French officer and diplomat of Hungarian origin, who worked as an expert in the Ottoman army in the 18th century and wrote a memoir giving information about Turkiye. But his exaggerations became the subject of the "liar baron" tale.
He was the son of a Hungarian nobleman who took refuge in Turkey with Ferenc Rakoczi II and later went to France with the Bercsényi light cavalry division, where he was elevated to baronetcy. He was born on August 17, 1733, in the village of Chamigny, France. He joined his father's division at a young age and became a lieutenant in 1754. He came to Istanbul in 1755 as the secretary of his brother-in-law Vergennes, who was appointed ambassador to the Ottoman Empire by France. In fact, he was given the task of learning Turkish by the French government, examining the situation of the Ottoman Empire, and especially gathering information about Crimea.
François Baron de Tott (August 17, 1733, Chamigny, France – September 24, 1793, Hungary) was an aristocrat and a French military officer of Slovak origin. Born on August 17, 1733, in Chamigny, a village in northern France, the descendant of a Hungarian nobleman, who had emigrated to the Ottoman Empire and then moved on to France with the cavalry of Count Miklós Bercsényi, and was later raised to the rank of baron.
Baron de Tott, who returned to Paris in 1763, was appointed representative to the Neuchatel region of Switzerland three years later but was asked to leave after a short time. He was given the Order of Saint Louis and the rank of major and was sent as consul to the Crimean Khanate by the French government in 1767 in order to make investigations about Crimea and to provoke the Tatars against the Russians.
While he was here, he played an important role in the outbreak of the Ottoman-Russian war that broke out in 1768. He participated as an observer in the successful military operation launched by the Crimean Khan in 1769. In the same year, he left Crimea and came to Istanbul again and was assigned by the Ottoman government to fortify the Bosphorus against the Russian fleet that forced Çanakkale after the Çeşme defeat (1770); he also fortified it and defended it against Russian Admiral Orlov. After returning to Istanbul, he tried to carry out some innovations in the Ottoman army between 1771 and 1776, partly by following in the footsteps of Bonneval Pasha (Humbaracı Ahmed Pasha). Although he was not an expert, he had cannons cast, established a speed artillery corps, had military pontoons built, had castles built on the Bosphorus, and opened a trench in the Golden Horn.
In 1777, he was appointed by the French government to inspect French trade centers in the Mediterranean. His main duty was to collect information about the Black Sea, Aegean, Syrian, and Egyptian coastal regions and the Straits for the French government, to obtain the necessary topographic information around Suez in case Egypt was occupied by France, and to seek opportunities for an agreement with the Mamluk lords. In 1777-1778, he traveled all over the Mediterranean coast, especially Alexandria, Aleppo, Izmir, Thessaloniki, and Tunisia, and made investigations on the opening of the Suez Canal. He was promoted to major general in 1781; He became the commander of Douai Castle in 1787. Due to the turmoil caused by the French Revolution in 1790, he first fled to Switzerland, then returned to Hungary in 1793 after the Habsburgs pardoned him and died there on September 24, 1793.
Baron de Tott's memoirs, written between 1778 and 1784, were published under the name Mémoires du Baron de Tott sur les Turcs et les tartares (Amsterdam 1785). In addition, it is known for certain that he wrote his memoirs about Switzerland and Crimea, but it is not clear where they are today. It is estimated that Baron de Tott took the Letters of Kelemen Mikes, written in Tekirdağ, one of the important works of Hungarian literature, to Europe. Paloczi Edgár wrote an extensive life story of Baron de Tott, especially using his memoirs.
Baron de Tott is best known for his memoirs written in French. The second edition of this work, which contains important information about the history of Turkey, was made in Paris in 1785, and the third edition was made in Maestricht in 1786.
The book consists of four parts. In the first chapter, the author explains the reason for coming to Turkiye, the events he encountered on the way by sea, and his first impressions after arriving in Istanbul on May 21, 1755. In the second chapter, he describes what he saw while going to Crimea in 1767 and his participation in the expedition with the Crimean Khan and gives extensive information about the war and the Tatars. In the third part, he describes the Ottoman-Russian war, the actions and thoughts of Mustafa III, his work on the fortification of the Dardanelles, and military reform, and in the fourth part, he describes his inspection trip to the Mediterranean and Egypt.
Baron de Tott, who met some unsuccessful statesmen in Istanbul and witnessed the disorderly functioning of institutions that corrupted the state, in his work, harshly criticized the parties he saw as flawed, under the influence of his anti-Turkish-Islamic prejudice.
Baron de Tott's work was one of the two most-read books about Turks in Europe at the time it was published. The work, together with the other work titled Considérations sur la guerre de Turcs et de la Russie (Paris 1788), written by Volney, who visited Syria and Egypt between 1783 and 1785, on the Ottoman-Russian war, is a collection of information available about the Turks in Europe. It played a major role in spreading negative thoughts.
Although there are some valid points in Baron de Tott's criticisms, most of the information he provides remains unconvincing due to his tendency to look down on the people he lives among, to sometimes lie, and to generally indulge in Christian bigotry, and these should be taken with caution.
For this reason, some of Baron de Tott's exaggerated claims became the source of the tales "The Adventures of Baron Münchausen", which are famous in the literature of dreams and lies. Charles de Peyssonell, a correspondent member of the Paris Académie Royale and the French consul in Turkey, wrote a book that strongly criticizes Baron de Tott's memoirs and shows his linguistic errors, deliberate exaggerations, and distortions: Lettre... Contenant quelques observations reviews au Mémoires, qui sont parus sous le nom de mr. le Baron de Tott (Amsterdam 1785).