Breadwinner Soldiers in the Ottoman Empire

with Kate Dannies

hosted by Sam Dolbee and Can Gümüş

| For the last century of its history, the Ottoman army fought war after war for the survival of the empire. In this episode, Kate Dannies explores another fight for survival: that of millions of Ottoman families, as sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers were drafted into the new imperial army. As Prof. Dannies argues in her new book, the transition to a modern army staffed by conscripts created a new social contract between state and society with the "breadwinner soldier" at the center. As the Ottoman Empire made growing demands on its citizens, they made growing demands on the government to exempt or pay soldiers with dependents. When the mobilization of the Balkan Wars and the First World War prompted the Ottoman government to conscript breadwinner soldiers at unprecedented levels, many rebelled against the terms of military service. In this conversation, we explore the social history of the Ottoman Empire's last wars through the lens of family life, charting a new history of what war meant for ordinary Ottoman citizens.         

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For the last century of its history, the Ottoman army fought war after war for the survival of the empire. In this episode, Kate Dannies explores another fight for survival: that of millions of Ottoman families, as sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers were drafted into the new imperial army. As Prof. Dannies argues in her new book, the transition to a modern army staffed by conscripts created a new social contract between state and society with the "breadwinner soldier" at the center. As the Ottoman Empire made growing demands on its citizens, they made growing demands on the government to exempt or pay soldiers with dependents. When the mobilization of the Balkan Wars and the First World War prompted the Ottoman government to conscript breadwinner soldiers at unprecedented levels, many rebelled against the terms of military service. In this conversation, we explore the social history of the Ottoman Empire's last wars through the lens of family life, charting a new history of what war meant for ordinary Ottoman citizens.

    

Contributor Bios

	Kate Dannies is a historian of the Late Ottoman Empire and Assistant Professor of Global and Intercultural Studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her recent book, Conscripting Breadwinner Soldiers in the Late Ottoman Empire: Family, Law & War (EUP, 2026), explores the gender and family dimension of Ottoman military law and warfare during the long nineteenth century. She is currently working on a monograph on the care, labor, and military aspects of migration between the Ottoman and post-Ottoman world and the United States.
	Sam Dolbee is Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, where he teaches classes on environment, disease, and the modern Middle East. His book Locusts of Power is out now with Cambridge University Press.
	Can Gümüş completed her doctorate at Boğaziçi University, where she teaches courses in modern Turkish history. She is currently a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow based at Harvard University. Her dissertation, which received the 2025 Malcolm H. Kerr Award from the Middle East Studies Assocaition, examines the intersections of hygeine, urban transformation, and governance in late Ottoman Istanbul. Her broader interests include environmental history, public health, and history of medicine. She joined the Ottoman History Podcast recording team in 2018 and currently serves as editor in chief.

Credits

Episode No. 594
Release Date: 5 September 2026
Recording Location: University of Virginia
Special thanks to the UVA Institute for the Arts and Humanities
Audience questions by Yücel Yanıkdağ, Chris Gratien, Graham Pitts, Yiğit Akın, and Ella Fratantuono
Sound production by Chris Gratien
Images and bibliography courtesy of Kate Dannies

Further Listening

	Mustafa Aksakal	592 8/22/26	WWI and the End of the Ottoman Empire
	Yiğit Akın	429 10/3/19	How War Changed Ottoman Society
	Çiğdem Oğuz	495 2/28/21	I. Dünya Savaşı'nda Ahlak Buhranı
	Nazan Maksudyan	440 12/9/19	Ottoman Children and the First World War
	Hadi Hosainy	184 2/2/15	Yeni Çağ Osmanlı Hukuk Sistemi'nde Kadın Mülkiyet Hakları

Images

Rural Women and Children in Enderes, Sivas Province, 1891 (William Sachtleben)



Mobilized Ottoman Reservists, 1912 (Lost Bulgaria)



Table of Substitute Breadwinners in the 1914 Military Law Image: Mükellefiyet-i Askeriye Kanunu (1914), Article 50.



Ottoman Women Receiving Red Crescent Food Aid (National WWI Museum and Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri, USA)



Ottoman, German and Austrian Prisoners of War in Egypt (National WWI Museum and Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri, USA)



Ottoman Soldiers during the Balkan Wars (Lost Bulgaria)



Tifüs, Namik İsmail (1917)



Ottoman Soldiers After the Capture of Sedd El-Bahr, World War I (Getty Images)

Select Bibliography

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