Peter Mario Kreuter

Attempts of Austrian Redesign of the Administration of Lesser between 1718 and 1739

Peter Mario KREUTER Senior Researcher and Managing Editor of “Südost-Forschungen” at Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, Regensburg

In: Harald Heppner / Sabine Jesner (eds.), The 18th Century as Period of Innovation, Yearbook of the Society for 18th Century Studies on South Eastern Europe 2 (2019), 131–140.

DOI: 10.25364/22.2:2019.10

Contribution is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.de

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Attempts of Austrian Redesign of the Administration of Lesser Wallachia between 1718 and 1739

Peter Mario KREUTER

With the (1699), Wallachia became a declared goal of Austrian annexation plans. Although the (1718) only conceded to Austria possession of the five Wallachian districts known as Lesser Wallachia, the Austrian government immediately began to reorganise this area in their favour. Relevant committees debated the actual state of agriculture and crafts, the ownership of land, the condition of the road network and bridges, and the development of the capital Craiova. Despite several changes to the head of the Oberdirektorium due to the death of the incumbents, the modernisation of the Lesser Wallachia remained the key question. The problem of the capital played a recurring role. Either in 1722 and 1727 the question arose as to whether the existing capital of Craiova ought to be reshaped and modernised, or whether it made more sense to venture further north to Tîrgu Jiu.

Introduction On 21 July 1718 much changed in Southeastern Europe. First of all, there were the territorial changes that led to the greatest expansion of Austria’s borders in its history. In addition, these territorial changes were mostly accompanied by changes in other areas such as taxation or the organisation of border defence. Finally, questions of a religious or church-political nature loomed large as the main territorial gains included a population that, in its overwhelming majority, belonged to the Orthodox Church. And there was another important point that complicated the gains of 1718 for Austrian decision-makers. While or northern Bosnia, as provinces of the , came from a completely different administrative tradition that did not require a native hereditary nobility and therefore had to be completely renewed, Lesser Wallachia had been separated from a larger sovereign state, the Principality of Wallachia, which had its own administrative structures that corresponded neither to the Ottoman nor to the Austrian ones. Even more, Lesser Wallachia had a special status within the principality with some administrative peculiarities that would cause the Austrians some headaches.

Wallachia as an Aim Southeastern Europe only appeared relatively late as an object of strategic interest for Austria. Although there were some voices at the Habsburg Court as early as the first half of the 16th century that wanted to assign the an important role for geostrategic thinking, factors such as the Wars with the Ottoman Empire or the Reformation meant that Southeastern Europe was not a geopolitical objective at that time. Even though the importance of the Danube as a route for the movement of goods or troops and weapons was clearly recognised,

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there was little interest in conquering territories along the river.1 As Maria Baramova states,

“the genuine Habsburg Danube, however, and the river’s association with Vienna’s power politics materialised only after the Peace of Karlowitz in 1699. […] Furthermore, after 1699 the set its sights even farther eastward, on the delta and domination of the Lower Danube. The Danube was no longer merely a river: it was a powerful space, the two banks of which Vienna was beginning to consider its own”.2

Corresponding plans were already drawn up during the peace negotiations. In the Finanz- und Hofkammerarchiv in Vienna, there is a fine example for such plans, in a memorandum from the year 1698 in which Wallachia is clearly named as a central focus of imperial politics.3 This memorandum is part of a series of other texts that will be written around and after the Treaty of Passarowitz (Požarevac). Only four pages in length, it is written by an unknown author and seeks to show the possibilities of utilising the Orthodox population of Wallachia. There are no detailed plans on how to obtain Wallachia, but the exact description of church structures, the naming of important political players and the overall context with regard to the expected conquests in Southeast Europe show that despite peace at the end of the , the ambitions of the Habsburg Monarchy would by no means be finished.

