New Year has come and this is my first post this 2011.
I welcome all new follwoers to my blog and wish everyone lots of health and prosperity in this brand new year.
Ad rem, in this entry http://dariocaballeros.blogspot.com/2010/11/turkish-rider-sketch.html I have started a new illustration using my much older drawing showing nondescript Ottoman Turkish lancer.
Well, here you can find a newer version - this time our Turk has a lance, 'Balkan' shield, shishak helmet in more 'Turkish' style, a sabre and a straight sword (carried underneath the right thigh in the old Turkish fashion described in the 'mamluk' - slave-warriors - training manuals in the XIII century). His shield strap has just broken and he is trying to salvage his shield and control his horse. More work to be done as this is but a tentative sketch...
Very nice!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteby the way - nice Turkish shishak helmet of XVI century http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/Nephtys/Oriental/Shishak_Ottoman_Metropolitan.jpg
Bravo Dario - a fine sketch indeed!
ReplyDeleteI sure look forward for the final piece. I especially like the fact that you have tried to make it more dramatic via the broken shield-strap.
If I can offer some constructive criticism though I feel the kopia-style lance (hollow lance with a pommel) isn't representative of an actual Anatolian Turkish warrior. I have discussed the issue of Ottoman cavalry pole-arms on this forum to some degree:
http://www.ogniemimieczem.wargamer.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=542
To sum it up:
In the context of 17th century the only Ottoman cavalry troops carrying "kopia-lances" were troopers of Balkan background (Albanians, Serbs etc.) - There are 2 particular sources that explicitly mentions this.. Actually one of them being an early 17th century Polish memoir (huge kudos to Radek Sikora for pointing it out to me). I can forward them to you if you desire.
Happy New Year and best of luck with your paintings :)
Samuel
Samuel,
ReplyDeleteI have several images from the period of circa 1580 through perhaps 1657-9 showing 'kopia' (lance) with 'galka.' !But you might be right, they seem to be of some Bosnian or Balkan relation in the later one. I will show them on the blog soon.
Also when hetman Mielecki got himself entangled near Khotin, on the Moldavia side of the river in 1572, one of the Polish hussars, Zygmunt Rozen h. Gryf, was hit by three Turks (guardians of a banner that he just had taken from their 'ensign') with their 'kopia's (Bielski 'Kronika Polska') yet since they did it at trot or at least had not gained enough great speed when executing their attack and he had been armored, they did not do much damage to him and did not even push him of his horse,and he reached his banner with a captured standard at the end. Also during the same Mielecki's campaign in Moldavia Polish hussar or knight Stanislaw Ciolek dueled, with kopia in Slovenian manner, with a Turkish knight and while they went at it with their lances they missed one antoher, but Ciolek turned his horse, on the haunches :) , and drawing his 'koncerz' gravely wounded the Turk in the forehead thus ending the duel. During the same battle two medium calvary banners refused to aid Polish infantry because they had only 'rohatyna' and 'javelins' against Turkish long 'kopia's... etc Bielski is here pages 1210-20 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ae4DAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=mielecki+kronika+bielskiego&source=bl&ots=uhgGI5DPBx&sig=_TgKLfHr-RtIyhjBG--YzLGKgbw&hl=en&ei=h68mTYPAL4T6lwfauJyOAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=mielecki&f=false
Hello once again Dario
ReplyDeleteyou wrote:
But you might be right, they seem to be of some Bosnian or Balkan relation in the later one.
Well 17th century sources seems to support this assertion. But than again I have found nothing solid for the 16th century (IIRC I don't even think there is any "study" that would point out when was the "Kopia-style" lance developed in the first place.)
Than there is the problem of "Turkishness"... To the best of my knowledge period Christian Europeans used the term rather freely for any Ottoman warriors - irrespective of their original ethno-regional origins.
A nice example of this is found in Pamiętnik wojny chocimskiéj, xiąg troje from Jakub Sobieski who had been an ambasador (?) for the Polish party during the Chocim battle in 1620s
http://books.google.pl/books?id=XiMpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA82&dq=Sobieski+1621&hl=sk&ei=Ws7RTPP9C8aYOrOy9JEM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=true
He had seen the Ottoman army first hand himself and on page 23 he discusses the difference between European and Asian troops - the former being different from "other Turks" - having features of former Christian people etc... So the term "Turk" was very broad and most probably meant Muslim of any kind...
you wrote:
During the same battle two medium calvary banners refused to aid Polish infantry because they had only 'rohatyna' and 'javelins' against Turkish long 'kopia's...
