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DOI:https://doi.org/10.59412/hz.78.1.3
“Austria Amnestied”. The Insurrection in the Boka kotorska 1869/70
In 1869, a misunderstanding about the terms of the new Army Law provoked draft riots in the Boka kotorska. The insurgents actually forced the Austrian army to leave the Krivošije in their hands when winter put a stop to operations. Emperor Franz Joseph had originally insisted on a speedy submission of the rebels. The Liberal Minister of War and the governor of Dalmatia had tried to implement such a military solution. But at the same time the head of the Emperor’s Military Chancellery, Colonel Friedrich Beck, sent a lowly subordinate, Captain Gustav Thömmel, on a “fact-finding mission” to the Boka. Thömmel leap-frogged the chain of command. His reports prompted the Emperor to make a U-turn. He entrusted General Gabrijel Rodić with a mission to persuade – and bribe – the rebels to make peace. Rodić’s initiative ended with the Peace of Knežlaz (11 January 1870). A Liberal MP commented, it was not Austria that had amnestied the rebels but the rebels who had amnestied Austria.
Key words: draft riots; Boka kotorska; amnesty; peace of Knežlaz; General Gabrijel Rodić; Colonel Friedrich Beck; Captain Gustav Thömmel
There is a famous rhyme: “Treason doth never prosper. What’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” In 1848/49, the Habsburg Monarchy seemed to have conclusively proven that rebellions did not pay. All the wars of liberation that started during the “springtime of nations” came to nought. On the contrary, only the “progressive” regimes in Spain and Italy continued to be bothered by insurgencies from the Right. Maybe the Habsburg Monarchy was conservative enough to escape from the wrath of reaction. (Indeed, Vienna had discreetly supported the brigantaggio in the Italian mezzogiorno and the Spanish Carlists.) But there is an exception to almost every rule. While the big names of rural conservatism, like the Polish szlachta or the unruly descendants of countless rebellions in the Eastern marches of the Hungarian puszta, refrained from openly raising the standard of revolt any longer, there was an insurgency in the deep South of the monarchy, in the Boka kotorska/Bocche di Cattaro, in 1869/70 – and what’s more, the insurgents to all intents and purposes won. A parliamentarian renowned for his rhetorical skills, Alexander Schindler, summed up the results: “The insurgents have amnestied Austria.”1
A polyglot Empire like the Habsburg Monarchy might be said to consist of a collection of special cases. Even so, the Boka kotorska was a particularly special case. It had been incorporated into Austria as part of Venetian Dalmatia after 1797, and again after 1814. Venice was one of historic seaborne Empires. There was no territorial link between Boka and the rest of Dalmatia. It was cut off from Dubrovnik by a wedge of Bosnian, i.e. still Ottoman territory. In ethnic and religious terms, the Boka was an exception even within the rather exceptional province of Dalmatia that was claimed by both the Austrian and the Hungarian “halves of the monarchy”. 70 % of Dalmatians were Catholic Croats; but in 1869 the razor-thin majority of the local Diet in Zadar was still dominated by the tiny Italian – or Italianized – elite.2 In the Boka, however, roughly 70 % of the population was Serb and Orthodox. In terms of regional politics, these characteristics propelled them into a position of swing voters. In the years to come they would often side with the Italians; during the 1860’s, though, they tended to merge with the Slavic opposition to German and Italian arrogance (except for the Orthodox bishop Knežević, who made himself unpopular in his diocese by loyally supporting the government).3
The Draft Riots
The events that led to the insurrection can easily be summarized.4 Following its defeat at Königgrätz, Austria had passed a new army law in November 1868, for the first time putting universal military service into practice. However, not all recruits were supposed to serve in the regular “common” army. Hungary wanted to have an army of its own, the Honved. That is why the Austrian half of the Empire had to have one too, the Landwehr. That name usually referred to reserves, but the Austrian Landwehr, at least theoretically, was a first-line formation, too. Austrians regarded the creation of the Landwehr as an unfortunate result of Hungarian special pleading. They did not intend to spend much attention or money on it. That is why recruits for the Landwehr did not have to serve for three years, but only for a much shorter period, generally eight weeks, and then two or three weeks for exercises every year.5 In the first two decades, the Landwehr was a skeleton force. It was only in 1889 that its share of recruits was fixed at 10.000 men (compared with more than 60.000 recruits from Cisleithania for the common army).
