurgy techniques of the Islamic East..."

Shortly after the lock ‘a la Miquelet was invented in Spain about 1500, the Turks converted their matchlock Tüfenk (this one clearly with a Twist barrel) that the Janissary (fire-armed foot-soldiers) carried

[Linked Image from photos.smugmug.com]

to Miquelets

[Linked Image from photos.smugmug.com]

And shortly thereafter Turkey and India were producing pattern welded barrels; of many patterns.

There are lots of examples on the document, including this Miquelet with 4 Iron Crolle

[Linked Image from photos.smugmug.com]

After the 1683 defeat of Kara Mustafa Pasha by Jan III Sobieski at Vienna, damascus blades (some of which the Crusaders no doubt carried home earlier) and Miquelet locks and barrels were now widely available to the armorers of Europe. The "Winged Hussars" are in the background.

[Linked Image from photos.smugmug.com]

A soldier front left is examining a damascus blade, and front right (the turban & green robe may signify a Jewish merchant) checking out a Miquelet.

By about 1700, pattern welded barrels were being produced in Liege & Portugal, and not long after in the rest of Europe and England!
And all the support industries, extraction, raw materials, etc.
Fascinating subject. It is so easy to think of early gunmaking as only involving the same few European countries.thanks for keeping our horizons broadened!
Is it just me or does anyone else see another Austrian Military Miscreant mounted on the dark horse, extreme left at the front.
Thank you. Great topic.
This is the original which I had cropped. It is 441 sq. feet and fills a room at The Vatican. The detail is such that many of those depicted were likely real. I did a little searching but could not find a resource documenting who everyone was.

[Linked Image from photos.smugmug.com]

This is the character Bro. Lomas noted. Wonder who the rotund red-head in the gold robe was, and what is he holding? Another guy in green is digging in the loot of the Turkish camp.

[Linked Image from photos.smugmug.com]
When you enlarge the picture the redhead in the gold robe appears to be holding something on the order of a set of nunchucks, a martial arts weapon, but with a longer chain. I have no idea that's what it is, but it sure looks like it. He's holding one of the handles in his right hand.
Posted By: Argo44 Re: What did the Turks know about gunmaking? - 02/27/21 02:54 AM
The pell-mell charge by Jan Sobieski down that mountain side in 1683 is legend..he was Polish of course but a large contingent of his cavalry was Lithuanian.

The painting is rife with historical detail. The dark guy with the shield on his back looks to be holding a wolf's head regimental Turkish banner, recalling the days when they first swarmed into the historical theater of the near east about 1000 AD. etc. I visited Istanbul (driving over from Athens) in 1993. In the square in front of the palace, a Turkish Army unit garbed like Jannissaries came out with cymbals and those wolf head roman-like "eagles"....it made the skin crawl.

They kicked butt for 1000 years. Ruled India (see Babur Ziauddin's autobiography "The Baburnama," maybe the greatest ever written - founded the Mogul empire in India - and he was very clear that he imported both firearms technology but also tactics from his Ottoman brothers in Turkey - He won a major battle in India against a huge Rajput army by chaining oxcarts filled with sand linked together to form a make-shift wall and putting his matchlock guys firing down shunts between the carts "Ottoman style"); a Turkish Azerbaijani tribe took over Iran; The Ottomans got to Vienna twice! - and ruled an empire from Iran to Morocco up to Hungary.

The gold robed guy looks to be holding a mace with a chained ball on the end?

In the aftermath Prince Eugene (great name by the way) led Austrian armies south and took Hungary and finally Belgrade in a brilliant coup.

Edit: Actually now I'm wondering if that banner is a Janissary banner?
[Linked Image from jpgbox.com]
Posted By: Argo44 Re: What did the Turks know about gunmaking? - 02/27/21 03:15 AM
And since we're talking about Turk guns, why not this:

[Linked Image from jpgbox.com]

https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/me...cannon-the-bombard-that-built-an-empire/
Turkish super-canon (actually made by a Hungarian) which battered the triple walls of Constantinople on the May 29, 1453, the day the Roman Empire fell while Europe sat on its hands.

(Oh the Christian religious hatred of the period - the Roman emperor had converted to Catholicism - the Greek Orthodox inhabitants said, "Better the turban of a Turk, than the Mitre of a Pope." The Ottomans attacked the exact same spot of those walls, built by Theodor in the 400's AD, where they sink into a small valley giving plunging fire, that the 4th Crusade used to take over the city in 1205 (also a sack of the city by Catholics which led to a 70 year period of Catholic rule there).

