In both fantasy and science fiction, from books, movies, games and tv shows...

Yall niggas really need to differentiate between slaves serving in the army, and a slave army.
There are different implications.

Argentina bleached their country by making their blacks die at the frontlines.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Argentines#Decline_of_the_Afro-Argentine_population

They weren't slave soldiers, they were given freedom for serving
Of course you can't desert the army though so they were only really free after the war

Actually, the south was extremely loathe to deploy slaves, believing that if they outfought whites it would disprove their whole theory that they are inferior subhumans

Not really slaves, but the Sassanid Empire would use farmers forced into service as their infantry since they were such a cavalry heavy army.

They chained their feet together so they wouldn't run off (which they usually tried) and kept them in groups to make them more effective (and consequently less horrified).

They were pretty useless however, usually not really wanting to fight and throwing down their weapons.

yes but they were not technically slaves but conscripts

Contrary to popular belief Janissaries were only 30% deshirma (converted christians). Remainder were Turks.

Aside from the Sipahi cavalry who were exclusively Turkish in blood, janissaries were heterogenous yes, but not COMPLETELY.

Janissaries were just the sultan's private army, to balance power and keep in control. They were the "educated" army, like the officers corps in the west later, as opposed to the drafted army, and the bandit/looters that I can compare to the russian cossacks regiments, whatever the turks called those.

that's not enslavement, that's called impressment. Romans did it all the time, and even as late as the British Empire it was not uncommon for gangs of soldiers/sailors to roam the slums looking for idle NEETS and force them to join the military.

It was not slavery because they didn't become the lawful property of another person, and just as often it was beneficial to the NEET because they were taught a skill and given a profession with which to support themselves after their term of service was up.

Didn't the American-British war start exactly because the British did the same thing with american dock workers at their ports?
Kidnapping them to work as sailors, and once you are at sea you can't exactly run, and if you don't work you get beaten, so they eventually complied and worked.

#neetslifesmatter

They impressed them from American ships at sea as well actually, it was because the British considered all British born subjects to be British even if they were naturalised

That is not true.

Every army was the Sultan's private army.

Janissaries continued the practice of recruiting annexed peoples for integration into the warrior elite. But they had a 30-40% cap of converts until the 1600s.

Sipahi were exclusively Oghuz Turks and Turkic Tatars etc. because Murat II feared what happened to all great Turkic empires in the past, where the military elite started getting ideas eventually. So he decided to diversify the power structure and create intentional rivalries.

Sipahi hated Janissaries and vice versa, this created social darwinism in the military and rivalries created aptitude on the battlefield.

I remember the turks having a few armies, organized kind of like this:

1. Professional army under the sultan.
2. His "lords" and their warbands - your sipahi.
3. The drafted army - where every town has to contribute however many foot guys.
4. The "mercenary" army - where volunteers would fight for promise of loot, and were mostly sent to terrorize people and not engage other armies.
5. The vassal armies from somewhat autonomous holdings - serbia, crimea, wallachia, etc

Of those armies, only the janissaries were directly under the sultan, the rest had their own local boss, who was (hopefully) loyal to the sultan.

>His "lords" and their warbands - your sipahi.
Those are Timariots, the Porte had its own Sipahi

You are correct, thank you. Looks like the timariots (lords) were the majority of the force, I guess back when reading I ignored the other part (the palace soldiers under the sultan).

The Janissaries were certainly slave soldiers to being with although over time they evolved into a unique social class of their own. I'm not sure how you got the idea they were all officers.

>but the Sassanid Empire would use farmers forced into service as their infantry
Wrong. They weren't forced. You're referring to the Paighan, which is the exchange of military service in lieu of tax. Many took it from among the peasantry.

In addition the Sassanid army resembled a Medieval European army in which a feudal system was in place to support the military structure. The Satraps would gather their lords, the lords would gather the Savaran- the landed cavalry elite who were basically Sassanid knights- who in turn looked for soldiers to furnish for the common soldiery, and these could be either professional men-at-arms, fierce tribes like the Daylami, and finally anyone who volunteered his ass for Paighan.

Which turned out to be a lot.
>They chained their feet together
Arab and Byzantine propaganda. Funnily the Turks also claimed that the Byzantines did that to their subjects during the Battle of Manzikert.

In addition from the Sassanid sources that survived, it seemed the Paighan were soldiers last and squires and grooms first. Which would make sense since the cavalry is the primary arm of the Sassanid Empire.

easiest way to explain:

40% Non-Turks + 60% Turks = Janissary Corps

100% Turks = Sipahi

80% Turks + 20% Non-Turks = Qapikulu

Only Janissaries and Sipahi were involved in offensive campaigns. The myriad forms of Ottoman military structure in palaces, provinces and garrisons are too confusing to list.