Special rules applied to Dalmatia. The young men of the coastal population had to serve in the navy. The hinterland did not have to send any recruits to the “common” army at all; they only had to support two Landwehr battalions.6 Thus, to all intents and purposes, Dalmatia got off lightly. However, those comparative advantages were not adequately communicated to the Bocchese. Their Member of Parliament, Stjepan Ljubiša,7 had raised the issue during the parliamentary debates about the Army Law. He promised to comment on the results once the Landwehr was discussed – but he did not do that.8 Apparently, military service was still associated with the old system where recruits had to serve eight years or longer.9 There was a stray newspaper report that maybe the riots had started when a feckless officer had actually created the impression that the few recruits, who had shown up, were actually destined to serve for three years, like the army, after all.10
Moreover, the locals insisted on their old rights from the Venetian period that freed them from any military service whatsoever. In fact, that was why they had been exempted from serving in the “common” army. But they still resented the possibility that they might have to serve outside their districts – or wear uniforms that deviated from local customs. Unbeknown to them, during the summer of 1869, the Emperor’s Military Chancellery already debated whether the Dalmatian Landwehr should not be re-organized along the lines of a purely local “levée en masse”-style militia that could provide 10.000 men – as they had done in 1859 or 1866 – rather than a single battalion. Colonel Friedrich Beck, as the head of the Militärkanzlei (and future long-term Chief-of-Staff),11 stressed that one had to avoid any compulsion (ungewohnten Zwang) and use all possible means to popularize the new institution.12 But none of these benign ideas were known to the locals. Nor were the authorities in Vienna told about the trouble brewing in the Boka. Everything indicated a break-down of communications, or at least that was the way everybody tried to explain their actions (or inaction) in retrospect.13
With hindsight, it counted as a grave sin of omission by Dalmatian governor Johann von Wagner that he did not even leave his ship when he visited Kotor on 22 September 1869. He certainly made no attempt to convince the community leaders of the government’s willingness to accommodate local customs and traditions.14 As a result, when the gendarmerie tried to enforce the registration of recruits two weeks later, the locals resisted by force. They burned the records; recruits fled into the mountains. Already on 3 October, Major General Georg Dormus, in command of the division stationed in southern Dalmatia, reported: “All popular gatherings have been banned but are taking place nevertheless. The authorities are unable to uphold the prohibition. The success of these actions quite visibly acts as a boost to the renitence.” Only military intervention could re-establish law and order. The civilian district captain, Emil Franz, supported that conclusion wholeheartedly: “As long as the locals are not disabused of their reputation of invincibility, scenes like these will be re-enacted at every possible opportunity.”15
The number of armed insurgents in the Boka kotorska district was estimated at around 5000, even if with hindsight an expert put the number of riflemen among them at no more than 1500.16 The army units under the command of Dormus numbered seven battalions, or roughly 3.500 men.17 From the very first, many of the locals had taken care to send their families and movable possessions into neighbouring Montenegro. In return, their ranks might well be reinforced by friends and allies from across the border. Both commanders on the spot, Dormus and Wagner, together with an influential part of metropolitan opinion suspected that the grievances about the draft served as a pretext only.18 In their opinion, the real problem was the pan-Slavic agitation from abroad, Montenegro or maybe even Russia. That is why they thought an overwhelming show of force was needed. When the Ministry of War resolved to send two more regiments (six battalions) to the Boka, Wagner was not impressed. These puny reinforcements did not meet his expectation of the “strong forces” required.19 Dormus, too, reckoned that at least 10.000 men were needed.