Serbia and Northern Bosnia after 1718 Following the Treaty of Passarowitz, the Serbian and North Bosnian acquisitions of territory had to be restructured administratively, and the actual population figures had to be properly recorded. In addition, after the long affiliation with the Ottoman Empire, many religious-political questions had to be solved. Finally, Vienna’s desire for Catholicisation had to be taken into account, which led to the (re-)establishment of a Catholic diocesan structure.4

At first, it had been thought to give Serbia and Northern Bosnia to Hungary, but the still unstable Habsburg rule in Hungary did not make this seem advisable. In order to eliminate Hungarian desires and at the same time avoid the influence of Austrian institutions, it was decided to establish Serbia as an independent kingdom within the Habsburg possessions.5 This Regnum Serviae or Königreich

1 In an essay, Maria Baramova presents as an example for the recognition of the military value of the Danube the book of Georg Agricola, Oratio de bello adversus Turcam suscipiendo ad Ferdinandum Ungariae Boemiaeque regem et principes Germaniae from 1538, where Agricola underlines how easy it would be to transport troops and material on the Danube straight into the enemy’s territory. Cf. Maria Baramova, Did the Danube Exist in Habsburg Power Politics in South- Eastern Europe before 1699?, in: Idem / Plamen Mitev / Ivan Parvev / Vania Racheva (eds.), Power and Influence in South-Eastern Europe. 16th–19th Century. Münster, Wien, Berlin 2013, 25–35, 29–30. 2 Ibidem, 35. 3 ÖStA AVA FHKA, Hoffinanz Ungarn, Siebenbürgen 174, Urkunden und Varia 1614–1700, Nr. 29, 4: Denkschrift über die Ausdehnung der kais. Oberherrschaft, fol. 391–394. 4 For this whole complex, see Enis Pelidija, The Influence of the Peace of Passarowitz on Bosnia, in: Charles Ingrao / Nikola Samardžić / Jovan Pešalj (eds.), The Peace of Passarowitz, 1718. West Lafayette/IN 2011, 111–130, and Katarina Mitrović, The Peace of Passarowitz and the Re- establishment of the Catholic Diocesan Administration in and Smederevo, in: ibidem, 209–217. 5 Johann Langer, Serbien unter der kaiserlichen Regierung 1717‒1739. In: Mittheilungen des k. k. Kriegsarchivs N. F. 3 (1889), 156–249, 158f.

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Servien was neither a part of the Holy Roman Empire nor the Kingdom of Hungary but rather under the direct control of the Emperor in Vienna. The actual administration of the province was in the hands of an appointed governor, field marshal Karl Alexander von Württemberg (1684‒1737).6 A 1720 regulation declared that the main part of Belgrade at the banks of the Danube river was to be settled mainly by German Catholics, especially from the Rhineland, while the Serbs were to live outside the city walls in the “Rascian” part on the banks of the Sava river.7 Additionally, the further administrative division of the kingdom was to be subordinated to the military and economic needs of Vienna.

Since conscription carried out in the autumn of 1721 in the new kingdom (except Belgrade) brought to light an alarmingly low population of about 20,000 people, the administrative reorganisation of Serbia was initiated. The Kingdom of Serbia was divided into the city of Belgrade itself and 15 districts, the smallest with 17, the largest with 81 villages. In 1723 there were still minor changes to this division, but essentially this district distribution remained intact until 1739.8 Serbia was entirely reorganised, and nothing remained of the old Ottoman administrative structure. This complete revision of the entire administrative structures also made it possible to use local Hajduks for border security in addition to the Austrian troops.9

Something Old and Something New in Lesser Wallachia Such far-reaching changes to the administrative structure were not planned for Lesser Wallachia. The obvious reason for this was that for centuries a local administration was able to develop, corresponding far more to what the new masters from Austria knew themselves. There was a local nobility whose possessions and privileges were inherited from the family. There was also an ecclesiastical structure whose organisation was also similar to that of the Austrian hereditary lands. As well, there was an existing administrative organisation to build on. Above all, however, one thing was significant: Lesser Wallachia, like the Principality as a whole, had never been a province of the Ottoman Empire. The administration in Craiova was therefore oriented towards Bucharest, not Istanbul.