I've been up on those walls and looked at it. History! and when Constantinople fell.Europe had a guilt trip..Moscow became in the Russian mind the third "Rome" of the Orthodox faith - Rome, Constantinople, Moscow.
No empire gave less to its imperial subjects than the Ottomans. No great libraries, no institutions of learning, not even any noteworthy fortifications were built by Ottomans, which is strange for a military culture. Western arms makers made serious money selling arms to the Ottomans, including Winchester that sold them lever action rifles used in the 1877 Russo Turkish war, indicating the state of their domestic arms making capabilities.
After the invasion of the Low Countries by the Catholic King Philip II of Spain in 1567, and the August 29, 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy) of French Calvinist Huguenots, there was a Walloon (Belgium) and Huguenot (France) migration to Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, South Africa, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, England, West Indies, South and North America, bringing with them Reform theology, and expertise in medicine, iron working and gun making, and textiles. The Huguenots were the intellectuals of France.
In 1600 400 Huguenot and Walloon mercenaries went to work for the Sultan.
In 1624 30 families, mostly Walloons and led by Josse de Forest, arrives in Terra Nova Belgica (New York) and settle New Avesnes (Manhattan) and the Hudson and Delaware Valleys. They wore silver half moons inscribed “Better Turk than Pope” from the statement by the Patriarch of Constantinople “Rather the turban of the Turk than the tiara of the pope.”
From 1661-1700 Walloons and Huguenots settle on the Binne Kill of the Mohawk River, establish Schenectady, Batavia (“better land”), New Rupella (Rochelle), New Paltz in the Walkill valley, Fort Orange (the future site of Albany), and in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and to South Carolina.
Irénée du Pont was Huguenot, as were the Roosevelts. Delano was Walloon.
I had the same thought as Argo about the gold robed guy: Mace w/chained ball.

1453 . . . part of Europe was still busy sorting out their own "ethnic cleansing" issues. The Hundred Years' War between England and France was just coming to a close, the French having succeeded in driving the English out, and conquering those parts of France from which the Plantagenets launched their successful invasion of England in 1066.

Re Huguenots, quite a few of them also ended up in South Africa. They obviously spread far and wide. But when a Protestant became king of France, he converted--with the simple statement: "Paris is worth a mass."
This is the most fascinating thread, thank you all for posting! Having flunked history with a capital 'F', I now find it fascinating in my later years. And no current politics, RESULT!
Posted By: Argo44 Re: What did the Turks know about gunmaking? - 02/27/21 09:12 PM
Toby, for pleasure and knowledge could I suggest you obtain these four slim volumes - they are all you'll need to know about history. The format is very simple. A Map on one page and a tightly edited (and humorous) text on the other. They are utterly brilliant, amazingly simple and Mr. McEvedy was a genius. I bought a set for each of my kids 30 years ago and have used them extensively since the 1980's. Plus they are just plain fun and really do explain linguistic variants of the caucasian languages, the pressures on the German tribes along the Rhine dealing with the Romans, etc. I carry the set when I go abroad (and when in Africa add the Penguin Atlas of African History (banned in South Africa because it shows the Zulus arriving after the Dutch.)

[Linked Image from jpgbox.com]

You can buy them used for as low as $ 1.00 a book...and they are so easy to understand and so enjoyable that they are worth 1000 times that. Why isn't history taught like this?
Posted By: Hal Re: What did the Turks know about gunmaking? - 02/27/21 10:50 PM
Thanks. I can't imagine the tribal battles required to develop all that technology!
Posted By: Argo44 Re: What did the Turks know about gunmaking? - 02/28/21 03:12 AM
Shotgunlover re Russo-Turk war of 1877. Not to mention the fact that there were Confederate generals advising the Turks at the time including outfitting them with Winchesters.

[Linked Image from jpgbox.com]
The Ottoman Empire created many great libraries.
Their method of governing conquered lands was subject to great abuse by appointed Pasha's, and led at times, to starvation of their subjects.
The Ottoman Empire was in serious decline by the mid- nineteenth century. Having failed to modernize, they had to import military technology and expertise.
One thing I know for sure about Turkish gun making....I'll never buy a Turkish made gun.
Originally Posted by Stanton Hillis
When you enlarge the picture the redhead in the gold robe appears to be holding something on the order of a set of nunchucks, a martial arts weapon, but with a longer chain. I have no idea that's what it is, but it sure looks like it. He's holding one of the handles in his right hand.

You still toting your switch blade to church to protect the congregation....
Posted By: keith Re: What did the Turks know about gunmaking? - 03/01/21 06:37 AM
Originally Posted by Argo44
Up in Nepal in the 1980's I got familiar with Buddhist chants, used to empty the mind and make life more bearable.

