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| 21821 MEMOIRES DE BARON TOTT |
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Francois Baron de Tott
2volumes. First edition. Tall 8vo., full cont. calf, raised bands, gilt compartments, leather spine labels, lvi, 274, (302); 252, 208pp. in mint condition. Francois Baron de Tott [1733-1793] son of a Hungarian noble. De Tott served as a lieutenant in the French armay and in 1755 he went to Istanbul as the secretary of the French ambassador Vergennes. However, his real mission was to learn Turkish and observe the condition of the Ottoman Reign and to provide information, particularly about Kirim. After a brief return to Paris and Switzerland in 1766, he was sent out again to Kirim in 1767 as French Consulate to research the region and the rebel Tartars. He was assigned to protect the Canakkale Bogazi against Russia. He followed Humbaraci Ahmend Pasha and attempted to reform the Ottoman army and supervised the building of new castles around the Bosphorus. Despite bickering with the Turks he managed to impart something of western military technique. "Eton asserts Baron Tott's account of Turkey, and of its inhabitants, to be the best and most exact. There are, however, several ex aggerations and inaccuracies in the work, as may be easily conceived from the character of the author. The description of the Crimea, and its inhabitants, is, perhaps the most interesting." (Cox). Cox 1 p.234; Weber 534 citing the edition of 1785.
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Amsterdam, 1784.
Binding: Hardcover
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