However, the boyars of Lesser Wallachia were not inactive either. After the victory of the Austrians at the Battle of on 5 August 1716, the occupation of the in October of the same year and the first military actions and occupations of the Austrians in Wallachia, it was obvious to the local nobility to seek contact with the Habsburg monarchy and to influence the course of events as much as possible. In February 1717, a delegation under the leadership of the bishop of Rimnik appeared in Vienna to negotiate the future position of Wallachia. On 27 February 1717, this delegation presented Prince Eugene of

6 Márta Fata, Karl Alexander von Württemberg. Kaiserlicher General und Statthalter von Serbien, in: Wolfgang Zimmermann / Josef Wolf (eds.), Die Türkenkriege der 18. Jahrhunderts. Wahrnehmen, Wissen, Erinnern. Regensburg 2017, 43‒71. 7 Michael Hochedlinger, Austria’s Wars of Emergence. War, State and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1683–1797. London et al. 2003, 229; Langer, Serbien unter der kaiserlichen Regierung, 200. 8 Langer, Serbien unter der kaiserlichen Regierung, 199f. 9 Ibidem, 218‒221.

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Savoy a memorandum setting out their wishes, which they requested to into account in the future administration of their country. Ten points set out what a future Wallachian government could look like. The points included the investiture of Gheorghe Cantacuzino as a prince for life under imperial sovereignty, the preservation of the privileges of the Orthodox Church and its clergy, the granting of offices only to locals and restrictions on the sale of goods by foreign merchants.10 In fact, these points were incorporated into a conference given to the Emperor by the Aulic War Council on 25 April 1717. On 30 May 1717, Charles VI then decided to use the principles laid down in that conference as a guideline for the further development of plans. At the same time, Austria entered into the Convention of Hermannstadt (Sibiu) of 24 February 1717 with Wallachia, in which Austria recognised the 12 districts of Great Wallachia as subjects, but at the same time stated that the conquests on the other side of the Olt River would be regarded without any discussion as Austrian territory.11 The Habsburg Monarchy then took this view at the negotiations in Passarowitz.

After Lesser Wallachia had finally passed over to Austria, Vienna immediately began to establish its own power structures. The direction, both in administrative and military terms, was handed over to an Oberdirektor, and this office was merged with that of Commanding General in Transylvania. In addition to decision-making power in military and civil matters, he was also responsible for final decisions in legal matters. The local nobility was allowed to oversee the administration at the local level. The control committee of this local administration was located in Craiova and consisted of a committee of four consilieri, presided over by the Ban of Lesser Wallachia.12

What the new administration lacked, however, were precise figures. Neither did they know exactly how many people lived in the five provinces on the right bank of the Olt River, nor were they fully aware of their economic capacity. Also, neither rural maps nor city maps were available. There were various ways used to remedy this deficit. In the 1720ies, for example, a number of censuses were carried out to provide reliable figures for tax collection and military planning.13 At the same time, technical tools were improved, and an excellent example of this is the description of Lesser Wallachia together with the corresponding map by Friedrich Schwantz von Springfels.14

Friedrich Schwantz von Springfels and his Description of Lesser Wallachia Only little can be said about the life of Friedrich Schwantz von Springfels. In his case, neither a service file nor an ego document exists. Nor is there any correspondence from him beyond the official letters that have come upon us. We

10 Paul Jacubenz, Die cis-alutanische Walachei unter kaiserlicher Verwaltung 1717‒1739. In: Mittheilungen des k. und k. Kriegsarchivs N. F. 12 (1900), 173‒250, 174f. 11 Alex Mihai Stoenescu, Istoria Olteniei. București 2011, 206. 12 Șerban Papacostea, sub stapînirea austriacă (1718‒1739). București 1971, 28‒31. 13 Jacubenz, Die cis-alutanische Walachei unter kaiserlicher Verwaltung, 218‒226. 14 A bilingual edition in German and Romanian has recently been published, which also includes a facsimile of the original text and all the map material on an enclosed CD-ROM. Cf. Friedrich Schwantz von Springfels, Descrierea Olteniei la 1723. Ediție, traducere din limba germană, studiu introductiv și indice de Mircea-Gheorghe Abrudan. Brăila, Cluj-Napoca 2017.