In the meantime, the army had suffered its first casualties. At the northern-most tip of the Boka kotorska territory, in an area called the Krivošije, there was an isolated outpost, 10-15 miles from the sea, held by 40-odd men, Fort Dragalj, that was besiged by the insurgents and cut off from supplies. When Dormus tried to re-supply the beleaguered garrison on 7 October, his column was severely harassed and proved unable to reach their destination. “An unseen enemy” made movements difficult, as he complained. On the way back to the sea, at Risan, one of his officers, Lieutenant Ladislaus Rinek, was wounded and had to stay behind. He was stabbed to death and his body mutilated by the rebels (maybe only because he had started firing from his pistol first?). On 9 October, a state of emergency was declared. Another expedition, ten days later, was also forced to turn back. Only on the third attempt did the army succeed in re-provisioning Dragalj on 25 October.20
On 21 October, the rebels managed to surprise another outpost, Fort Stanjević, to the south of Kotor, by slipping in disguised as a supply column. Thus, they even managed to get hold of three cannons.21 A few days later, the garrison was granted safe passage. Strangely enough, that act of generosity was not interpreted in a friendly spirit, but regarded as a tell-tale sign that foreign officers used to the rules of war between civilized countries, must have master-minded the operation. Left to their own devices, it was insinuated, the insurgents would surely have cut off the noses of their victims.22 A few days later, several hundred insurgents surrounded the coastal town of Budva, and could only be driven off by the help of the navy’s artillery.
The Emperor, the Colonel and the Captain
When the Emperor first heard of the revolt and the ambivalent results of the rescue operation, rather predictably, he was not amused. In his first known reaction, on 8 October, he seemed to favour a hard line. He held Wagner responsible for restoring peace in the Kotor district by all means, “in a decisive manner and the shortest possible time”. Wagner could ask for any number of reinforcements if needed.23 In the same vein, two days later, he added that the reparations should be speeded up to enable the army to deliver “a decisive blow”. The Ministry of War was given full powers to issue all necessary orders without having to check with the Emperor first.24 The next day, 11 October, the Austrian Cabinet unanimously expressed its willingness to support the army’s efforts. Baron Franz Kuhn, the Minister of War, argued for urgency to proceed with “the utmost energy” and was duly empowered to make all the arrangements he thought were required from a military point of view.25
However, Franz Joseph’s reference to Wagner’s responsibility was a double-edged sword; it referred not just to his future tasks but apparently also to his past (in)action. On 23 October, the Emperor noted that his initial view had been confirmed, namely that the entire trouble was due to the clumsiness of the administration.26 Who had confirmed these suspicions? Wagner and Kuhn were unlikely to have done so. But Franz Joseph’s right-hand man, Colonel Beck, had immediately dispatched one of his subordinates to the Boka; Captain Gustav Thömmel (1829-1902) was an amazing figure. Very unusual for an officer in such close proximity to the Emperor, he had served with the Hungarian Honved in 1848, and later on, he had been seconded to a Bosnian consulate in the early 1860s and written a book about his experience (Beschreibung des Vilajet Bosnien, 1867).27 He had also become friendly with Prince Nikita of Montenegro. Thömmel arrived in Kotor on 12 October, and sent the first rather alarming report the next day and immediately went on to visit Nikita.28
Thömmel put a completely different spin on events than the local commanders. First of all, he praised the loyal attitude of Nikita, who had even offered to send supplies to Fort Dragalj. Austria-Hungary should reciprocate by forwarding the breech-loading rifles Montenegro had ordered some time ago.29 On 22 October, he stated his conviction that it was fairly certain that the unfortunate circumstances in the Boka were due to local causes, thus presumably prompting Franz Joseph’s reaction, mentioned above. But Thömmel was not content with a diagnosis; he also suggested a remedy. The real culprit was the civilian district commissioner Franz. Things could only take a turn for the better, if he were to be removed. In his opinion, the ideal person to restore obedience was his former boss as the consul general in Sarajevo (1862-65), Colonel Stjepan Jovanović,30 who should ideally combine civil and military authority in the district.31
As it turned out, Beck was quite willing to follow Thömmel’s advice. However, at the same time he was only too conscious that the way his trouble-shooter was busy undermining the position of the Dalmatian elite was highly irregular. That is why he warned the captain to be careful about sending too many telegrams or creating the impression of interfering with operations. But Thömmel was undeterred. He was a firm believer that the locals would only respect charismatic leadership. Even if he pretended that it cost him a lot of “Überwindung” (self-denial) before he could bring himself to say so, he issued a vote of no confidence not just in the district commissioner but also against Wagner, Governor and Commanding General of Dalmatia, who simply did not have enough authority to handle the situation.32 In fact, Thömmel did not need to worry. As far as fighting the insurrection was concerned, Wagner was already on his way out.
