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Special pages :
The New Croatian-Slavonian-Dalmatian Robber State
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 278, April 21 1849.
Agram. While in Hungary proper the royal imperial united monarchy is being shaken in its very foundations by the victorious Magyar armies, the national separatist movement in the South-Slav countries is continually creating new difficulties for the Austrian Government. The Croats have now conceived the idea of a Croatian-Slavonian-Dalmatian triune kingdom, to serve as the focal point for pan-Slav aspirations in the south. This trinity of Pandours, Screzhans and Haiduks, this kingdom of red-coats, was at once “taken in hand”, to use the Austrian Croat-German phraseology, by the Croatian-Slavonian Committee of the Diet, and the appropriate Bill produced by the Committee is available in print.[1] The document is remarkable, There is not a trace in it of hatred for the Magyars or of any precautions against Magyar transgressions. But it plainly bears the marks of hatred for the Germans, of safeguards against German transgressions and of the pan-Slav alliance against the Germans. That is what our constitutional-patriotic wailers of the Holy Roman Empire have got for their enthusiasm for the Croats.[2] We have already earlier informed our readers that the same hatred and the same mistrust of the Germans is prevalent in the Serbian Voivodina.
The trinity of red-coated cut-throats begins its existence at once with conquests. Apart from the fact that it tears from Hungary the whole of Croatia and Slavonia, it demands the Mur Island, i.e. the corner of the comitat of Zala lying between the Drava and the Mur, and the Quarnero islands of the district of Istria and Trieste, i.e. a small fragment of Germany as well as one of Hungary.
In addition it demands the following rights: (1) the internal relations of Croatia-Slavonia with Dalmatia are to be decided by their respective Diets; (2) their relations with the Serbian Voivodina are to be decided by mutual agreement; (3) also,
“closer political union is to be established with the remaining neighbouring Slav provinces of the Austrian Empire on the basis of mutual agreement”,
i.e. a pan-Slav separatist union [3] to be formed against the Germans and the Magyars within the royal imperial united monarchy. And this right of separatism is, according to the Pandour-Serezhan way of thinking, the first right of man:
“This natural (!) right of union cannot under any pretext be either denied or hindered in either the triune kingdom or in the Austro-Slav areas which wish to unite with the kingdom by reason of” (Croat German!) “the same or related nationality.”
That is, our first, “natural” right of man is the revival of the Prague Slav Congress [4] as the legislative authority. How naive a demand to put to a Schwarzenberg-Stadion Government!
These conquests and pan-Slav alliances, are followed by a solemn declaration:
“The triune kingdom has never been a German country” (Dieu merci!), “nor does it wish to become such or even a part or member of the German Empire, and consequently the triune kingdom cannot in future be drawn, without its express consent, into any kind of union with Germany which Austria may enter into either now or in the future.”
Such solemn declarations vis-à-vis the Germans are considered to be urgently necessary, although to our knowledge no one has ever regarded Croatia and other areas inhabited by cut-throats as a “German country”, and although Germany at the moment has not the slightest wish to incorporate the Otocac[5] and Serezhan gentlemen into the German Empire.
There is not a single mention of the Magyars in the whole document, not a single paragraph designed to safeguard the desired triune robber state against the much-lamented Magyar oppression!
But the object of the whole thing is quite clear: the united, centralised Austria for which the Government is striving and in which the Germans as the most civilised nation will in the long run certainly be morally dominant, frightens the pan-Slav trinity a thousand times more than the Magyars, whom they consider to be defeated. Moreover, it is clear that among these petty robber nations hatred of the Germans far exceeds their hatred of the Magyars. And yet these petty robber nations are the allies of the Kölnische Zeitung, that German patriot!
These general principles are then followed by a long series of stipulations with which the South-Slav robber states seek to safeguard themselves against Austrian centralisation, i.e. against German oppression.
Thus the document proposes that all functions which this law does not expressly assign to the central government shall remain the prerogative of the provincial government. The authority of the central government, however, is only recognised in the following fields: (1) foreign affairs, with the exception of the above proviso regarding relations with Germany, changes in which require a two-thirds majority in the Diet; (2) financial administration, insofar as this is absolutely necessary; (3) military affairs, but only insofar as they concern the standing army; (4) commercial affairs; (5) roads and waterways.
Furthermore, in addition to representation in the Imperial Diet, the trinity of robber states demands
“consideration for the sons of the triune kingdom in appointments to relevant central government posts on the basis of the population proportions and the necessary qualifications”
(elegant Croat German again!), dealings with the central government to be conducted in the official language, a separate robber-state Minister in the central government, and a separate administrative section for the robber states in every relevant ministry.
Apart from that, the robber states will be governed by a “State Council of the Triune Kingdom”, and the armed forces, the army as well as the Banderial units, [6] the levy in mass and the National Guard will be under the command of the Ban. But the Ban may command only the army according to the orders of the Central Authority; for his command of the remaining sections of the armed forces he is responsible to “the nation”.
In internal affairs, the following changes are demanded: (1) the triune robber state shall provide contingents of troops no larger than any other Austrian province in relation to the size of its population; and (2) in civil matters the Military Border is to be subject to the ordinary civil administration and jurisdiction; the military administration and military jurisdiction operate only for those borderers who are actually under arms. But with that the whole of the royal imperial Military Border will automatically cease to be. We shall return to this.
This is the draft plan for the new triune Otocac-Pandour-Croat robber state which they want to set up on the south-eastern borders of Germany if the revolution and the Magyars permit it.