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do not know when he was born or where. It also remains hidden to us where he studied engineering. What is certain is that he was already present at the beginning of the military operation of 1716, when General Steinville asked him in December of that year to begin work on making the Olt River navigable. At the beginning of 1717, he was commissioned with fortification works around the Cozia monastery, the progress of which he reported to both General Steinville and the Aulic War Council. In 1718, he was commissioned to work on Via Carolina, an activity that kept him busy over the next few years. The last known news about him came from September 1727, when he was in Craiova with some other officials. Apparently, he died shortly after that.15

Fig. 1: Craiova as Capital of Lesser Wallachia

Source: Friedrich Schwantz von Springfels, Descrierea Olteniei la 1723. Ediție, traducere din limba germană, studiu introductiv și indice de Mircea-Gheorghe Abrudan. Brăila, Cluj-Napoca 2017, CD- Rom, Harta Kriegsarchiv Viena Copie 2, no. 12.

In addition to practical activities such as erecting fortifications and establishing traffic routes, Friedrich Schwantz von Springfels also worked as a cartographer. Parallel to his work on Via Carolina, he produced a map entitled “Tabula Valachiae Cis-Alutanae per Frider: Schwantzium Regiminis Heisteriani Capitaneum”. This map was created between 1717 and 1720. Not only is it the first comprehensive and detailed map of Lesser Wallachia, but it is also a first testimony to the statistical and accurate recording of the country. In addition to this map, Schwantz von Springfels also wrote a description of Lesser Walachia, which was completed in 1723.

The original manuscript is now kept in the Austrian National Library.16 It has 42 pages of text, plus a series of subsequently inserted drawings, which were bound together with the text to form a book. The description is divided into 21 paragraphs. In addition, at the end there is a list of the place names of Lesser Wallachia, which are assigned to their respective districts. The entire manuscript shows the technical background of the author. Those paragraphs

15 Ibidem, 38‒53. 16 Accession number: Ser. nov. 34.

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that deal with people, their customs, with the nobility or the church are exceptionally short, sometimes only a few lines long. Paragraphs dealing with geography, traffic routes, agriculture or mineral resources, on the other hand, are always several pages long and always full of detailed information. The geographical passages, in particular, have the character of additional explanations to that map as if the details should be further extended.

A particularly amazing paragraph is Number 6 “From the Capital of the Country”.17 Actually, the reader learns nothing about the principal town. What he is told are the disadvantages of Craiova. On the one hand, the distance to Hermannstadt is very great, the roads to Transylvania are in poor condition and in particular, the defence works are in such a pitiful condition that no short-term remedy can be found. Moreover, Craiova was very exposed and in a new war against the Ottomans highly vulnetable.18 Schwantz von Springfels suggested a number of places, which he considered more suitable to serve as the capital of Lesser Wallachia, and after a few lines he begins to enumerate some locations and briefly describes them. What follows in that paragraph is a military-related consideration of communication possibilities, defence facilities and marching times in relation to the selected locations.

17 Schwantz von Springfels, Descrierea Olteniei, 252‒261. 18 Ibidem, 252.

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Fig. 2: Friedrich Schwantz von Springfels – Main Title of the Original Manuscript

Source: Friedrich Schwantz von Springfels, Descrierea Olteniei la 1723. Ediție, traducere din limba germană, studiu introductiv și indice de Mircea-Gheorghe Abrudan. Brăila, Cluj-Napoca 2017, 221.

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The description of Lesser Wallachia was therefore by no means merely a representation of this country for interested circles. It clearly followed military needs and probably had a direct relation to his own map series.

Craiova or Tîrgu Jiu? The debate on the future capital of Lesser Wallachia provides a concrete example of how the Austrian administration intended to change its administrative structures and how it ultimately failed. Craiova was first mentioned during the reign of the Wallachian prince Vladislav II (1448‒1456). It was the residence of the Ban of Craiova since the reign of Prince Vlad Călugărul (1482‒1495), replacing the former seat of Strehaia. In this respect, Craiova was mentioned as the traditional seat of the Ban, but it was by no means the capital of ancient times.

