Page 196 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

196 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

Bulgarians, 5,200 gypsies as well as 3,000 Italians and French and 350 Jews. 23
As the paid troops – officers and military staff – were quite expensive, their number
was kept low. Therefore, it was the unpaid Frontier men from the villages of the “Haupt-
mannschaften”, who were of utmost importance within the military organization of the Fron-
tier. The tasks and heavy burdens of military service without payment were described by the
frontier men of the “Hauptmannschaft Kostajnica” in a letter to the War Council in Vienna
from 1728 as follows: “... that we sacrifice for Your Imperial and Catholic Majesty as our
most gracious landlord and highest commander in the field our bodies and blood in utmost
permanent loyalty at our own costs, without bread or pay; furthermore, we have brought
quite a few cities and small market towns under Your Imperial Majesty’s protection with our
horses, weapons, equipment without any pay [and] without requesting any glory and handed
them over; if one gets caught or hurt, he has to pay ransom and has to cure himself. We main-
tain the fortress bridges and the guardhouses always at our own costs. If there is an enemy
threat we are always the first and the nearest and we have to stand and endure most before all
others (…) Concerning the recruitment and the Exercitium Militare (military drill) and the
maintenance of our good horses we are most graciously obedient; concerning the use of the
same gun, however, it is almost impossible, as up to now we always used to carry good and
safe guns to safeguard our lives, namely the foot soldier his pair of pistols at the belt together
with his rifle and the sabre at his side, and the horseman his pair of pistols and his carbine
with the sabre at his side (…) we most obediently repeat that we oblige ourselves to respect-
fully perform all imperial guards’ duties in ‘schartacken’ (one-storey fortified guardhouses
made of timber) and other places out of our loyalty and obligation to the Most Serene House
of Austria.” 24
The fight for religious privileges put an immense pressure on the orthodox warriors, and
religious intolerance even led to an exodus of several hundred families to the Ottoman Em-
pire. Due to these obvious grievances the situation at the Frontier deteriorated every year a
so that the Austrian authorities in Vienna were forced to counteract the decay with the help of
reforms. The final reason for it was the uprising in the Lika and Krbava regions in 1728, with
which the population living there tried to defend itself against the religious suppressions and
the exploitation by the inner-Austrian officers.
Under Charles VI and Maria Theresa the Frontier land was further reorganized. In 1737
Field Marshal Joseph Duke of Sachsen-Hildburghausen had already drafted a new statute for
the Frontier men, which was to subject their lives to firm rules and was to convert the irregu-
lar Frontier militia into regular troops of the line. The generalcies were divided into regimen-
tal districts, which formed a company under the command of an officer. Each regiment was a
tactical and administrative unit. At first the infantry regiments were set up together with one
hussar regiment. The male population capable of bearing arms was divided into three groups:
One fifth was assigned for war, three fifths constantly served at the Frontier and the last fifth
cultivated the soil. The Frontier men were now paid for their services from the imperial Mili-

23 Bertrand Michael Buchmann, Österreich und das Osmanische Reich. Eine bilaterale Geschichte, Vienna
1999, 173f.
24 Slavko Gavrilovic, Grada vojvodanskih arhiva o Banskoj krajini prve polovine XVIII st, in Starine JAZU 54
(1969), 146 – 156, quoted by Grandits, Krajina, s. p.