The inherent power of a military man might seem to contrast paradoxically with the unfree legal status of a slave. Yet there have been frequent examples of the employment of military slaves throughout history, from ancient times up to the American civil war. Usually, this was a response to crisis and only a temporary measure. In the post-Roman west until the 12th century a class of military serfs did exist and in Islamic societies slave soldiers became a social and military institution at the heart of government which endured for a millennium (8th-19th centuries).
In ancient Greece and Rome, societies which depended upon the economic productivity of slaves, they were generally excluded from military activity. Indeed the Corinthian Pact of 338 bc specifically stated that no signatories were allowed to offer freedom (manumission) in return for military service. Slaves performed as body servants and did menial jobs around the camp. This role was common in all slave-owning societies up to the abolition of slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. Roman penal legions during the Punic wars were not recruited from those born slaves and were a quickly abandoned crisis measure. The name ‘servile’ was given to the Gladiators wars of Spartacus because it involved the arming of slaves, something so threatening to the established social fabric that those involved were crucified rather than returned to their previous owners, a substantial capital loss.
In the Roman successor states of western Europe, the feudal system contained a hint of servility in the act of homage that liege lords found it unwise to presume upon. The evidence is confused, but the military caste known as the ministeriales in the 10th-century Ottonian German empire may have been more like bondsmen, while in Muscovy the retainers of the boyars were even more so. Military manpower crises led to the liberation of serfs in Russia and slaves in Brazil, while the American civil war had much the same effect. Thus the entire history of the West, pre- and post-Christian, was marked by a presumption that only free men, however relative their freedom was, should bear arms.
By contrast slave soldiers were a characteristic of Middle Eastern dynasties. Their first large-scale use was under the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutasim of Baghdad in 838, when 4, 000 Turks served on an Egyptian campaign. Such troops were known as ghulams, or later as Mamelukes, and there were several institutional features which differentiated them from other societies. First, they were deliberately recruited from what were considered warrior populations of the Islamic world. In the Near East, Turks were popular, as were Kurds and Circassians, and also Christian populations, such as Armenians. In the west, Berbers also fulfilled this role. Secondly, they were trained to a very high standard of fighting ability, as mounted archers. Often they were recruited as young boys, and given a sternly Muslim spiritual and military education. Under the Ottoman empire this system was called devshirme and was bitterly resented by Christian populations, although the individual benefited enormously from the social promotion. This was because, thirdly, the role of slaves in Islamic governments enabled them to hold the highest positions of state, including military command. In Egypt, the Mamelukes of the Ayyubid dynasty (founded by Saladin) actually seized power. As a result of the crisis caused by St Louis's Crusade in 1250, the sultan was assassinated and replaced by the Mameluke Qutuz. Under his successor Baibars the Holy Land was recovered from the Christians (by 1291). The Mameluke dynasty continued in Egypt until the Ottoman conquest of 1512, and the military caste lasted until it lost credibility at the hands of Napoleon in 1798. Abbas of Persia also employed ghulams.
The Ottoman Turks employed perhaps the most famous slave soldiers, the janissaries, formed in the late 14th century to provide a body of good quality infantry to supplement the numerous, but often lightly equipped Ottoman cavalry. The janissaries stormed Constantinople and destroyed the Hungarians at Mohacs. Initially armed with the bow, they later became efficient musketeers. As the Ottoman tide ebbed they took on a Praetorian role, making and deposing sultans, but they were not disbanded until 1826.
Bibliography
- Pipes, D., Slave Soldiers and Islam (New Haven, 1981)
— John M. Bourne
