Bashi-bazonks' are irregular troops in the pay of the sultan, mostly from Asiatic Turkey. They are brave, but wild and turbulent infantry or cavalry. The 'Bulgarian atrocities' of 1876 were mainly due to their lawless brutality.
Bashi-bazonks'
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 1: A to Beaufort, p. 772
Source scan(s): p. 0799