Page 194 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

194 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

ing reprisals. This population potential consisting of the above-mentioned families and a
great many other Serb refugees who had fled to the Christian side in the course of the war,
was highly welcome to the imperial authorities, who planned to settle them in those regions
of Southern Hungary which had been deserted one and a half centuries ago and were very
scarcely populated. The regions were considered as “neoacquisita”, i. e. land belonging to
the emperor, as his armies had re-conquered the territory from the Ottomans. Therefore,
he had the right to dispose of it, and the settlements were put under the control of the War
Council in Vienna despite the energetic protests of the Hungarian estates. Already in 1691 the
emperor granted the usual privileges to the new Frontier men.
Apart from the Serb migration from the south to the north a second massive migration
of settlers took place, which was directed from the West to the East. Although in those days
many regions at the Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier were relatively sparsely inhabited
in comparison with the population density in the interior, some places suffered from a sig-
nificant lack of cultivable land with regard to the partly low-yielding regions in the karst and
in the swampy lowlands of the Sava and Drava Rivers, a fact which was speeded up by the
mostly extensive use of land by many of the Frontier men, namely for cattle raising, and a
massive overpopulation. although the migration to the lika and Krbava regions had opened
th
a new settlement area for the Adriatic border region by the middle of the 17 century, the
mostly barren karst region could only shelter a limited number of new inhabitants, and it
often enough happened that the Frontier officers had to settle disputes between the new set-
tlers and the inhabitants, who had stayed in the region after the expulsion of the Ottomans,
about the fertile soil.
Another reason for the migration were the high payments in kind and the unjustified taxes
in cash imposed by the local Frontier officers, which made life no longer bearable for many
of the families and induced them to migrate to Southern Hungary, Syrmia and the lower
part of Slavonia alone or in groups to find a new home with enough soil there. Due to the
mass exodus many places in the Lika and Krbava regions and the whole Carlstadt generalcy
became depopulated to such an extent that the body of men ready to serve consisted only of
about 1,000 frontier men in 1713. 18
At the beginning of the 18 century the successful Military-Frontier system was extended
th
via the lower part of Slavonia to Syrmia and the Danube and to the Tisza and Maros Rivers.
The Banal Frontier was established the civil administration of which was carried out by the
banus of Croatia; in military affairs it was put under the direct control of the War Council in
Vienna.
After the imperial troops had liberated Hungary it became necessary to take protection
and security measures along the new frontier. As a first measure, the fortified strongholds,
castles, and palankas of the Ottomans were destroyed so that in case of future invasions
the enemy could not dispose of any support bases. This precipitate action turned out to be
unfavourable with regard to a permanent Frontier organization, but as a consequence it was
decided to make use of the big chance that the South-eastern border to the Ottoman Empire
coincided with the course of the Sava, Danube, Tisza, and Maros Rivers and thus offered

18 Ibid., 137f.