Spanning from 1451 to 1922, Ottoman conscription underwent numerous phases, during which the multiethnic empire utilized efforts to universalize and integrate the empire’s ethnic populations into the military which failed due to rising ethnonationalism and the essential role of a universal identity for effective conscription. The shift from expansion to retention altered the earlier forms of conscription and the eventual new standing armies of the nineteenth century. The empire’s mistrust of its minority ethnic and religious populations, reflected by the sultans, the Sublime Porte, the Young Turks, and the Muslim population, further alienated non-Muslims – particularly Ottoman Greeks – from the new imperial identity, Osmanlilik. This study examines the 1856 reform decree’s implementation to reveal the divisiveness of Ottoman conscription, analyzing Mahmud II’s impact on military reforms post-Auspicious Incident, the dissolution of the Janissary Corps, shaping an Anatolian Muslim army and influencing recruitment practices up to World War I.