For instance, they employed their Tatar brethren from their Crimean Vassals as Vanguards called Akinci (Raiders). But the Tatars allowed Oghuz (Turkish Turks) and Karluk (Eastern Turks like Kazakh) but never Slavs.

Some of the most famous 70s films are about Kara Murat, Mehmet II's personal bodyguard who led a Tatar Akinci warband and historically became a Bey after success all over the western frontier.

How were they slaves in any way? They weren't anyone's property. They got paid wages, could make decisions for themselves, and in many cases ran the country.
They were basically the aristocracy, with the difference being the position wasn't inherited.

>They weren't anyone's property
They were the Sultans property legally

Everyone and everything in the empire was the sultan's property legally.
According to their laws (which the sultan didn't have to follow, legally) he could walk anywhere, fuck anyone's wife, execute them on the spot, etc. Everyone was his property.

In practice, it wasn't like tht.

>They weren't anyone's property.

They were the property of the Ottoman state.

Army slaves as in gelded slaves?

? Apart of porters and Estevanico the berber translator not that much really, Spaniards asociated warriors with nobles, they wouldn't use slave soldiers.

Ouch.

Look up how Spartans used their helots.

It would mean leaving their profession that they were trained from infancy into, leaving their brothers, going to some landlord to beg to be their serf for a hovel and oatmeal.

>Aside from the Sipahi cavalry who were exclusively Turkish in blood
Those had a significant Christian component well into the 17th century, and only after were an all Muslim (but not all Turkish) cavalry force.

You had slave soldiers, but they weren't anything like the dehumanized robots that the Unsullied were presented as. Rather than beating slaves into castrated animals by some merchant who then sold them as units, they were more like house servants and squires bought by their master from the start and trained as a close-knit unit. They were meant to develop personal loyalty to their master from the get-go, and transferring their loyalty to a new master didn't go over well lots of times.

Not true.

Sipahi were always Turkic landowners. They had to be either Alevi or Sunni, and Turkish in ethnicity. They were allowed to raise families AND remain in the cavalry force only if they sired children from Turkish mothers.

It literally was law.

For instance, the family of Viziers, the Koprulus were Albanian stock and there are historical instances of them trying to bend the laws to get their relatives into the Sipahi Corps but they were forbidden by law from Orhan's time so they couldnt and instead they practiced nepotism in the Janissaries.

There is a saying in Turkish "Atlı er başkaldırmaz", which means "Horsemen don't mutiny". Culturally speaking Horsemen in Turkic states had to be Turks since it signified heritage and pedigree so take that as you will.

By the time Ottomans went into decline, every Sultan and most citizens hated the Janissaries because they were rife with corruption.

Thanks for the explanation. To be honest I had gotten that off some meme history book and am glad I know something closer to the truth.

You're speaking of Mehmed II's Sipahi Laws, which weren't always enforced and led to a firman in 1635 which dealt with ending the recruitment of Christians into the Sipahi corps once and for all. This only came about because of the Ottoman-Safavid War (1623-1639) when Murad IV was surprised to see many of his Sipahis charge the Persian lines under the banner of St. George.

Sipahis being Turkish are empirically proven by the Timariot law.

In order to till and own land, be an "Ağa" you had to be Turkish, unless by exceptions which are few and in between.

Is it possible that some Sipahis fucked different races? Sure. But their legitimate children with the House name had to be from a Turkish mother.

Every Turk knows this.

The conquistadors were anyone who wants to join in join us but BYOA. It wasn't a standard army but a combo of feudal lords, poor farmers, shop keepers, veterans, criminals, merchants, explorers and mercenaries. Some of them weren't even Spaniard like the Italians and Germans among them. Not even counting the thousands of Indian warriors that made the conquest possible in the first place.

>So were slave armies ever used in history?
Muslims in general and turks specifically made large use of slavery in their armies, and yes they did often end up with their arse on a throne. The average north african leader started as a slave soldier through most of the early modern period.

another /pol/ phimosis bullshit

slaves were forbidden in Turkish armies

>Devshirme wasn't slavery
Nigga pls.

Do rowers on galleys not count because they're navy? I'd still call them military slaves.

I doubt castrated males would make good soldiers.

After the Uyghur-Gokturk strife, slave armies were banned after 700s. Slaves were counted as coerced into battle in a culture where glory and death for purpose is king.

Sure slave labor existed, but slave armies among Turks? Never. You cant trust flanks or rear defended by slaves who want potential revenge.

Empirically =/= Legally

There were Christian Ottoman Sipahis. That's not in any doubt based on current research of Ottoman registers.

Also, being 'kidnapped' isn't exactly the same as being conscripted. Some families did not want their children gone, whereas some were actually happy that they would have the chance to get a better life rather than to live and die as poor serfs - iirc there are even cases of Muslim families bribing Christian priests to add their children's name into Church Naming books to get their children taken as well.