Medium cavalry aka (Polish) Kozak cavalry? The javelins are interesting, I remember reading in Gorski peraps that Lithuanians still carried "Oszczepy" in the 16th century...
you wrote:
Bielski is here pages 1210-20
Intriguing - Many thanks for pointing this out!
Cheers,
Samuel
Dear Samuel,
ReplyDeleteI answered , I hope, some of your questions here, along with a nice iconography attached - :)
Bielski, Wapowski, Stryjkowski etc, these XVI century chroniclers offer us some 'great windows' into the world of XV-XVI century Easter and Central Europe.
Dario, brilliant work, I like the idea of multiweapons cavalryman! By the way, that manual from 13th CE about Mamluks do You mean this book http://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2015/02/a-mamluk-manuscript-on-horsemanship.html ? Is somewhere English translation of this work, or is it being prepared? Unfortunately, I have English dissertation about this which is only in Arabic...
ReplyDeleteAre there even some new books about Turkish army from 13th-17th century? Here in Czech Republic finally some old manuals are being released https://www.kosmas.cz/autor/50802/joachim-meyer/ https://www.kosmas.cz/knihy/205740/vycvik-se-zbranemi/
Also interesting monographies and memories https://www.kosmas.cz/knihy/210604/kavalerie-historie-a-taktika/ https://www.kosmas.cz/knihy/218816/savle-sveta/
https://www.kosmas.cz/knihy/208674/napoleonovi-jezdci/ https://www.kosmas.cz/knihy/235939/waterloo-denik-z-tazeni/ and yet is more to come. (If I have Your email, I would like to write You more in case of Your interest).
Thank You for links about Maurice de Saxe, I have to read his book about warfare, because I have knowledge for antiquity, medieval, 30 years war, Napoleonic era, but not on age just before French revolution. By the way problem of columns vs lines is present from Xenophon to Waterloo. Wish me fortune, I have prepared one book (divided for two parts) about Xenophon, his thoughts about economy, warfare, contemporary warfare(Persia, Greece-Sparta, Thessaly, Athens) with special attention to calvary, also translations of his Peri Hippikés, Hipparchikos into Czech language.
Hello Pavel,
ReplyDeletethank you for commenting
Mamluk manuals - I have read only one, translated a while back, and parts that dr Nicolle & other scholars studying Circassian, Turkish and Mamluk miltiary etc quoted in their works.
as per Ottoman Turks I have not seen much new (i.e., 2017 onwards)scholarship in terms of military arts, but there are some works that deal with the Turkish martial history, just would have to look at my library collection. Truth be told I have not spent much time lately looking into the furusiyah history.
Meyer in Czech - good stuff; nota bene I have read some books by M. Zamboch, enjoyed them quite a bit - :)
My email is in the about me- part.. darajawausz at gmail
I tried to read some old Czech chronicles, difficult but readable if one tries hard, you had great military traditions, especially Chivalry, during the late Přemyslid dynasty and Lucemburkové dynasty etc.
Looks like you are doing lots of actually incredible work, I would like to wish you the
best of luck and would like to hear more from you and about your work etc
Especially about cavalry
ps
re books
I have read Nolan 'Cavalry' - too bad he died during the Crimean War, and his death was rather accidental during the early stage of the charge of Light Brigade..
wow, Zablocki om Czech - fantastic!
Re other books about the Napoleonic cavalry etc - very interesting, I try to read memoirs from that ear as much as I can - mostly using digital libraries
Per cavalry works - there is a book-memoirs, by Kornel Krzeczunowicz who was a commanding officer of the 8th uhlan regiment at Komarow 31st August 1920, the last great cavalry battle in Europe, perhaps you Czech readers would be interested. The book - Ostatnia Kampania Konna - is about the war of 1920 and last horse campaign in Europe, sort of a the swan song of the European chivalry and cavalry (there is 1971 London edition and 2013 first Poland's edition.
http://allegro.pl/ostatnia-kampania-konna-kornel-krzeczunowicz-ks-i6746039350.html