Steve Barber Ottoman Regular (2014)

Here's another Steve Barber Model miniature from the Greek Wars of Independence range, this time an Ottoman Regular (GWI22).

For centuries the backbone of Ottoman armies was formed by Jannissaries, a corp composed of Christians taken away from their families when children and educated by the army as Muslim fighters. As the Empire declined, however, so did they, becoming softer and corrupted.  

In 1826 the Sultan ordered the formation of a new army, trained and equipped in the European way. The Jannissaries mutinied and, after violent fights, were all killed or executed, except for a few who escaped and lived in hiding until their last days.

The Mansure Army was segregated from the civilians, living in their own barracks. They were trained by European commanders and divided in infantry, artillery and cavalry. Officers were educated in military academies. They were governed by a strict military law and their life was highly standardized to teach them to follow orders and discipline rather than develop blind courage.

The new military was formed by Turkish Muslims, and the population's perception of the army changed positively. Corruption was greatly reduced, by abolishing provincial armies and establishing a central Military Council.

Steve Barber Philhellene firing (2014)

The second miniature I painted from the Steve Barber Greek War of Independence range is this, rigorously selected at random. It depicts a Philhellene fighting on the side of the Greek rebels.

Philhellene is a word of Greek origin, made of philos (φιλος) meaning friendship, love, liking and Hellen (´Ελλην) meaning Greek. A Philhellene is literally a "friend of the Greek people" or a "lover of Greek things". The term was used since ancient to refer to those who were fond of Greek culture, be they Roman intellectuals, Renaissance philosophers or writers in the Age of Enlightenment. But it came to mean something else when the Greek Revolution broke out against the Ottomans, in 1821.

Those years were more or less the time of transition between the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Romanticism. Young western people believed in the values of culture, freedom, beauty and art but they felt the previous generations had betrayed them. The French Revolution had turned into a bloodbath, Napoleon had transformed from revolutionary to Emperor, and those who defeated him had agreed to share power and oppress the masses with the Congress of Vienna. When the Greeks rose against the Turks, western intellectuals had little idea of what was actually going on, but they knew that Greece was the root of their cultural identity, the place where everything started. Losing it, would be losing their souls.

A great number of them, including English poet George Byron and Italian-Argentinian freedom fighter Ricciotti Garibaldi, armed themselves and sailed as volunteers to fight the Ottomans, which had, in their minds, the worst of European oppressors and the ancient Persian conquerors under the tyranny of the Great Kings. Everyone had read of the great battles of the Greeks against the Persians, and heard the tales of the War of Troy and the Voyages of Ulysses. For these young Romantics, it was literally to take a step into epics.

The mountains look on Marathon --
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream'd that Greece might yet be free
For, standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
...
Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush? – Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae.
Byron, The Isles of Greece

Such was the Age. Philhellenes fought in the war, organised fundraising and wrote to journals to stir public opinion. Eventually, their contribution was invaluable for the Greek cause and helped to force western European countries to intervene in the war and force a peace that would never have happened otherwise. Eventually, they did save their soul.

It's nice that such a model was included in the Greek Independence War range.

Spiros Kanakis - Steve Barber Greek Irregular No. 1 (2014)

I am a man of many interests. Too many, some might say. I am a huge nerd for 10th century Europe. Then I also dig all things Middle-earth. Warhammer (Oldhammer), too. Recently I even started venturing into Warhammer 40K. All of these had (or will have) some degree of space on this blog. 

The thing you didn't know yet is that I'm also a fan of all things Oriental in the Colonial Age. That wonderful time when Europeans were discovering the world was a bigger place than they thought, and were creating a new one by meeting the great civilisations of the East.

 

I even play an RPG set in 1831 Orient. We started several years ago with the PCs (a young and unscrupulous English gambler, an aging and disenchented Scottish war doctor looking for retirement, an ambitious and manipulative Italian Jesuit priest and an ex Turkish Janissary in hiding) meeting in Istanbul. Through haphazard planning and conning whomever they could, they managed to flee the city for Greece, Rome and then Egypt, where they are currently trying to escape once more a long list of enemies they made along the way. Several of them have died gruesomely and have been replaced by new PCs.

One of these is Spiros Kanakis, Greek merchant, sea captain and adventurer, who met the group in the Hellenic capital of Nauplia and was hired to transport them around the Eastern Mediterranean.

Spiros was naive enough to introduce the other PCs to his friends dealing in politics, high ranking members of the English Party. Soon enough their empty promises and clumsy manipulation forced them to leave and Spiros with them - partly because he does not dare to go back to Nauplia, and partly because he is decided to make as much profit as he can from the other PCs. He is a professional looking for profit but most of the time his efforts are directed at staying alive and not being arrested by the local authorities.

Spiros is currently in Alexandria, trying to book a passage for India, and at the same time trying to rescue the Scottish doctor whom, dressed as a Greek and posing as a Frenchman, was captured by the secret police of the khedivé and accused (quite rightly, I might say) to be a spy.

As far as I know, there is only one company manufacturing models of Greeks during the War of Independence period, and this is Steve Barber Models. They were commissioned to do this range by a generous patron in 2014 and they have, in my opinion, done an excellent job. This figure depicts a Greek or Albanian Irregular, with the traditional clothes of these people during the early 19th century. He is armed with a muzzle-loading rifle, a long straight knife and a curved sabre.

The level of detail is good, and painting it was easy and fun. I look forward to do justice to the rest of the range in the months to come!