Also, the devshirme-exclusive status of the Janissary Corps went away in the 1570s - the last devshirme 'recruitment' was done in 1703, as well.

They used a few regiments at least. I saw it in "Gone With the Wind."

Slave soldiers were ubiquitous in Muslim courts because their armies were usually structured professionally in regions where tribal militia were the most common kind of soldier available. This meant a Muslim ruler, rather than land, would have to parcel out income from his administration to bureaucrats and warriors to run and protect his rule. If he favored people from the highly tribal peoples he ruled, he ran the risk of highly volatile in-faction fighting and eventually one tribe becoming powerful enough to overthrow him.

For this reason Muslim rulers favored slave soldiers, but also slave bureaucrats and even slave concubines. So they weren't interested in an army like the Unsullied, but slaves who they would personally trust, befriend, and love the more educated and powerful they were.

A good historical example to this would be the Safavid Qizilbash, who would later cause a lot of butthurt to the Safavids because they were practically the founders of the state and Isma'il I's primary fighting force, but also a bunch of backwards Turcomans who were self-serving and heavily corrupt.

This ironically made one of the Safavid Shahs (Abbas, I think) copy the devshirme system of their nemesis, the Ottoman Empire, and make his own devshirme class.

>Sipahi were always Turkic landowners.
They were always TurkISH, as in elites of a variety of backgrounds who were acculturated and eventually converted over generations.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2555157

This nigga right here. IIRC, there were seven helots to every Spartan in the Spartan Army.

Doesn't answer his question about galley slaves.
Galley slaves a means of propulsion, not fighting men at all.

Under arms? I thought helots tilled the fields so the Spartans didn't have to, and the Spartans utterly brutalized them to keep them enslaved.

The Spartiates fought as phalanx. Light infantry, foragers, slingers, etc, was all made up of helots and perioeci. Some were pretty elite, like the Sciritae. Some helots actually fought as hoplites, most notably during Brazidas' expedition during the Peloponesian war. They later were rewarded with freedom and served as a new class, neodamodes, in the Lacedemonian army.

...

Lepanto, famously. The Christian galley slaves in the Muslim fleet all rose up at the opportune time and achieved victory.

It was only the galley slaves on the Egyptian flagship, after it was already captured. The galley slaves on the Turkish admiral's ship were freed by the Turks before the battle and fought with them against the Holy League.

In both instances, however, they were no longer slaves.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto#Battle

>The Christian galley slaves freed from the Turkish ships were supplied with arms and joined in the fighting, turning the battle in favour of the Christian side.

>Wikipedia
Try reading the actual source it references

huh, so you're btfo by a simple wiki link. Good to know.

>The Mamluks were originally slave soldiers (with many privileges) before they took over the country,

Proves his point no?

Try reading the actual source it refernces. It's easy, it's on Project Gutenberg. The battle's turning point was the fall of the Egyptian squadron's flagship. The slaves on it were freed as a consequence, but that didn't tip the battle in of itself nor did the Holy League magically free every galley slave in the Turkish fleet at that instance.

If they could do that they wouldn't have needed to actually fight in the first place.

Now, try not to get too mad about being actually BTFO.

>refernces
so mad
gutenberg.org/files/24797/24797-h/24797-h.htm#page_103
>The Christian slaves, freed from the rowers' benches, were supplied with arms and joined in the fighting with the fury of vengeance on their masters.

I'm pretty sure the Egyptian flagship was not the only vessel whose slaves were liberated in the melee.

This
They also did it the Irish, Scottish, Indian, etc as well, mostly because they could. If you need an extra 4 guys to pull rope or do the shit jobs it's real hard for them to argue when you're 100 miles out in the ocean.

I didn't say they didn't fight. But clearly it doesn't say anything about the entire Ottoman galley slave fleet rising up nor these specific freed slaves turning the tide of battle.

Nice try though. Try again in another life with a better IQ.

>It was only the galley slaves on the Egyptian flagship
wow, look at you.

>nor these specific freed slaves turning the tide of battle
>There was no semblance of line left; only a mêlée of ships laid so close to each other as to form almost a continuous platform over which the fighting raged hand to hand. Both the leaders fell. Barbarigo was mortally wounded, and Sirocco was killed when his flagship was stormed. The loss of the Egyptian flagship and commander seemed to decide the struggle at this point. The Christian slaves, freed from the rowers' benches, were supplied with arms and joined in the fighting with the fury of vengeance on their masters. A backward movement set in among the Turkish ships; then many headed for the shore to escape.

seems like the text implies the opposite. That while the two sides massacred each other, the Christians were reinforced by enslaved Christian men from within the Muslim ships, and then the Turks retreated.