Thömmel’s first batch of reports had arrived at a crucial period of time. On 25 October, Franz Joseph entered the Orient Express and went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, as a prelude to the opening of the Suez Canal.33 His later instructions followed from exotic destinations like Athens, Constantinople or Jerusalem. Before he left, the Emperor presided over the last meeting with his common ministers. Their conclusions were then discussed and implemented during the two meetings of the Austrian Cabinet on 25 and 30 October.34 Meanwhile, decision-makers have come to terms with a much longer period of military operations than the “decisive blow” originally envisaged. The change of perspective also led to a change of commanders; and general Dormus, who had fallen sick, was ordered to return to his divisional headquarters in Dubrovnik. Wagner too was supposed to return to his duties as the civil governor of Dalmatia. The move could be seen as an adjustment along the lines of “back to normality”. It could also be interpreted as a sign that the actions of the two generals had not met with unlimited approval. Wagner tried to make the most of the one week left to him before the arrival of his successor by conducting a controversial sweep of the territory to the South-East of Kotor, the Zupa. In a parting shot, he also reiterated his suspicions about the treasonable tendencies of Orthodox priests, who had supposedly promised the insurgents a foreign help.35
Wagner had also managed to get into a feud with Captain Georg Millosicz the commander of the naval units sent to the Boka (who by 1870 had worked his way up from a seaman to a Rear Admiral).36 In fact, the navy was indispensable as they had to ferry troops around the Boka, especially as the highly subsidized commercial shipping company Austrian Lloyd refused to carry ammunition to the Boka.37 The navy sent no less than ten ships to the Boka, all of them smaller units, such as gun boats or paddle-steamers that were used as transports but – just like sailing ships – often had to wait for clement weather to cross the Adriatic. During the heavy traffic within the Boka some of their boilers gave out. Wagner complained about Millosicz’s “hot-blooded and overhasty temperament”. The captain did not inspire trust that he would act with “calm and foresight.”38 Indeed, Millosicz made no bones about his conviction that the only way to achieve a satisfactory end to the rebellion was to systematically destroy the dwellings of the locals. He gave orders that his ships should make ample use of their fire-power and act energetically without asking too many questions. What was wanted were 24 lb-shrapnels for mortars to cover the heights.39
The ill-fated Dormus was going to be replaced by Colonel Baron Anton Schönfeld, a high-flyer who rose to Chief-of-Staff within half-a-dozen years.40 But who should replace Wagner as C-in-C in the Boka? The search for his successor was no routine affair. There were all sorts of candidates mentioned in more or less guarded terms by the rumour mill. The Neue Freie Presse warned that an adherent of pan-Slavic ideas would be no suitable candidate to lead a campaign against a South Slavic rebellion.”41 At least with hindsight, it is easy to guess whom the paper was referring to. Thömmel had originally sung the praises of Colonel Jovanović, who was already serving in Kotor. But Jovanović was too close to the action; the same day that Beck urged Kuhn to appoint him, on 25 October, he was wounded by a bullet in his leg and had to be transferred back to Vienna.42
