Book contents
- Ottoman Reform at Work
- Ottoman Reform at Work
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Text
- Maps
- Introduction
- Part IA New Order
- Part IIModernizing Coercion
- 3Militarizing Labor
- 4Mobilizing Children
- 5The Factory Regime
- Part IIIThe Class on the Move
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Book part
- Index
3 - Militarizing Labor
from Part II - Modernizing Coercion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 December 2025
Book contents
- Ottoman Reform at Work
- Ottoman Reform at Work
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Text
- Maps
- Introduction
- Part IA New Order
- Part IIModernizing Coercion
- 3Militarizing Labor
- 4Mobilizing Children
- 5The Factory Regime
- Part IIIThe Class on the Move
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Book part
- Index
Summary
Chapter 3 investigates how military modernization and capitalist transformations converged to reorganize the labor force, understanding naval service as a form of military labor, and modern conscription as a modern form of labor coercion. Modern conscription promised the Ottoman elites the ability to employ workers with industrial skills for long periods in a more reliable disciplinary scheme, with wages far lower than the market. The chapter describes how the navy employed conscription as a tool to reduce dependency on civilian wage workers by deploying conscripts in both the Arsenal and the Yarn Factory, and by devising a detailed scheme to militarize the labor force. Ottoman reformists systematically attempted to utilize modern conscription as a way to draft non-Muslim (mainly Greek) subjects from coastal areas, skilled in shipbuilding and naval crafts, as regular soldiers to the Ottoman navy. The chapter analyses the conscription process, introduces the profile of the military labor force in the Arsenal and the Yarn Factory, the militarization plan and the attempts to conscript non-Muslims, and the impacts of resistance against naval conscription and the militarization plan.
Keywords
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- Information
- Ottoman Reform at WorkClass, Migration, and Coercion in the Imperial Arsenal, pp. 95 - 128Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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