Yes, look at me, the only one here who can read apparently. It specifically mentions the Egyptian flagship being stormed, meaning the slaves in question were on that ship. It also specifically points out the turning point being the fall of the flagship (and its commander) and the freed slaves followed after.

>the slaves in question were on that ship
>therefore no other slaves played a role

sure thing kiddo

Mamluks were Turks who were indentured servants as soldiers and commanders after the Battle of Talas

Mamluks vs. Ottomans was actually the struggle of two Turkish states. Mamluks just had a majority Arab population.

>source clearly talks about that one ship
>forgetting about those goalposts

Remember, this was the line being called out:
>Lepanto, famously. The Christian galley slaves in the Muslim fleet all rose up at the opportune time and achieved victory.

But we did establish you can't read, so no worries.

no they didn't

have a (you)

What is a conscript but a state slave?
I would argue that serf classes obligated into war are slaves, like the Persian armies, the helots, all kinds of frontier armies etc.

>What is a conscript but a state slave?

In order to be a slave, two things must be true:
1. You can't own things.
2. You can be owned.

Are conscripts slaves? Lets try...
1. Conscripts can own things.
2. Conscripts can't be owned.

No, they aren't slaves.

where are you getting your definition from? Slaves can have possessions, yet if they are owned by another than by extension the possessions of the slave is also owned by the master

Being allowed a wooden charm on a string around your neck isn't property, is it?
The commies made this distinction between personal property/private property, I think we can utilize it here.

The commies were Jewish slaves whose theory was perverted and failed so I don't want to use their distinctions

They were forced to work, they were slaves

You are forced to work, on fear of starvation.

>i hate the person, so i dismiss all his ideas as wrong

But this is stupid. Don't do that.

Why shouldn't I? I don't even find it useful in this topic

>why shouldn't i commit the most spread and basic logical fallacy

really, I would just prefer not to waste my time arguing commie semantics

I don't think the difference between a toothbrush and a house is "commie semantics".
There are many historical cases where people could own what commies call "personal property", like the clothe son their back or a cup to drink from and so on, but couldn't own what would be "private property" - weapons, land, house, business.

I make no distinction here and I find it arbitrary, especially considering the topic of slaves in the ancient Mediterranean

The bulk of the Spartan army was made from Helots, the conquered people who lived in the area before the Spartans founded their city. They were treated like slaves, they tended to the fields and did all the menial jobs. Once a year Sparta ritually declared war on them and slaughtered a few to prove their own superiority. Helots served as light infantry in the army and there were seven or more of them for each heavy Spartan hoplite.
As you can guess, Sparta was constantly on the brink of civil war with these guys, and eventually a huge revolt broke out when a violent earthquake caused chaos in the city.

what comic?

>By that reasoning there were no slaves in Rome since they could own property. We're not talking about the odd trinket either but anything between a slave to a monetary sum large enough to buy them their freedom. It wasn't uncommon in those times to allow your slave a free day during which s/he could spend time with her/his family or work somewhere for his/ her own accord.

Oh and I belive the Illyrians also employed slave-soldiers in their armies.

Didn't mean to quote.

I mean, thats a very specific definition for slavery user, and it excludes many examples of slavery from history that are more or less clear otherwise.

'Slave' is a legal status - just as 'citizen' and 'non-citizen' define the rights you have when on a certain territory, 'slave' does too. To meet the criteria of slavery, I think most people would agree that your legal status, whatever terminology used, allows you to be bought or sold.

Now, in mentioning conscripts, implies that forced servitude is the main aspect that defines you a slave, but thats an anachronism. Whilst it goes hand in hand with coercion, there are many historical periods and regions where slavery was a path of advancement, or otherwise beneficial - even desirable to the slave. That, I think, is my answer to OPs question - and the main divergence between fantasy and reality. Slave armies, in real life, often simply didnt possess any real reason to rebel.

Based on the legal status definition, feudal levies are slave armies - yet, theres nothing about their status that implies any inherent hostility towards the lord - they receive land and protection from their servitude, after all, why would they refuse to fight or turn against their lord and jeopardise their home, family and entire lifes history?

Do you think orphans are slaves?
Children owned by the state, that the state sells to private persons who want to buy them (for the cost of raising them)?

The colloquial and the legal "slave" differ.

They just weren't trained properly by the time the war ended.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaves_and_the_American_Civil_War#Blacks_in_the_Confederate_Army

Children are not 'owned' by the state what planet are you on? States are granted legal guardianship of orphans but the orphans are not the property of the state (and that is the key word - a slave is the property of the owner), the relative value of orphans is not calcuated as an asset of the state. The state can transfer legal guardianship of a child to another, but it is nowhere near 'ownership'.