Writing from Constantinople, Beck admitted that the situation was difficult to evaluate from afar but suggested General Gabrijel Rodić as a replacement. Rodić certainly fulfilled the requirements of a charismatic figure, besides his obvious South Slav credentials. He was not just an officer in the border regiments (like Jovanović) but had earned his spurs as the adjutant of Ban Josip Jelačić, the Croatian standard-bearer in 1848/49. Kuhn turned the corner just in time when he appointed General Count Gotfried Auersperg instead who was also supposed to combine civil and military functions.43 Auersperg’s name, too, sounded almost like a political programme. He was not just a distant relative of Prince Karl of Auersperg, the Liberal Prime Minister, he also was an in-law of the Neuwalls, a family of prominent Brünn/Brno Liberals and thus distantly related to the Liberal Minister of the Interior, Karl Giskra.44
When Kuhn put in his report to the Emperor on 30 October, he reassuringly added that the number of troops in the Boka was sufficient, and that there were no problems with supply and equipment. In the meantime, another five battalions had been delayed by bad weather, but in the end they safely reached Kotor. The number of troops thus reached the 10.000 men Dormus had called for in the beginning. However, a few days earlier, Kuhn had still asked his subordinates to make plans for augmenting the forces in the Boka to 20.000 men.45 In a private conversation, one of his critics later claimed that these were plans not for dealing with the insurrection but for enlarging the operation to include an occupation of Montenegro. Kuhn made no bones about his intention of doing away with Montenegro. In August, he had written that the South Slavic nations represented the future, but a future that had to be postponed as long as possible.46 The idea of fighting Montenegro was popular with the Vienna press who called the Principality “a useless robber-state” and advocated a joint campaign with the Turks to chastise – or maybe even annex – the Black Mountains.47
Relations with Montenegro were ambivalent. The shots of Sarajevo have immortalized the image of Serbia as the inveterate antagonist of the monarchy in the Balkans. But in those balmy hey-days of the Obrenović dynasty, relations between Belgrade and Budapest could hardly be better. Tiny Montenegro, however, counted as Russia’s most loyal follower, thus as a hotbed of Pan-Slavic intrigues. The Foreign Office – and even Wagner – agreed that Prince Nikita’s personal loyalty was beyond any doubt.48 But what about his unruly subjects? The Neue Freie Presse gleefully re-printed a notice from the Czech Narodni listy that Nikita had told his Senate that he would be unable to prevent his people from participating in the conflict if the fighting continued.49
The Liberals: Culprits or Scapegoats?
When Franz Joseph returned from the Middle East, in what could almost be termed a U-turn, he insisted that he wanted the dispute to be settled peacefully, if possible. Prime Minister Taaffe had even suggested that on his return journey from Egypt the Emperor, who passed the Lower Adriatic between 30 November and 1 December, should either stop at Kotor or receive a delegation once he arrived in Trieste.50 The Emperor’s U-turn was part of the death knells of the Liberal “Citizen’s Cabinet”, the one and only full-blooded Liberal ministry Franz Joseph ever appointed. Contrary to conventional stereotypes, it was not the “brass hats” who proved to be the hard-liners committed to fighting a rebellion, but the “top hats”, the civilian Liberals, especially their left wing, headed by Carl Giskra, the former Mayor of Brünn. After all, the German Liberals were committed centralists who wanted to do away with quaint regional privileges, from Bohemian States Rights to old Venetian customs in what was often called Austrian Albania.
