'Me among the Turks?': Western commanders in the Late Ottoman Army and their self-narratives University of Antwerp
Throughout the nineteenth century several Western officers joined the Ottoman Army. Not a few adopted Ottoman citizenship, commanded troops, fought in major wars, and rose to the highest echelons of the military. For these men the Ottoman Empire represented a formidable military power, notwithstanding contemporary discourses about its supposed decline. Asking what prompted these military men to emigrate, this article elucidates how they ...