I have been waiting for this book to be written for about 6 years, so well done David Nicolle for attempting to fit such a large subject into a small book. For wargamers new to the Ottomans, but interested in raising a Napoleonic Turkish army, this book will not stand alone as the one source you need, although that is probably true of all Ospreys, nor are they intended to be the one stop source for the budding wargamer. For experienced researchers of Ottoman armies, the plates and prints will be a useful addition, but the text is of less use.

As usual the colour plates are magnificent, depicting no less than 30 figures. Of these, 10 are officers/NCOs, and 1 is a child and another a courier, and not an Ottoman Janissary in sight! So that leaves 18 combat troop plates that are useful to the painting wargamer.

Plenty of black and white prints - 24 alone depicting various uniforms, including Chechen infantry. Many I haven't seen before, coming as they do from French archives, even though I have seen most of the texts in the bibliography. A WORD OF WARNING - PLATES H3 AND H4 HAVE BEEN TRANSPOSED - the Libyan Kuloghi is in fact H3. Also Plate D has no numbering alongside the figures - D4 is the back right figure, D3 is back left, D1 is front right, and D2 is front left. For me personally the various officer/chieftain plates are new, but the most useful is the Horse Artillery plate and the Egyptian Janissary plate, which are new to me.

The text has brief chapters on the people of the empire, Ottoman fragmentation, a very sketchy chronology, recruitment and ranks, and then sections on each troop type. These sections are Traditional Forces - Infantry, Mehter bands, Cavalry; Technical Corps; Provincial Forces; The new Armies - Nizam-Cedit,; The Navy; a glossary and further reading. Each area of the empire is covered, including the Arabs, mentioning the various troop types present, but mostly without discussion of numbers, quality or unit size. Some of the known guard units have been missed completely, even though one print (page 5) shows some (Grand Vezier's Mamelukes), the original print being available in colour in one of the sources quoted. I know, I bought a copy in Turkey. It is claimed, not unreasonably, that the Djellis were by this time the most numerous feudal irregular cavalry, but this is not quantified by numbers - the largest number I have come across is the 5000 sent ot Egypt in 1803. No estimates of the sizes of the provincial armies is given, nor of the proportion of the troop types involved. Understandably, such information is not easily available, nor perhaps is a fixed quantity useful when considering armies that were often raised by volunteers flocking to standards and civilia ns carrying guns deciding to become soldiers. It is such detail that wargamers need however!

The author does concur with my understanding of the Ottoman armies, that the provincial armies were often better than the regular government armies, and that some of the best troops were light infantry (page 13). This should not be understated when producing an Ottoman army in miniature - many of these provincial forces were regular trained by European renegades. What perhaps is under-emphasised is the overall view that the Ottoman army is in fact several different armies, each of unique structure and uniform type. Of this I am becoming more and more convinced, the more I read up on the Ottomans. Thus considering an Ottoman Bosnian army will not describe an Ottoman Serbian, or Syrian army, for example. To review all of these in one Osprey is a major challenge, and on balance, to the credit of the author, a very good job has been done.

This is perhaps equivalent to trying to describe all the armies of the Confederation of the Rhine in one Osprey, a task I hope no-one will consider easy. For the wargamer, some of the nitty-gritty detail is lacking , but this is to expected in a work of this size. Obviously, due to publication times and different emphasis, the latest research has been missed, such as presented in The Dragoman, produced by William Johnson (Greek rockets, for example), and readers interested in Ottoman Napoleonic armies would do well to subscribe to this newsletter (Available from William Johnson) as well as buying this book. It is recommended that the other Ospreys on the Ottomans would be required for a more complete picture.

The author dismisses the Sipahis of the Porte, or more correctly, the Suvarileri, as virtually non-existent, whereas previous thought estimated there were 28,000 on the rolls in 1780(?)ish. Also, he classifies the 10,000 trained lancers as Sipahis of the Porte then contradicts this as saying they came from provincial Sipahis. My understanding is that they came from the feudal Sipahis, rather than the Suvarileri, but either way they end up better than both. The book fails to mention provincial artillery forces, some of which were quite strong, and does not mention Yoruk light cavalry, which it was assumed were still around.

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