It was the first instance of a "standing army" in Europe. Charles VII. of France is usually considered the originator of the "standing army," perhaps because the Turks were not considered a European nation; but the Janissaries were in existence a century before Charles's time. They were organized in 1329, and Charles was not crowned until 1422.
The Janissaries fought in many important battles and sieges in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They figured in the sieges of the islands of Rhodes and Crete and Malta, and at the famous battle of Lepanto, which you will read about when you are older. They wore, even in fighting, flowing robes and white caps with black plumes, and fought with cimeters. We can believe their flowing robes were somewhat inconvenient in battle, especially at the siege of Malta, where they had to scale high parapets of rocks.
The Janissaries were in the height of their splendid fame during the reign of the Sultan Solyman the Magnificent, in the seventeenth century. After a time this celebrated corps lost its superiority. The "tribute of children" had, after three hundred years, gradually ceased, and the force was kept up by volunteers of any kind. The Janissaries became corrupt and insubordinate, and instead of making conquests for Turkey, they often turned upon their masters, and became more terrible to the Sultans than to the nations around. They deposed Sultans, and murdered Sultans, and made new ones, and Turkey was cursed by the very troops of which she had once been so proud.
Mahmoud II., who was a fierce and daring man, resolved to save his own head, and protect Turkey, by destroying this dreadful soldiery. In 1826 he led the rest of the army against the Janissaries, surprised them, and after a dreadful battle defeated them. Eight thousand were burned in their barracks before they could escape. Fifteen thousand were slaughtered in the struggle to defend themselves. The rest were banished from the country, and became scattered among the armies of Europe. The Janissaries were forever dissolved, and their name lives now only in history.
