For a long time the Habsburgs had been planning to employ the Croats,
who were excellent troops, as a bulwark against the Turks. And
although Ferdinand of Habsburg, on being elected to the throne of
Croatia on the 1st of January 1527, had sworn to respect the ancient
rights and traditions of the realm, his heirs favoured more and more a
policy of centralization; and in 1578, taking advantage of a serious
agrarian conflict between nobles and peasants in Croatia, the
Habsburgs instituted the Military Frontiers, the famous Vojna Krajina,
one for Croatia proper, with Karlovac as capital, the other for the
adjacent Slavonia, with the capital at Varazdin. Croatia's autonomy
was ignored.
This method of guarding the frontiers had been employed by the Romans,
who made over lands to non-commissioned officers and men on condition
that their male descendants rendered military service. Those men who
had no children received no lands. Alexander Severus, who introduced
this arrangement, used to say that a man would fight better if at the
same time he were defending his own hearth. Under Diocletian the
"miles castellani" or "limitanei," as they were termed, had slaves and
cattle allotted to them, so that the land's development should not be
hindered through lack of labour or on account of the owners losing the
physical capacity for work.
The Habsburgs were assisted in their scheme by various causes, one of
which was the poverty of the soil in certain parts of Croatia, so that
it came as a relief to many of the struggling inhabitants that for the
future they would be provided for. The greatest misery was also
prevalent at this time in consequence of the plague which desolated
parts of Croatia and Istria. The distress was particularly acute in
Istria, where between the years 1300 and 1600 the plague was rampant on
thirty-nine occasions, the town of Triest being visited in ten
different years between 1502 and 1558; and in the year 1600 the port
of Pola was reduced to four hundred inhabitants. Venice attempted to
colonize the desert places with Italian farmers, but having failed on
account of malaria and the lack of water, she called in a more
vigorous element, the Slav from Dalmatia and Bosnia. Meanwhile the
towns, in which were the descendants of those who had come from Italy
in the days of the Roman Empire, fell more profoundly into decay.
Those western towns looked on the Slav with disdain, they would not
mingle with the rural population; but as these were much more active
and were often strengthened by fresh immigrants, one thought that they
would gradually swamp the more effete men of the towns. And, on the
other hand, the townsmen weakened their position by continually
breaking, on account of economic disputes, the ties between themselves
and Venice. And as example of their frequent attitude towards Venice,
we may take the words which the deputies of Triest used in 1518 in the
presence of the Emperor Maximilian: "We would all of us prefer to
die," they said, "rather than to fall under the domination of Venice."
Such language may, of course have been a compliment; and yet it does
not seem unlikely that the people of Triest had some knowledge of the
ruin and death that were overtaking all the Dalmatian towns with the
one exception of Dubrovnik, which was independent.
Allusion has been made to the Slavs who came from Bosnia; one may ask
how it was that the Turks allowed them to depart. On such an extensive
frontier it would not be difficult for people to escape; that they did
so is made evident by all the solemn treaty clauses which declared
that they should be forthwith delivered to their rightful owners. The
Turks were quite as ready to bind themselves in this fashion. There
is, for example, the treaty which settles what travelling expenses the
Venetians are to pay to the emissary of the Pasha of Travnik on his
way to Zadar, how much velvet, how many loaves of sugar and how many
pots of theriac must be provided for each member of his entourage; and
in the same treaty it is laid down that the Turks are to give up all
those who have deserted to them, yea even if they have become
Muhammedans. But the Turkish authorities never heard of any such
people. And the Slavs were passing to and fro from one Yugoslav land
to another, always thinking that in the new land life must be more
tolerable.