 Leaving France, “Turning Turk,”

Becoming Ottoman

The Transformation of Comte

Claude-Alexandre de Bonneval

into Humbaraci Ahmed Pasha

Julia Landweber

December 1729 found the professional soldier Claude-Alexandre, comte de

Bonneval, in trouble, which was not an unusual state for him. In his youth he had
been exiled from his native France for military insubordination, and more  re-
cently he had left the Austrian Hapsburg Empire after a similar offense. He tried
settling in Venice, but when the long arm of Hapsburg displeasure made it intol-
erable for him to remain in Europe, he departed for the Ottoman Empire with a
plan to avenge his lost honor. Hapsburg officials soon traced him to Bosnia (the
first Ottoman territory he was able to reach) and detained him under house ar-
rest. A man of action, he was forced to wait months while his captors debated
sending him back to Vienna to stand trial or poisoning him on the spot.
Under these conditions Bonneval addressed a letter to France’s ambassador
in Istanbul. Framing his request specifically in terms of natal identity, he begged
the marquis de Villeneuve to rescue him:

I am not German but French, as you know; yet Imperial ploys have held me in

this savage land for six months. It’s true that I served the [Hapsburg] Emperor

for twenty-two years as an officer, but since he forced my resignation I am re-

turned to the King of France.... Thus I beg you to consider that the Germans,

having no longer a right to my person, do injury to Your Excellency and to

the entire nation by claiming jurisdiction over me on the basis of my former

services to their Emperor.

Bonneval’s secretary delivered this letter to the ambassador, along with a warn-
ing that Bonneval, hounded by the Austrians and unaided by France, was in dan-
ger of converting to Islam in a desperate bid for Ottoman assistance if he did not
receive protection soon from some Christian power. Unfortunately, Villeneuve