The first Ottomans were Asian horseman, one of the seemingly endless stream of horse-barbarians that swept out of Asia, and even 500 years later the Ottomans still prized their cavalry arm above all else.

While much of the Ottoman military of the period was considered inferior by their European opponents, their cavalry maintained a high reputation.

General John Hely-Hutchinson, who commanded the British expeditionary force that helped the Ottomans drive the French out of Egypt in 1801, said:

"The Turks are excellent horsemen, and must be considered as very formidable cavalry; their dexterity in the use of the saber, and the command they have of their horses, is such that instances are recorded where oxen have been deprived of the head by a stroke of the saber."

He went on to conclude

"Their cavalry has still great excellence, and though it is impossible to get them to charge in line, they are the most formidable in the world against infantry when once broken or even shaken."

With the exception of the Suvarileri, the household cavalry stationed in and around Istanbul, most Ottoman cavalry of the Napoleonic era was essentially light cavalry.

They fought in loose order, and by very irregular evolutions. As a result they usually would not attempt to stand against a direct charge. Instead, if charged by formed European cavalry they would, as had been their custom for centuries, give way, returning again and again to harass the flanks, and wear out their foes by constant skirmishing.

Their usual style of attack was a wedge, with elements of religiously inspired fanatics making up the point. The plan was to use this formation to pierce the ranks of their foe, and once they succeeded in breaking the order, they scattered, mingling in a general melee. Here their superior armor, their wonderful dexterity with their horses and their great skill with their scimitars would give them the advantage.

Their horses were not large, but were spirited and well trained and bitted. With the exception of the saddle. their equipment was light so the horses were not overburdened.

In the field the Ottomans maintained many advanced posts of cavalry in front, in rear, and upon the flanks of their positions, and their outpost work was generally well performed.

While often armed with lances, muskets and several pairs of pistols, they relied mainly upon the curved saber, or scimitar.

Describing these tactics, in 1800 Dr. Wittman wrote:

"In battle they do not engage en masse so much as the Janissaries, but are more dispersed. On these occasions each troop or squadron, whatever may be its strength, keeps together without mixing with the other troops. In rushing forward, at a given signal, to encounter the enemy, each of the horsemen exclaims with vehemence, Allah! Allah! invoking the aid of the deity to the enterprise."

Other British military observers were similarly impressed with the Ottoman mounted forces.

Part of the Ottoman success with their cavalry was their equipment. Turkish saddles of the period were mounted high on the animal with the rider sitting with his knees bent towards the horse's neck like a jockey, providing the rider with great individual control of his horse. This form of riding was admirably suited for the fast charges at a full gallop preferred by the Ottomans. These saddles, combined with the bright, massive, large-footed stirrups, provided an extremely secure platform for the rider, making use of the saber both easier and more hard-hitting than was possible with contemporary European saddles.

Captain Jean-Roch Coignet, who served with Mamluks in French service in numerous campaigns, eagerly attested to the skill displayed by the Ottoman horse men in the handling both of their horses and weapons in his 'notebooks':

"They could do anything they chose with their horses. With their curved sabers, they could take a man's head off with one blow, and their sharp stirrups tore the loins of the men they encountered."

Though writing in a later era ( 1853), the British General Charles Shaw provides a vivid description of the Circassian horsemen and their prowess with both swords and firearms while atop a fast moving horse. In the Napoleonic era such horsemen could be found serving as mercenaries in Ottoman armies throughout the empire. He wrote:

"The skill with which the Circassians use their weapons is really beyond belief. I have seen them repeatedly fire at a piece of card laying on the ground, at full speed, without ever missing.

"They will pick up a piece of money from the ground while executing a charge, holding themselves round below the horse,s belly, and, after seizing the piece, suddenly throw themselves back into the saddle. They form the choicest body of cavalry in the Turkish service, and I have watched them, when charging, attack their opponents with a saber in each hand, managing their reins with their mouths; they will spring out of their saddles, take aim and fire from behind their horses, then jump into their saddles again, wheel around, and reload their guns as they retreat at full career. They are perfect madmen in the attack, and few would withstand the utter recklessness of danger they evince."

Scimitars

But their greatest weapon was their scimitars. Most European cavalry feared to engage Ottoman horsemen because of the horrendous wounds which the Ottomans could effect with these swords.

One reason for the effectiveness of the scimitar was the fact that it was razor sharp from hee1 to point. To maintain this edge the Ottomans usually used wooden scabbards and not the metal ones ubiquitously used by Europeans.

Another reason was the shape of the weapon itself with its overly curved blade. Western European swords and sabers were designed for cutting strokes intended to strike the enemy by a motion toward the center of the target, in more or less a chopping motion. The scimitar was intended to allow its owner to strike the intended object so that the blade was drawn along the surface. Skin and clothing offered little resistance to the very sharp blade and allowed the sword to slice through thc target.

Finally the scimitar was superior in that it needed less room to be used effectively. For Eastern warriors, mounted combat was always individual combat; there was no such thing as the use of rigid formations. Unlike the situation faced by Western cavalry where it was relatively uncommon for men in open terrain to fight hand to hand collectively, Eastern horsemen frequently had to fight groups of enemy horsemen in fast moving, highly congested frays.

In such battles the slash was considered, if not the most desirable method of attack, the most do-able. Straight swords, such as those used by European cuirassiers, took a great deal of room to swing. Sabers took less room, but still required a fairly large arc to build up force. But the scimitar, as a slicing weapon, could achieve the same or greater cutting force even though it transcribed a much smaller swing radius.

An example of the terrible power of the Ottoman scimitars was given at the Battle of Sedyman on Oct. 7. 1798. Following the Battle of the Pyramids, General Desaix was assigned to pursue the main Mamluk army. which had fled south along the Nile. He came upon a force of about 3,000 Mamluks with numerous Bedouh, allies at the village of Sedyman.

While the French eventually won the battle with their traditional tactic of simply standing in square until the exhausted Mamluks fled, in this battle the Mamluks where able to break one battalion square. Only a handful of Mamluks broke through into the French ranks yet the result was appalling. Death and destruction instantly spread everywhere, with heads and entire limbs lopped off with single strokes from the razor-sharp scimitars. Within seconds 40 Frenchmen lay dead or very seriously wounded. The remainder broke and fled.

In 1787 Count Peter Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev observed the same terrible results and, in his training manual for the Russian army, wrote "If the Turks once break in (to a square), there is no resisting their impetuosity."

But the eventual French victory at the Battle of Sedyman illustrates why the Ottoman cavalry, even though greatly superior to its European opponents, proved ultimately ineffective. By the Napoleonic era the great age of cavalry had passed and infantry ruled of the battlefield.

In the face of such overwhelming cavalry superiority, European infantry would simply form square, thus becoming all but invulnerable. At least in the early years of the Napoleonic era the lack of mobile battlefield artillery gave the Ottomans no effective counter.

A unique response to this tactical dilemma for the Ottoman cavalry was the development of a Kamikaze-like tactic of literally throwing themselves and their horses on the massed bayonets of the square in an attempt to make a breach. While serving with the Duc de Richelieu's Russian troops in the 1807 campaign against the Ottomans, the young French emigre, the Comte de Rouchechouart, frequently witnessed the following technique:

"Five of six hundred horse tried to break our infantry, which was formed in two squares. Vigorously repulsed by the fire at close range, they turned around, but reformed a short distance away, to attack another face of the square. Receiving another volley, and exasperated at being unable to breach this human wall, ten of the most intrepid rushed forward as far as the bayonets of the first line; turning their horses around, they made them back, rearing so as to throw men and horse upon our soldiers, thus hoping to make way for their comrades."