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>>Hello to all, >> >>I have a wargaming colleague in the States who is >>trying to track down accurate names for the various >>Turkish/Ottoman ships involved in the battles against >>the Russians in the Baltic during our period. >> >>Being rather Britain/Franco-centric (with a bit of >>Spanish and Venetian) my usual sources are very thin >>on this. >> >>I've managed to track down mention of lists by a >>French author called Panzac and a mention of >>"Diyarbakirli Abdülhamit's Particulars of Ships and >>Their Equipment" but cannot get to anything more. >> >>Can anyone on the list provide any more detail ? >> >>Many thanks, >> >>Mark Barker >>The Inshore Squadron > >Modesty (almost) prevents me from answering Mark on >this! > ><i>Russian Warships in the Age of Sail</i> by Ted >Sozaev and myself has orders of battle for the >Russo-Turkish Wars. I take no credit for this >information, which has been put together over the >years by Ted Sozaev from a very wide variety of >sources, including those provided by Emir Yenir, a >Turkish graduate student familiar to many of us. Out >of all of the battles that we have referenced, we have >fairly accurate breakdowns with respect to numbers >engaged and rated gun armaments for the participating >Ottoman warships, but only have proper names to atach >to the Turkish side for Ches'ma in 1770 and Kaliakra >in 1791. For later Russo-Turkish engagements, we do >have ship names for most participants for Cape Athos >in 1807, Navarino in 1827 and Sinop in 1853. Even so >well documentated a confrontation as Navarino shows >inconsistencies in alleged listings of combatants and >we can thank John Houghton (and Emir Yenir)for what is >unquestionably the most thoroughly documented listing >of Ottoman, Egyptian, and Barbary participants >available to date. > >One problem with the available ship name spellings on >our lists has been the difficulty of properly and >consistently transliterating Turkish proper names into >English. There are no <u>correct</u> answers and many >Turkish names work their way into English from >Russian, French, German, and other sources, all having >different protocols for spelling Turkish names. Even >English language spellings for the same ship name >differ greatly because such protocols that existed in, >say, the late 19th century are not congruent with >later protocols—F.T. Jane's spellings in his summary >of the Russo-Turkish wars being an egregiously bad >example, R.C. Anderson's being a bit more respectable. >Sometimes the disparities in spelling are so great as >to make readers comparing two different sources >uncertain whether the same ship is being referenced! > >There is hope, however! Turkish scholars in Istanbul >having access to Ottoman archives and the linguistic >skills necessary to deal with 18th century Turkish >records are at work trying to untangle the wealth of >archival materials. The difficulties involved are >considerable and time consuming because the Ottoman >bureaucracy approached these matters in very different >ways, but I have hopes that hitherto unavailable >material will find its way into print, first in Turkey >and ultimately into Western during the next 5-10 years. > >Good Luck!

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