Right - 1876-1908 Ottoman Turkish FERIK (Divisional General) of Artillery pre-1909 pattern tunic.All buttons back marked: “ONNIK & CIE BRODEURS DE LA COUR.” This is the Constantinople imperial court jewelers - Lazian Onnik. Displaying FERIK (divisional general) rank insignia on the cuffs, which are square ended for the field artillery.
This tunic belonged to Ristow Pasha, who was a German officer, promoted to ‘Ferik’ command of Field Artillery Imperial Army, from 1885, till 1890 when he died from an accident holidaying in Germany. He was replaced by Viktor v. Grumbkow (below).
Right - Von Grumbkow’s Field (Flying) Artillery uniform was different, from Ristow Pasha (above).
His uniform has pointed artillery cuffs, and General a-la Suite 1873-1885 higher Imperial Army officer's rank insignia, post-1900. He also wears the 1876 Aiguillette for Aides-De-Camp to the Sultan.
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[1] Pasha von Grumbkow, Greco-Turkish war, of 1897.
Right - An Ottoman Artillery buckle from 1876-1908. Pictured in Tunca Orses. Necmettin Ozcelik. (2007) Dunya Savasi'nda Turk Askeri Kiyafetleri 1914-1918. Militärmuseum, Istanbul: 67, a first-year War Academy student, Based on French Nineteen Century models. This displays the French pattern cross artillery cannon, busting shell and pile of cannon balls (adopted by the Ottoman Turkish artillery in 1876).
Right - The Special Sultan's Award Standard of the First Mobile Artillery Bodyguard Brigade, consisting:
This unit was brigaded with the Imperial Guard.
Right - Makers' plate on the 1870 Gatling Guns, built by E. Paget of Vienna, Austria for Halil Pasha, Grand Master of Artillery, of the Ottoman Empire (on display in Istanbul, at the Turkish Navy Museum) [1] [2].
In 1877-1878, an artillery regiment comprised:
The surviving Turkish Paget Gatling Gun, on display in the Turkish Navy Museum has had a great deal of it altered.
The field carriages for the Turkish service Paget Gatling Guns, were likely identical to the same guns used in the Austro-Hungarian army.
Typical for the era of SULTAN ABDUL-HAMID II, fearing a military coup, the common practice was for the majority of Imperial Army weapons, particularly recently purchased small arms, to remain stored in the major weapons magazine in Constantinople.
It appears that the Rifle battalions, likely operated the smaller calibre Maxim-Nordenfelt guns from 1892, which led to their full-conversion to the post-1909 Machine Gun branch of service.
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[1] C. J. Chivers. The Gun: The Story of the AK-47 (Penguin UK, 5 Dec 2013). "In late spring ... [1870] ..., the agent, L.W.Broadwell, travelled to Constantinople and arranged demonstrations for Halil Pasha, the grand master of artillery for the Ottoman Empire. With a new drum feed, he wrote, the .42-caliber Gatling “had never before worked so well - no more hitches of any kind.” He negotiated a contract to sell two hundred Gatling guns, to be manufactured under contact in Vienna, to the Turkish forces”.
[2] Nicholas Murray. The Rocky Road to the Great War: The Evolution of Trench Warfare to 1914 (Potomac Books, Inc., 2013): “The Ottomans brought in outside expertise, former soldiers from the United States in particular, on the Gatling guns’ use.”
[3] The markers plate is written largely in English. Period international trade agreements with the US, where the guns were licensed from Gatling.
The adding of the Sultan's Tugra to the plate, was stipulated by the contract with the Ottoman Government.
Typical for the era of SULTAN ABDUL-HAMID II, apart from the makers' plate there are likely to be no additional Ottoman arsenal marks etc.
[4] Marcel Roubicek (1978) Modern Ottoman Troops, 1797-1915: In Contemporary Pictures. Franciscan Printing Press: 17.
[5] Right – An 1891 quote from ‘The New York Times’, mentioning the Ottoman’s Gatling Guns. At the Battle of Plevna, in 1877, were the Russian assaults suffered massive casualties, due to Turkish equipped with GermanKrupp-manufactured steel breech-loading artillery and American-manufacturedWinchester repeaters. However, the 1891 article also shows that the Gatling Guns batteries contributed to these losses.
[6] Many of the Gatling Guns were also allocated to the Ottoman Imperial Navy. The remaining 110 Gatling Guns, from the Paget order (of 200 Gatling Guns) would have either been stored in magazines, or sent to the Navy, for distribution of two-four guns for each ship.
[7] In the 1876 period the Ottoman Imperial Army, had 8 Field Artillery Regiments (one of which was a Reserve Regiment based in Constantinople), and a further 7 Garrison Artillery Regiments. It appears that, each of these was allotted an additional battery of Gatling Guns (comprising 6 Gatling Guns each).
[8] Right – A 1912 quote from ‘The New York Times’, mentioning the Ottoman’s Gatling Guns. The 1912 article shows that the Gatling Guns were still in service, in the Ottoman Imperial Army, during the Balkan Wars.
Traditionally, the Ottoman imperial army's artillery gun carriages were painted light-grey.