56 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



were unknown, and for the elaborate systems 

 of civil officialism and military occupation, 

 which were felt to be a twofold tyranny, the 

 Austro-Hungarian Government did nothing to 

 remove the peculiar grievance which had ex- 

 cited the Herzegovinian outbreak of 1875 that 

 led to the Servian and Turkish wars, and fur- 

 nished the ground of Count Andrassy's famous 

 note of December 30, 1875, with which the dip- 

 lomatic campaign against the Porte was inau- 

 gurated. The agrarian question was referred 

 to a Bosnian commission, which simply revived 

 an old Turkish law enabling the landlords to 

 collect their rents by the aid of the military. 

 The Mohammedan proprietors the aristocracy 

 of the country were propitiated, lest their 

 complaints to the Porte might interpose an ob- 

 stacle to annexation. But the Christian agri- 

 culturists it was sought to assimilate by dis- 

 ciplining them in the rigorous regulations of 

 Austrian officialism, and by the violent obtru- 

 sion of the German language and the Roman 

 Catholic religion. 



The vexatious over-government into which 

 this wild and simple people were initiated, 

 brought no compensating advantage over the 

 loose and negligent regime of the Osmanli. 

 Even the administration of justice, which, if 

 capricious, was speedy and available in Turk- 

 ish times, was now worse ; for the people would 

 not accept the elaborate procedure of the new 

 courts. 



In October, 1881, the law introducing uni- 

 versal military service in the occupied prov- 

 inces was published. The recruiting was to 

 commence in the March following. To con- 

 ciliate the wealthy Mohammedans, the law was 

 modified to permit the hiring of substitutes. 

 The Porte raised no objections, asking only 

 that the Mohammedan conscripts should not 

 be employed in foreign operations, and might 

 be permitted to wear the fez. To the Chris- 

 tians the conscription law was not less obnox- 

 ious than to the Mohammedans. It was felt 

 to be the most oppressive measure to which 

 they had yet been subjected, for under Otto- 

 man rule the Christians had been entirely ex- 

 empt from military duty, paying instead a cap- 

 itation tax of about a dollar yearly. 



There was every prospect that the people of 

 the occupied provinces would resist vigorously 

 the enforcement of the conscription law. The 

 difficulty was complicated by the circumstance 

 that compulsory military service had never 

 been fully introduced in Dalmatia. The Cri- 

 voscians were exempted from military duty, as 

 well as from taxes, tithes, and other public 

 burdens, by a solemn charter repeatedly re- 

 newed. When the Government, in the reor- 

 ganization of the military system of the empire, 

 attempted to annul this privilege, a portion of 

 the Dalmatians submitted to the conscription, 

 but the Crivoscians rose in arms, destroyed a 

 detachment at Fort Dragalj, and routed General 

 Auersperg's army. His successor, Rodich, sub- 

 mitted to their terms, agreeing not only to 



their immunity from military service, but grant- 

 ing them an indemnity of forty florins per 

 head. After their ancient privileges were thus 

 reaffirmed by the treaty which was struck at 

 Kneslac in February, 1870, no attempt was 

 made to impose the conscription laws upon the 

 South Dalmatians until it was thought neces- 

 sary to subject them to the system of universal 

 military service before applying it to their kin- 

 dred in Herzegovina.* 



Preparatory to the introduction of this dis- 

 ciplinary means of civilization in the occupied 

 provinces, General Rodich, then Governor of 

 Dalmatia, was instructed in 1880 to carry out 

 the militia law in the district of Cattaro. He 

 professed himself able to execute the law, but 

 asked time to prepare the people. Nothing 

 was accomplished that year nor the next ; yet 

 when summoned to Vienna, just before the is- 

 suance of the order for the occupied provinces, 

 he still declared that his moral influence would 

 be sufficient. A meeting of the Crivoscie peo- 

 ple at Risano had previously declared that they 

 would only comply with the law on certain 

 conditions, which were rejected at Vienna. 



Relying on the assurances of General Rodich, 

 the military law for Bosnia was published Octo- 

 ber 24th. Before the Delegations separated, the 

 people of the Crivoscie rose in revolt against 

 the conscription. The insurrection spread from 

 the Bocche di Cattaro into the adjacent part 

 of Southern Herzegovina. It was re-enforced 

 and controlled from the beginning by Herze- 

 govinian malcontents, who hastened through 

 Montenegro to the scene of disturbance, and 

 by Montenegrin allies, headed by experienced 

 guerrilla chiefs. Support and encouragement 

 were received from a party of the Montene- 

 grins and of the Servians, and from professional 

 agitators of the Panslavist cause. Although 

 the Austro-Hungarian Government gave out 

 that it had to do only with the forays of rob- 

 ber bands, military precautions were taken 

 betimes. Rifle battalions were sent into the 

 Crivoscie. A cordon was drawn around the 

 insurrectionary center. The Prince of Monte- 

 negro took what slight measures he could to 

 prevent re-enforcements from reaching the in- 

 surgents. He stationed a guard along the bor- 

 der, and the Austrians formed a second cordon, 

 but both were insufficient to keep out the guer- 

 rilla bands, coming by secret trails through the 

 mountains. 



The district of Crivoscie is hardly sixteen 

 square miles in extent, and contains but fifteen 

 villages, with 1,600 inhabitants. The recusant 

 conscripts are a tall, handsome, muscular race 



* When Dalmatia was incorporated into the Austrian do- 

 minions, after the Peace of Campo Formio in 1797, the in- 

 habitants fought for the preservation of their ancient privilege 

 of immunity from military service. This right, which they 

 had enjoyed under the Venetian dominion e^er since their 

 subjugation in 1420, was formally conceded, and in 1814 re- 

 affirmed. They have fought in the wars of Austria as volun- 

 teers for example, in the war with France and Italy in 1859, 

 when the Bocchese furnished a body of 2,300 men ; but, for 

 seventy years, their exemption from compulsory levies was 

 duly respected by the Austrian Government. 