It would appear that your exercise to empty your mind was a rousing success Argo44. Congratulations!
Posted By: Der Ami Re: What did the Turks know about gunmaking? - 03/01/21 01:45 PM
Argo,
Adopting that chant is sure to send him to the "other side". instead.
WAR EAGLE!
Mike
Originally Posted by Argo44
... I suggested church once...

Preferably one you don’t need to carry a switch blade knife in your left hip pocket.

As for the rest of your post...


____________________________
Originally Posted by Drew Hause
After the invasion of the Low Countries by the Catholic King Philip II of Spain in 1567, and the August 29, 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy) of French Calvinist Huguenots, there was a Walloon (Belgium) and Huguenot (France) migration to Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, South Africa, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, England, West Indies, South and North America, bringing with them Reform theology, and expertise in medicine, iron working and gun making, and textiles. The Huguenots were the intellectuals of France.
In 1600 400 Huguenot and Walloon mercenaries went to work for the Sultan.
In 1624 30 families, mostly Walloons and led by Josse de Forest, arrives in Terra Nova Belgica (New York) and settle New Avesnes (Manhattan) and the Hudson and Delaware Valleys. They wore silver half moons inscribed “Better Turk than Pope” from the statement by the Patriarch of Constantinople “Rather the turban of the Turk than the tiara of the pope.”
From 1661-1700 Walloons and Huguenots settle on the Binne Kill of the Mohawk River, establish Schenectady, Batavia (“better land”), New Rupella (Rochelle), New Paltz in the Walkill valley, Fort Orange (the future site of Albany), and in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and to South Carolina.
Irénée du Pont was Huguenot, as were the Roosevelts. Delano was Walloon.

The branch of my family tree that provides me my surname is French Huguenot, who, after a brief stay of a couple decades in England, made their way to the lower Hudson River Valley where they were successful farmers and millers from the second half of the 1600's to the immediate post revolutionary war period of roughly 1792. At that point, after choosing poorly as to which side to support, my ancestors decided life would be better if they got "out of Dodge" so to speak. I'm pretty sure they were promised in a contract a fine cash settlement for abandoning their substantial assets, which the American government has failed to make good on. You guys owe me!
Posted By: Argo44 Re: What did the Turks know about gunmaking? - 03/02/21 01:44 AM
Saint John's Episcopal Church is right across Lafayette Park from the White House, known as the "Church of the Presidents." During the summer/fall violent left-wing insurrection by Maoist graffiti mafias, President Trump famously visited the church:

[Linked Image from jpgbox.com]

What is not well known is that for 100 years that church was home of the French protestant church in Washington, DC...the Huguenot's...followers of Jean Calvin (John Calvin), of course a French theologian and the founder of the Presbyterian church. My wife and I were married there in September 1982 during a brief return on leave from Africa. There was at the time a plaque to the left of the lectern in a small hallway which listed all the US Presidents with Huguenot blood - I recall seeing Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, etc. on the list.

[Linked Image from jpgbox.com]

I can't find a picture of the plaque..perhaps it has moved - I'll try to get through the ridiculous 10' high fences topped by razor wire to see if it's still in place. (Washington was totally boarded up in early Nov 2020 and it was not because of a couple of hundred "right-wing" protestors). But leave it to the French to kick out their most productive, innovative and imaginative citizens in 1685....only Cuba does it better.
Originally Posted by Argo44
Saint John's Episcopal Church

[Linked Image from jpgbox.com]

Heck of a suggestion, Argo...


Originally Posted by Argo44
...10' high fences topped by razor wire...

....better have a .44 hog leg up under your coat in that joint.


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The Bollocks gotta be making an appearance shortly.
Presbyterians . . . I grew up in that church. It has changed significantly since Presbyterian missionary Eric Liddell famously refused to run on Sunday in the 1924 Olympics (for those who remember "Chariots of Fire").
We've wondered away from the Turks, but since LR is such a stickler for church history wink

John Calvin was responsible for much of Reform Theology and the Presbyterian (elder church governance) tradition
John Knox was responsible for the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which is what (mostly) immigrated to the U.S.
The Congregationalists were Anglican non-conformists and eventually separatists in the Puritan tradition, most of whom were Calvinists.
Won't even try to 'splain the Particular (Calvinistic) Baptists smile

Eric Liddell, “The Flying Scotsman”, 400m Gold Medalist at the 1924 Paris Olympics and (Congregationalist) London Missionary Society missionary to Tianjin and Xiaozhang, China. He died in 1945 at age 43 in the Weihsien Internment Camp.
From his The Disciplines of The Christian Life
"Obedience to God's will is the secret of spiritual knowledge and insight. It is not willingness to know, but willingness to DO (obey) God's will that brings certainty."
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