Now that the Austrians had come into possession of Lesser Wallachia, they soon learned that Craiova, as the principal town of the land, also had some disadvantages, not only from a military point of view. As early as December 1719, Hofcammerrath Ignaz von Haan complained that Craiova was a very cramped city and offered only poor housing conditions. He also described both the air and the water quality as being poor.19 The high temperatures in the summer also caused problems again and again. In June 1723, in connection with the unpotable quality of the water, the Ban and his administration proposed to the Austrian administration that the capital be moved to Tîrgu Jiu.20 Friedrich Schwantz von Springfels had, as we have seen, also remarked in his report that Craiova as the headquarters of the administration could not please. Tîrgu Jiu seemed particularly suitable to him, too, and he was not alone in this choice. In a report to Emperor Charles VI of 23 February 1726, Eugene of Savoy suggested, among other things, that “the aforementioned Craiova was as unhealthy as it was uncomfortable and that it also suffered from a shortage of wood and water, both of which had to be fetched from afar at considerable cost and effort. Therefore, the generals from Transylvania, who were appointed to the Wallachian High Command, have all proposed that the Sedes Provinciae should be transferred from there as an exposed and unhealthy place to Tîrgu Jiu on the Transylvanian border”.21 The complaints about Craiova listed here are by no means exhaustive. They prove, however, that the city was perceived as unsuitable due to its living conditions as well as its geographical location.

How, then, was this remedied? The answer is: not at all. Not only does Craiova remain the capital of Lesser Wallachia, but no serious attempt was ever made to transfer the administration to another location. The Austrian administration does not seem to have been particularly in a hurry to relocate either. In August 1732, for example, a letter from the Aulic War Council to the Oberdirektor of Lesser Wallachia again envisaged a relocation away from Craiova. However,

19 Constantin C. Giurescu, Material pentru istoria Olteniei supt Austriaci. Volum 1: 1716‒1725. București 1913, document 338 “Haan către Camera aulică. 12 Decemvrie 1719”, 416. 20 Giurescu, Material pentru istoria Olteniei supt Austriaci. Volum 1, document 382 “Königsegg către Consuliul de răsboiu. 24 Iulie 1723, Sibiu”, 585. 21 Constantin C. Giurescu, Material pentru istoria Olteniei supt Austriaci. Volum 2: 1726‒1732. București 1944, document 6 “Președinții Consiliului de război și Camerei Aulice către Împăratul Carol VI. Viena, 23 Februarie 1726”, 22.

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Tîrgu Jiu is no longer the destination, but instead Ţînţăreni, a small town north- west of Craiova.22 But apart from a request to check the possible costs of relocation, nothing else happened. Craiova remained the capital of Lesser Wallachia and would so for the centuries to come. Among the Phanariotes, the Ban even built a representative building in the middle of the city centre.

Pragmatism ruled How can all this be interpreted now? How can one explain the slow and cumbersome administration by Transylvanian institutions, the maintenance of a capital which is considered impractical and the very slow censuses and surveys of the land? Why were military needs clearly defined, but subsequently not acted upon?

There are no clear answers, but there are some clues. Especially in the initial phase of Austrian rule, the Oberdirektoren changed every two years – deaths were always responsible for this. As a result, a new director first had to learn the ropes and be provided with new instructions from Vienna. Added to this was a core problem in the administration of the Habsburg Monarchy – the administration itself. Clumsy bureaucratic structures and an inefficient tax system, occasional parallel administrative structures and not least a lengthy decision-making process at the head of the Vienna Central Authorities made it almost impossible for local decision-makers to implement necessary reforms. Proposals to shift the initially established administrative division between local nobility and Transylvanian institutions in favour of the latter quickly came to an end. And as was so often the case, there was no money.

Ultimately, however, a good degree of pragmatism made itself apparent and everything worked out okay. There were even some improvements – thanks to the censuses the tax revenue increased temporarily. And finally, the lack of time was a key factor because already by 1739, Lesser Wallachia was again completely Wallachian.

22 Giurescu, Material pentru istoria Olteniei supt Austriaci. Volum 2, document 208 “Consiliul de război către Wallis și Rebentisch. Viena, 20 August 1732”, 538.

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