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Austria's Last Turkish War: Some Further Thoughts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Paul P. Bernard
Paul P. Bernard
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana
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Extract

Austria's Eastern policy in the eighteenth century long neglected by most historians of the Monarchy, has at last been given due attention in the publications of Karl Roider. Working from a systematic analysis of the rich holdings of a number of Viennese archives, Roider has produced a coherent picture of Austrian-Ottoman relations in this period and, perhaps for the first time, a plausible account of the Austro-Turkish war of 1788–1790. A return to this subject in these pages is not intended to dispute Roider's facts: he has marshalled them carefully and accurately. It is rather to take notice of additional materials, dealing with the history of the largely silent objects of the conflict, the Balkan peoples, which may lead to a modification of his conclusions.

Type
Habsburg Foreign Affairs
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 15 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1983

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References

1 Roider, Karl A. Jr., “Kaunitz, Joseph II and the Turkish War,” Slavonic and East European Review, LIV, no. 4 (1976)Google Scholar; and Austria's Eastern Question 1700–1790 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

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13 Brunner, , Correspondances intimes de l'empereur Joseph II, p. 66Google Scholar; Roider, , “Kaunitz, Joseph II and the Turkish War,” pp. 544–545.Google Scholar There is a fascinating story to the effect that a follower of the False Messiah, Sebastian Frank, a man named Moses Dobruška, who at the time was using the name Franz Thomas von Schönfeld and who moved on the outskirts of the Viennese rationalist circle which was sometimes consulted by Joseph, urged that the Emperor make war as a means of furthering Frank's ascendance over the Jews of the Ottoman Empire. However Dobruška's biographer doubts the truth of this account. See Scholem, Gerschom, Du Frankisme au Jacobinisme: La vie de Moses Dobruška (Paris: Gallimard; le Seuil, 1981 ), p. 20.Google Scholar It has, however, been established that the prominent Viennese Jewish banker, Nathan Amstein, negotiated a substantial loan from his father-in-law, the Berlin banker Daniel Itzig, to help Joseph finance the Turkish war. The loan, however, was blocked by the Prussian crown, which had no interest in supporting Joseph's campaign. See Karniel, Josef, “Zur Auswirkung der Toleranzpatente für die Juden in der Habsburger-Monarchie im josephinischen Jahrzehnt,” Barton, Peter F., ed., Im Zeichen der Toleranz. Aufsätze zur Toleranzgesetzgebung des 18. Jahrhunderts in den Reichen Joseph II., ihren Voraussetzungen und ihren Folgen. Eine Festschrift, Studien und Texte zur Kirchengeschichte und Geschichte, Ser. 2, no. 8 (Vienna: Institut für Protestantische Kirchengeschichte, 1981).Google Scholar

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15 Academia Republicii Populare Romîne, Istoria Romîneiei (Bucharest: Academia Republicii Populare Romîne, 1964), III, 715–716.Google Scholar

16 Stefanović-Vilovsky, , “Belgrad während des Krieges Österreichs und Rußlands gegen die Pforte, 1787–1792,” p. 140.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., pp. 141–142.

18 Vienna, Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Staatenabteilung, Türkei, V, fol. 20 ff.

19 Stefanović-Vilovsky, p. 143. See also Haumant, Émile, La Formation de la Yougoslavie (Paris: Bossard, 1930), p. 191.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., pp. 158–159.

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22 As early as 1788 the Prince de Ligne, acting as Joseph's special envoy, had suggested to Catherine that the Principalities might be united and formed into a kingdom under Potemkin. See Bratianu, George Iowan, Origines et formation de l'unité roumaine (Bucharest: Institut d'histoire universelle “N. lorga,” 1943), p. 181.Google Scholar The frequently encountered assertion that the Austrians, in occupying the Principalities, were reviving medieval claims to them on behalf of the Hungarian crown (cf. Gáldi, Ladislaus and Makkai, Ladislaus, Geschichte der Rumänen, Etudes sur l'Europe centre-orientale/Ostmitteleuropäische Bibliothek, XXXVI [Budapest: Ostmitteleuropäische Bibliothek, 1942], 192)Google Scholar seems to be largely without foundation. Rather, the Austrians seemed to look on the Romanians as a propitiatory gift to Russia, in the hope that this would dissuade them from pushing farther north into the Balkans. Ligne, in particular, was concerned about Russian intentions:“… de Grecs en Grecs on s'approche de la Hongrie.”

23 Regele, Oskar, “Der österreichische Hofkriegsrat 1556–1848,” Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs, Supplement, I (1949), 58.Google Scholar

24 de Hurmuzaki, Eudoxiu, Documente Privitoare la Istoria Românilor, XIX, no. 1 (Bucharest: C. Göbl, 1922), 308.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., p. 321.

26 Ibid., pp. 318, 325.

27 Ibid., pp. 391–399. See also Lupaş, Ioan, Zur Geschichte der Rumänen. Aufsätze und Vorträge (Sibiu: Druck Krafft und Drotleff, 1943), p. 454.Google Scholar

28 The best description of the campaign is that of Count Langeren who took part in it on the Austrian side. See Hurmuzaki, , Documente Privitoare la Istoria Românilor, Supplement, I, no. 3, 88 ff.Google Scholar

29 Hurmuzaki, , Documente Privitoare la Istoria Românilor, XIX, no. 1, 432–454.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., p.458.

31 Reports that all the leading boyars had been executed later proved to be false. See SirKeith, Robert Murray, Memoirs and Correspondence, 2 vols. (London: Henry Colburn, 1849), II, 311.Google Scholar

32 Hurmuzaki, , Documente Privitoare la Istoria Românilor, XIX, no. 1, 505–510.Google Scholar

33 Recent Romanian scholarship is agreed that the period of Austro-Russian occupation witnessed the first reemergence of the Romanian national movement since the Middle Ages. See Teodor, Pompiliu, Enlightenment and Romanian Society, (Cluj-Napoca: Dacia, 1980), p. 131.Google Scholar Such a movement could not have been entirely welcome to the Austrians as it found resonance almost at once in Transylvania. See Prodan, D., Supplex Libellus Valachorum; or, The Political Struggle of the Romanians in Transylvania during the 18th Century (Bucharest: Publishing House of the Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania, 1971), p. 286.Google Scholar The Austrians, moreover, viewed Romanian national agitation with great suspicion also because they were concerned lest it take the form of another Horiá rebellion. See Lupaş, , Zur Geschichte der Rumänen, p. 455.Google Scholar

34 Hurmuzaki, , Documente Privitoare la Istoria Românilor, supp. I, no. 3, 81.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 92 ff.

36 Shaw, , Between Old and New: The Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim II, 1789–1807, pp. 46–47.Google Scholar

37 For these, see particularly Gragger, Robert, Preuβen, Weimar und die ungarische Königskrone (Berlin and Leipzig: W. de Gruyter & Co., 1923)Google Scholar; and Király, Belá K., Hungary in the Late Eighteenth Century: The Decline of Enlightened Despotism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

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39 Arneth, , Joseph II. und Leopold von Toskana: Ihr Briefwechsel, II, 280–295.Google Scholar

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42 Valjavec, Fritz, “Österreich und Rußland auf dem Balkan im 19. Jahrhundert,” Ausgewählte Aufsätze (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1963), pp. 105–107.Google Scholar