[serdar]

Originally Posted by ariel

AFAIK, all Balkan bladed weapons were at the very least heavily ( or totally) influenced by their Ottoman counterparts. The obvious exceptions are Croatia ( partially) and Slovenia ( largely free). Those two stayed within the borders of Western Christian dominance, whereas the rest were totally or at the least significantly influenced by Islam and 100% controlled by the Ottomans. All historiographic and iconographic sources confirm that crucial distinction.
What artistic signs of Greek military tradition are we talking about? Greece was a Roman province for ~6-7 centuries and under Byzantine rule for yet another millennium. After that it just happened to fall into the Ottoman division of the Balkans. Overall, between 2nd century BC and 19 th century CE Greece was just a province of mighty foreign empires. It still was viewed with high respect and largely defined intellectual and partly artistic/cultural spheres, but militarily it was totally subsumed by all of them. Look at the pictures of Greeks during their War of Independence: they wear traditional Greek garb, but carry Ottoman weapons.


Greece was a cradle of human civilization in virtually all spheres: science, medicine, art, architecture, literature, drama, history etc., but militarily its influence withered away since Alexander the Great. It was, perhaps, far too small a country to sustain any military might and dictate world-wide weapon patterns vs. humongous Empires of the New Era.

You forgot old montenegro, which was never ocupied by turks from 16-19 century they defeated dvery ottoman atack, and they used all ottoman weapons they took from defeated turks.