Bosna i Hercegovina
2
What Ottomans did to us in 19th century
First of all, I don't write this to create a hate on Turks.
Modern Turkey Republic isn't the same as Ottoman Empire.
But "Historia magistra vitae est", and this is important to know.
After Ottomans destoreyed Husein Gradaščević movement for Bosnia autonomy , Bosniaks were mad at Ottomans, and it was easy to them to rebel again.
They were not satisfied with reforms of sultan Abdul Mejid I, and there were some litlle or bigger riots for years.
At 1850, Ottomans send to Bosnia Omer - paša Latas.
He was Islamized Serb, born as Mihajlo Latas. He become marshal of Ottomans army, most famous for solving riots in Empire( in Albania, Bulgaria, Arabia, Kurdistan...).
Most of his soldiers were mercenaries and criminals who deserted from Poland and Hungary.
He come to Bosnia with 10000 members of the basic military + 2000 Albanians, most of Tosk ,Orthodox Albanian tribe, and with couple of more military units.
He come in July, 1850, and immediately arrested few Bosniaks leaders and threatened that he will destroy entire Sarajevo if they rebellion.
Butt soon, Bosniaks from Krajina, Posavina, middle bosnia, Herzegovina... they all decided to fight.
There were a lot of bloody battles. At the same time, Ottomans soldiers torture, kill and rob Bosniak civillians.
Latas wrote in letter to his friend " Don't eat fish from Sava river. They are full of meat of Bosniaks bodies".
Even Ottoman vizier in Bosnia was shocked by Latas moves, he said to him "What will we do with Bosnia when you kill all Bosniaks"?
Latas forced kadi from Kladanj to carry his brother head through Sarajevo.
He robbed a lot of Bosniaks leaders, he took 17000 gold coins just from Mahmud - paša Tuzlić.
Reports say that in prison in Tuzla his soldiers were killing around 100 Bosniaks every day, after horrible torture.
One of Krajina Bosniaks, Omer Radžić said that " it's better that we all be killed in battle than surrender to Vlach Latas ".
At the end of the rebellion, he took probably more than 1000 richest, most respected, greatest heroes of Bosniaks , put them in chains and forced them to walk in chains to Istanbul.
There are a lot of testimonials how sad was to see the scene with them walking.
They say that they didn't complain, they didn't talk much, only sometimes some would say "what can we do if this is our destiny".
In Istanbul they were sentenced to go in prison or to be rowers in galleys, and some were send to Tunisia, Egypt and Asia Minor, with no right to ever come back to Bosnia.
And if we don't count prisoners and killed civilans, only in batlles there were about 6000 death Bosniaks.
Not only that, Latas destroyed and burned a big parts of Bosnia.
When Latas left, at 1852, because of so much hate at Ottomans, Bosniaks didn't go to Ottoman army until 1864.
Ottomans were now sending real Turks to rule over Bosnia, while before Bosnia was always ruled by
ethnic Bosniaks.
Austrian consul described that time, "Ottomans were killing Bosniaks as their worst enemies. And now you can't find any nation that is fighting against Ottoman Empire, that hate Ottomans more than Bosniaks".
To some historians, those times when Ottomans killed moust of Bosniaks leaders had a large influence for entire history of Bosniaks, people who losed their all leaders were completely helpless and unprepared for huge changes and processes in Europe in next period.
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Originally Posted by Hurrem sultana
Северна Македонија
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