Page 201 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

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announced the incorporation of these territories into the kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia. In
the following year the Banal Frontier was dissolved and incorporated into the Kingdom of
Hungary. The dissolution of the Croatian-Slavonian Frontier regiments took place in 1873
with the introduction of the Hungarian Military Service Act.
With an imperial manifesto for the Croatian-Slavonian Frontier of 20 June 1881, which
announced the unification of this territory with Croatia and Slavonia, the history of the Aus-
trian Military Frontier finally ended after 350 years. The population of the Croatian-Slavo-
39
nian Military Frontier, around 700,000 men and women in those days, thus became a part of
Croatia the number of inhabitants of which thus rose from 1.2 to 1.9 million. 40
The integration process of the Frontier-men society into the civilian society of Croatia
was not easy for the former Frontier men and their families and involved enormous prob-
lems. A Croatian newspaper described the changes in the 1880s as follows:
“In former times the Frontier man received wood, salt, free pastures, free acorn mast for
military service and food in years of famine. Although he also worked for the maintenance of
the bridges and streets, he only paid a minimum tax of 3 ½ kreuzer for the teacher and medi-
cal care. Today everything is different. He pays taxes, the rate for the burning of raki, church
fees, produce percents, stamp duties and what else you call it. Today he pays local taxes of
40 to 50 kreuzer, sometimes even 60 to the tax forint, 10 percent as school tax, 20 [percent]
for the hospital; he pays for the structural timber and firewood, for the pasture and the acorn
mast and [he] pays the same prices for much less salt.” 41
Furthermore, the authorities imposed high taxes on the public carrying of weapons, which
had an extremely high impact on the pride of the Frontier men and amounted to general dis-
armament. This measure was thought to have been directed against the identity of the men
of the former Military Frontier, who very often presented themselves as privileged heroes of
the emperor. 42
In the past the personal affection of the emperor as feudal lord for the Frontier men as
his subordinates had always resulted in a certain measure of loyalty. But when the emperor
unilaterally ended the close personal bond without including the Frontier men in the re-
organization, this relative and appropriate loyalty to the Habsburg dynasty had an end. With
the dissolution of the Military Frontier and the fact that most of the interests of the Frontier
population had been sacrificed in favour of the “Ausgleich” (agreement) between Austria
and Hungary in 1867, their relation became strained that much that many Frontier men sub-
sequently sympathized with the Southern Slav national endeavours. The discontent of the
Frontier families with these changes very soon led to uprisings directed against the Hungar-
ian authorities and their policies which they made responsible for the deterioration of their
living conditions after the unification with Civilian Croatia. (Until 1881 the Military Frontier
territory belonged to the Austrian part of the empire. With its dissolution it came under Hun-
garian responsibility like Civilian Croatia.) Massive uprisings in 1883 and in the 1890s led to

39 Franz Kaindl, Die k. k. Militärgrenze – zur Einführung in ihre Geschichte (= Schriften des Heeresgeschicht-
lichen Museums, vol. 6, Vienna 1973), 25f.
40 Grandits, Krajina, s. p.
41 „Pozor“, No. 22, 28.1.1883, quoted from Grandits, Krajina, s. p.
42 Grandits, Krajina, s. p.