- ↑ The foundation of a Croatian-Slavonian-Dalmatian triune kingdom was discussed in the Croatian Sabor.The reference is to the so-called party of Magyarisers, or the Croatian-Hungarian party, formed as far back as 1841 and consisting mainly of Croatian-Slavonian nobles and big landowners. The party aimed for a complete merger of Croatia and Slavonia (which administratively formed part of the Hungarian Kingdom within the Austrian Empire) with Hungary as a means to counteract bourgeois reforms and to retain political and social privileges. its members waged a bitter struggle against the representatives of “Illyrism”, a national trend dominated mainly by liberal landowners and commercial bourgeoisie. The Illyrians aimed at uniting the South-Slav peoples and at securing broad autonomous rights for them within the framework of the Austrian Empire, on a federative basis. During the 1848 revolution and the increasingly acute national conflict, many Magyarisers fled to Hungary. On June 5, 1848, the sittings of the Sabor of the Southern Slavs opened in Agrarp (Zagreb). Representatives of the liberal landowners and the top sections of the commercial bourgeoisie in Croatia and Slavonia who predominated at the Sabor (the Sabor was also attended by delegates from the Serbs of the Voivodina and the Czechs), professed their loyalty to the Habsburgs and restricted the national programme to the demand for autonomy for the united Slav territories within the Austrian Empire. General Jellachich, who was close to the Right-wing Illyrians, was appointed Ban of Croatia in March 1848. After a brief conflict with the Austrian Government, which led to his dismissal, he was reinstated in September 1848. Placing Croatian and Slavonian military units at the service of Austrian reaction, Jellachich took part in the counter-revolutionary campaign against Hungary and in the suppression of the popular uprising in Vienna. The Banal Council — an administrative body, headed by the Ban, exercised the functions of the Government of Croatia. As early as the summer of 1848. The scheme under consideration reflected the desire of the top bourgeoisie and landowners in the South-Slav lands for autonomy within the Austrian’ monarchy and a moderate Constitution. The scheme was regarded as part of a broader programme for integrating all the South-Slav lands of the Austrian Empire. The centralising Constitution imposed in March 1849 dealt a heavy blow to the Right wing of the South-Slav national movement, which cherished hopes of obtaining autonomy in collaboration with the Austrian ruling circles. The latter, however, needed the Southern Slavs for the struggle against revolutionary Hungary and Italy, and therefore supported the illusion that this scheme for autonomy could he put into effect. ‘ The Croatian Sabor, in particular, was allowed to negotiate unity with the representatives of Dalmatia. When the uprisings in Hungary and Italy were suppressed, the Austrian authorities curbed all attempts on the part of the South-Slav adherents of autonomy to implement their plans. Engels calls the newly conceived state Raubstaat meaning either a robber state or a dwarfish, dependent state. Pandours — irregular infantry units of the Austrian army recruited mainly in the South-Slav provinces of the Austrian Empire. Serezhans — army formations performing compulsory military service on the Austro-Turkish border (in the so-called Military Border area), named after their regimental or company districts or communities from which the soldiers came. In 1848-49 the Austrian authorities and the Right-wing bourgeois-landowning nationalist elements drew them into the war against revolutionary Hungary. Haiduks — South-Slav guerillas fighting against Turkish conquerors in the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. In the Austrian Empire, this name was given to people inhabiting an autonomous district in Hungary who provided special military contingents for the army. Red-coats — An allusion to the Austrian special border troops who wore red-coats and caps and were recruited mainly from among the inhabitants of the Empire’s Slav provinces (Croats, Serbs of the Voivodina etc.). In 1848 and 1849, they were used by the counter-revolution against the revolutionary movement.
- ↑ An allusion to German moderate constitutionalists (contemptuously called wailers by democratic circles), including members of the Frankfurt parliament, advocates of uniting Germany in the form of the German Empire. Engels ironically compares the state they planned to form with the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (962-1806) which included, at different times, the German, Italian, Austrian, Hungarian and Bohemian lands, Switzerland and the Netherlands and which was a motley confederation of feudal kingdoms, church lands and free towns with different political structures, legal standards and customs
- ↑ An ironical comparison with the Swiss separatist union — Sonderbund—a separatist union formed by the seven economically backward Catholic cantons of Switzerland in 1845 to resist progressive bourgeois reforms and defend the privileges of the church and the Jesuits. The decree of the Swiss Diet of July 1847 on the dissolution of the Sonderbund served as a pretext for the latter to start hostilities against the other cantons early in November. On November 25, 1847, the Sonderbund army was defeated by federal forces.
- ↑ The reference is to the Congress of representatives of the Slav regions forming part of the Austrian Empire. It met in Prague on June 2, 1848. The Right, moderately liberal wing to which Palacký and Shafarhik, the leaders of the Congress, belonged, tried to solve the national problem through autonomy of the Slav regions within the framework of the Habsburg monarchy. The Left, radical wing (Sabina, Frich, Libelt, Shtúr and others) wanted joint action with the revolutionary and democratic movement in Germany and Hungary. The radical delegates took an active part in the popular uprising in Prague (June 12-17, 1848) against the arbitrary rule of the Austrian authorities, and were subjected to cruel reprisals. On June 16, the moderate liberal delegates declared the Congress adjourned indefinitely
- ↑ Otochac gentlemen (Otochaner) — soldiers of the Austrian border regiment formed in 1746 and stationed in Otochac (Western Croatia). They were recruited mainly from the South-Slav subjects of the Austrian Emperor
- ↑ Banderial hussars (from the Latin banderium — banner) — the name given in medieval Hungary to cavalry detachments of nobles that under their own banners formed part of the royal army or of the armies of the big feudal lords. In this instance, the reference is to the regiment of Banderial hussars formed in July 1848 in Croatia. It took part in the marches of Jellachich’s army against revolutionary Hungary.