Turkey

**Turkey** is a playable nation in *Cossacks 3*.

## Background

In the 13th century, from the remnants of the divided state of Seljuk, a Turkish people emerged with an Ottoman emperor at the head. United under his rule, the tribes began their conquests. They captured small regions of Asia, then invaded the Balkan Peninsula, and soon Bulgaria, Serbia and the weakened Byzantine fell to their rule. Ottoman armies strove to conquer larger territories. In the second half of the 15th century, they conquered the Crimea, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, part of Georgia, Syria and Arabia. As the Ottoman Empire grew stronger, its numerous armies rushed towards the heart of Europe. With Emperor Suleyman the First in command, they invaded Hungary. Ottoman troops entered Austria and soon its capital Vienna was being besieged. There had been multiple invasions of the territories of Ukraine and Poland. But it was an empire where minorities could be Viziers or Ministers in governing it. Thus, Ottomans invested in Balkans, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and other territories enormously, by following footsteps of old-Roman Empire where constructions followed in each conquest. Nonmuslims within the region were required to pay Jizya with no obligation to fulfill their military duty, while muslims were required to be conscripted by officers which some had to serve for dozens of years of army duty. This made Christians and Jewish prosper with their focus on trade and crafts, on the other hand Muslims had to focus on agriculture mainly.

Ottomans had a special elite regiments within its ranks: Janissaries. They were conscripted if a nonmuslim family had equal or more than six children, so one was supposed to be given to country service. If the child was dumb, he was picked to be a porter or shipwright, if he was strong and had normal comprehension he was picked for Janissary school, and if he was found bright, he was recruited for Enderun which he could be future governor of the Empire as a Vizier, engineer, or head architect! The ones in Janissary schools always stayed close to Sultan and had excellent salary, superior to most other soldiers. If janissaries didn't like salary, they regularly did protests, also they started to disobey in battles and not fighting if they do not wish, therefore Sultans had difficult times in maintaining them in discipline during 17th-18th centuries, in the end a Sultan was killed in a Janissary rebellion after he shared his thoughts of removing Janissary school in government. During their peak times, there were 12.000 janissaries accompanying Sultan as his bodyguard regiment after Kapikulu Cavalry which janissaries were placed in the center of the army with their muskets during battles.

There was also Spakh cavalry who were called to arms in times of war. However in times of peace, spakh were tasked to maintain order, hunt bandits and stay always ready for war in their designated territories. Each governor had to train and maintain a certain amount of spakh cavalry asked by from government to be prepared for war. In peak times, Spakh were counted around 200.000 men within the Empire. Together these regiments comprised an enormous army that represented various peoples and nationalities. Many of these regiments were regular troops