By the nineteenth century, the Janissaries were no longer recruited mainly through the older levy of boys from Balkan Christian communities. The earlier system removed children from their families and raised them inside a barracks-centered military institution. That brutal process could produce highly disciplined and loyal soldiers, but at severe human cost. The later growth of native Turkish and hereditary recruitment helps explain why the corps at the time of Navarino differed so much from its early-modern reputation.
Notable Point · 1:03:18-1:04:10
Janissary recruitment had changed by the nineteenth century
The corps no longer depended mainly on the old levy of Balkan Christian boys, and hereditary access had altered the institution that earlier barracks training created.