In the recent Osprey book on the Ottoman armies of the Napoleonic era, Dr. David Nicolle has argued that the Ottoman cavalry of the period consisted of only a few thousand men. I think he's wrong.

One can argue at length about how effective the Ottoman cavalry of the period was, but as to its numbers, there is no doubt that it totaled into the many tens of thousands -- perhaps hundreds of thousands.

A single example from only one of the many Ottoman field armies of the period is suff~cient to demonstrate this point.

Dr. William Wittman was a member of the British observation team attached to the 30,000-man army of the Grand Vezir in 1800. In describing the army he ace companied across Syria, he wrote "The number of cavalry is much greater than that of the infantry." That statement alone puts Ottoman cavalry strength in this single field army at over 15,000.

The Ottoman cavalry arm was always the most important eIement of their military. Every observer of the period repeatedly remarked on the predominance of cavalry in every Ottoman field army and most observers of the period numbered the total strength of all the various Ottoman armies in the hundreds of thousands.

As soon as Sultan Selim III came to the throne in 1789 he called together a general consultative council (Mejlis-i Meshveret) of notables. To it came over 200 leaders of the ruling class -- judges and administrators, scribes and teachers, active and retired military officers and soldiers, to discuss what could be done to save the empire. While the body dealt with all aspects of government, they focused most closely on the military.

As part of this reform effort the Sultan asked for formal written proposals from 21 leading Ottomans and two Europeans.

I suspect it was from these reports that Nicolle got his information, specifically that of Rashid Efendi who reported that of the 30,000 men then on the rolls of the Suvarileri (the standing Imperial cavalry), only 2,000 to 3,000 could be counted on to report when summoned for battle.

As Rashid was trying to paint as bleak a picture as possible, I believe this total can be considered as the lowest possible total for the household cavalry.

Other reports received at the same time painted a completely different picture. Enveri Efendi and Firdevsi Efendi, for instance, both attributed much of the cavalry's difficulty to the fact that it had too many men, claiming the cavalry had 20,000 more men than its authorized strength.

It is also critically important to remember that all of these reports were dealing with only the Capou-Koulis (slaves of the Porte), the standing cavalry force in the capital. Not included were the Serhadd-Koulis (slaves of the frontier) that garrisoned the numerous fortresses throughout the empire. While this force was made up primarily of infantry, it still included approximately 10,000 cavalry.

And most importantly of all, these reports did not include the household cavalry of the various provincial governors or the vast hordes of militia cavalry available throughout the empire.

Nicolle does briefly touch on one aspect of this provincial cavalry when he argues that the provincial Sipahi had all but ceased to exist by the Napoleonic era. While I would strongly argue that this force had greatly deteriorated from its military effectiveness of past ages, I would also strongly argue that it remained a numerous and still effective force.

This can be illustrated by considering just one example from the Ottoman,s just completed War of 17871792 against Russia and Austria. It was traditional for the Sipahis to return home each winter. Historians of the conflict have reported that as a result much territory that was taken by successful military action during the summer was lost without a fight during the winter months.

If we take Nicolle's statement as true, are we suppose to believe that a force of only 2,000 to 3,000 Sipahi cavalry were keeping the more than 500,000 Russians and Austrians at bay all summer long? I don't think so.

It is true that many of the 100,000 Sipahis on the official register were unable to fulfill their duties and did not answer the call the arms. But the number who did respond was much closer to 50,000 to 60,000 than the 2,000 to 3,000 estimated by Nicolle.

And even that total was improved in the early days of Selim's reign when he sent inspectors to all of the various military fiefs of the empire. These inspectors were ordered to retire all those Sipahis who were too ill or old to perform their duties, and to give their fiefs to persons able to provide military service in return. Also all able-bodied fief-holders who had refused to perform their duties were ordered dismissed.

This effort to reform the Sipahis did lose energy as time passed. But this was because Sultan Selim became increasingly obsessed with creating a modern Europeanstyle army. To pay for it, as fefs became vacant, many were confiscated by the central treasury. But I'm not sure this resulted in an overall loss of cavalry to the Ottomans as Selim's New Order army included its own European trained cavalry contingents.

So all and all I feel a good case can be made for the argument that during the Napoleonic era cavalry remained the most numerous and effective of the Ottoman military arms.