Page 195 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

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aCta
natural protection.
19
In 1717 the imperial troops inflicted another heavy defeat on the Ottomans at Belgrade.
the Banat, Northern Serbia with Belgrade, little Walachia, and Bosnia had to be handed
over to the Habsburgs in the Peace of Passarovitz (1718). As a consequence, the border line
along the Tisza and Maros Rivers was given up and transferred to the lower Save and Danube
Rivers.
After the Turkish War from 1737 to 1739, which had an unfavourable outcome for the
emperor and ended with the humiliating peace of Belgrade and the restitution of the city of
Belgrade, Northern Serbia, and Little Walachia – the Banat of Temesvár remained in Austrian
possession –, a last wave of orthodox refugees – Serbs and Albanians – came to the Habsburg
lands and settled there, especially in the Banat region and in the regions north of the Danube
and Sava Rivers. The latter had been sparsely populated so far, as they were mostly covered
with swampland, prairies and shallow inland lakes. With the help of Dutch engineers these
territories were drained and cultivated by the Frontier men. 20
The colonization of the Banat, however, was a large-scale, systematic and extremely well
planned operation by the Austrian administration, better known as the “Banater Einrichtung-
swerk”, which in a wider sense could be translated as settlement operation in the Banat. The
intention was to create a hardworking and industrious population who would pay a lot of
taxes; thus in a first wave tradesmen, miners, engineers, teachers, and doctors were invited to
settle there, in a second peasants. Villages, cities, and streets were designed on the drawing
board and reflected in their symmetry the contemporary absolutist building culture. Apart
from the Slav refugees colonists came from all over Europe, but mostly from Germany .
21
The settlers found the Banat as an almost deserted swampland traversed by forests. Plagues,
fever and hunger accompanied the newly arrived settlers in the first few years. But within
two or three generations the land could be successfully re-cultivated – an enormous tour de
force, which claimed a heavy death toll and was accompanied by many setbacks. The tra-
ditional saying “Death for the first, misery for the second, bread for the third” is a suitable
definition for the achievements of the Banat Swabians. The drainage of the swampland by
means of canalizing the many arms of the Bega River was an important step towards a suc-
cessful settlement. The arable soil of the former swampland proved to be extremely fertile
and lay the foundation for the wealth of the Banat Swabians in the 19 century. The region
th
was considered to be the breadbasket of Austria-Hungary. The fortress of Temesvár became
a prospering city and the cultural centre of the Banat Swabians. Around 1800 the Banat
22
had around 450,000 inhabitants: 181,000 Romanians, 78,000 Serbs, 43,000 Germans, 8,600

19 ibid., 139.
20 Hugo Kerchnawe, Die alte k. k. Militärgrenze. Ein Schutzwall Europas (= Walter Pollak, ed., Reihe Süd-Ost,
vol. 21, Vienna – Lipsia 1939), 15.
21 These colonists and other German-speaking ethnic groups (from Franconia, Bavaria, Austria, Alsace-Lor-
raine, Luxemburg and the Palatinate) are united under the general terms “Banat Swabians” or “Danube
Swabians”. Apart from the Banat they also settled in the Batschka in the West, in the Swabian Turkey (today
Southern Hungary), in Slavonia as well as in Sathmar (today North-western Romania, district of Satu-Mare).
Wikipedia, Die Banater Schwaben, Donauschwaben, Schwäbische Türkei; http://www.siebenbuerger.de/
sbz/landundleute/siebenbuerger2.html (Anneli Ute Gabanyi, Geschichte der Deutschen in Rumänien).
22 Wikipedia: Die Banater Schwaben, Donauschwaben, Schwäbische Türkei.