Bashi-bazouk

Irregular soldier of the Ottoman army

A bashi-bazouk was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army, raised in times of war. The army chiefly enlisted Albanians and Circassians as bashi-bazouks, but recruits came from all ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire, including slaves from Europe or Africa. Bashi-bazouks had a reputation for being undisciplined and brutal, notorious for looting and preying on civilians as a result of a lack of regulation and of the expectation that they would support themselves off the land.

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