Page 198 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

198 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

the Ottoman Empire, but primarily served as a cheap supply basis for some ready-to-march,
uniformed and well-equipped regiments. 28
In 1754 the “Militar-Gränitz-Rechten” (Military-Frontier laws), which comprised the or-
ganization of the law courts as well as the code of civil procedure, the land law of the Fron-
tier feuds, the law of inheritance, the code of criminal procedure and the court fees, were
introduced. These laws had been created out of the need to unify the military organization of
the whole Frontier territory and to tidy up the legal administration, and they were an exact
and clear definition of the rights of the people at the Frontier. By means of them the Frontier
territory was also completely separated from the hinterland in administrative matters. at
29
first, they only applied to the Croatian and Varazdin parts of the Military Frontier. When they
proved successful, they were also applied to the Banal Frontier and later to the rest of the
Military Frontier.
30
The usefulness of this reorganization manifested itself above all in the Seven Years War,
when the Frontier men raised more than 80.000 men and proved to be very brave warriors
for the Austrian army.
In 1762 the Transylvanian Military Frontier was established. With a length of 1850 km
2
the Austrian Military Frontier now had an area of 50,000 km . Due to the strict organization
of the Military Frontier it was possible to form a “cordon sanitaire” from the Adriatic Sea
along the Croatian and Slavonian Frontiers to Transylvania, which was also to prevent the
much feared plague to be brought in from the Orient.
Due to major administrative problems at the beginning of the 1760s the War Council in-
tervened with Maria Theresa to reorganize the Frontier militia and to supplement the cordon
in the Eastern part of the monarchy. In 1765 a general Frontier inspectorate with a Frontier
inspector, who was only responsible to the War Council and was entitled to issue orders
binding for the regimental districts, was set up, and their task was to bring the unification of
the administration in the whole Frontier territory to completion. With this supervision Maria
Theresa and the members of the War Council hoped to promote the further economic and
military consolidation of the Frontier territory to be able to equally distribute the duties and
create a territory completely self-sufficient from the hinterland, which could maintain itself
and provide a huge number of well-trained soldiers at little costs. 31
On 15 August 1769 the Frontier regiments were integrated into the imperial army with the
numbers from 60 to 76. This led to a rise in bureaucracy, which made new reforms necessary.
In the course of his reforms Emperor Joseph II also wanted to change the existing law
code of the Military Frontier. After an inspection of the Frontier colonel Baron of Geneyne
was entrusted with the draft of a new constitution for the whole Frontier. On 1 May 1787
the so-called “Kantonssystem” (district system) was first introduced in the Croatian Military

28 Grandits, Krajina, s. p.
29 Rupert von Schumacher, Des Reiches Hofzaun. Geschichte der deutschen Militärgrenze im Südosten,
2
Darmstadt 1942, 168; Amstadt, Die k. k. Militärgrenze, vol. 1, 164.
30 Österreichisches Staatsarchiv/Kriegsarchiv, Vienna, HKR 1754, März, Fasc. 374, Militär-Grenz-Rechten
von Ihro Kaiserlichen Königlichen Majestät. Für das Karlstädter und Varasdiner Generalat, Vienna 1754, 1;
Krajasich, Die Militärgrenze in Kroatien, 44.
31 Schindler, Militärgrenzverwaltung, 30f.