All politics is local, as the saying goes; German bureaucrats may have been obtuse and plodding, but both the army and the Slavs could easily agree on a more convenient scape-goat. They blamed the hard-core of Italian wire-pullers in the Dalmatian capital, in particular Luigi/Alois Lapenna, a senior judge who served as the speaker of the Diet and occasionally also as a member of the Vienna Parliament, and Girolamo/Hieronymus Alesani, who was the ranking civil servant in charge of Dalmatia’s administration.51 Governor Wagner himself (who had been born in the Military Frontier and owned an estate in Croatia) was not really regarded as such an inveterate enemy of the Slavs. He made great play with his merits in terms of extending Slavic language to secondary schools.52 But he was generally seen as a malleable – and often intoxicated – tool in the hands of Alesani and his clique. Gossip-mongers would add a cherchez la femme to these accusations. Alesani was believed to be carrying on an affair with Wagner’s wife.53 A few days after the start of the rebellion, the Slavic opposition in the Diet had fielded interpellations highlighting the grievances of the Boka. The Italian-Autonomist majority decided to play the ultra-patriotic card and use the opportunity to discredit the Croats as stooges of Pan-Slavism. They tried to force the government’s hand and started to boycott the Diet, arguing that they were not going to listen to such treasonous talk at a time of crisis.54
However, when the Dalmatian Autonomists appealed to their centralist allies in Vienna, they ran the danger of hitching their fortunes to a lost cause, i.e. to a ministry that was going to be shipwrecked a few weeks later. The Liberal Cabinet was on the point of disintegrating; unfortunately for them, their leader, Prince Karl of Auersperg, had already deserted them a year earlier. His successor as Prime Minister was none other than Count Edward Taaffe, no Liberal but a man above party and the Emperor’s confidant. Long before Taaffe headed the conservative Ministry of the Iron Ring during the 1880’s, the Neue Freie Presse thundered: “The biggest mistake of the Liberals was to have tolerated Taaffe’s rise to the top.”55 Taaffe, the Polish Minister of Agriculture, Count Alfred Potocki, and the Liberal maverick Johann Nepomuk Berger favoured a compromise with the Slavic federalists who either boycotted parliament (like the Czechs) or threatened to do so in the near future, if their wishes were not gratified (like the Poles). But the hardliners on the Left did not want to accept any measure of “devolution”. Giskra wanted to save the situation with a move forward by switching to direct elections of the Imperial parliament, thus bypassing the regional diets, but found himself isolated in the Cabinet. Even Eduard Herbst, the powerful leader of the big battalions of the Bohemian Germans, objected to at least part of his proposals. Franz Joseph neatly turned the tables on the Liberals when he ruled that Giskra’s electoral reform bill was at least as much of a deviation from the straight and narrow path of the constitution as his opponents’ overtures to the federalist opposition.56
Unfortunately, almost all the minutes of the Cabinet meetings in late 1869 were burned during another near-insurrection, the (in)famous left-wing Vienna riots of 15 July 1927. What did survive is the agenda of their meetings. The situation in the Boka duly formed a recurrent item on the agenda, appearing no less than nine times between October and December 1869.57 A book by a journalist based on press-cuttings and oral history claimed that, during the crucial meetings, two of the middle-of-the-road Liberals, Arthur von Hasner, a bilingual resident of Prague, and Ignaz von Plener – one of Herbst’s rivals – changed course and sided with Taaffe rather than their unloved Liberal colleagues.58 Plener kept up a running commentary of events in letters addressed to his son Ernst. But unfortunately, from the point of view of historians, Plener junior was allowed to join his father who was part of the Emperor’s entourage travelling to Egypt. That is why no letters were exchanged between the two between July and December 1869.59
Franz Joseph’s conversion from “hawk” to “dove”, fuelled by his suspicions about the blunders of the Liberal ministry and its minions, first made itself felt on 10 November, when he reacted to the news of Wagner’s last-minute campaign in the Zupa with a telegram from Jerusalem; it should at all times be kept in mind that “we are dealing with our own country-men”. Heavy punishments as a deterrent should be restricted to absolutely necessary cases. Collaboration with the Ottoman Empire – even use of its territory – should as far as possible be avoided.60 On 17 November, Franz Joseph attended the opening of the Suez Canal, on 25 November he climbed the pyramid of Gizeh. During the week the Emperor spent in Egypt, the situation in the Boka kotorska had gone from bad to worse. If the Emperor had been content to leave matters to the Ministry and the Liberals as long as the going was good, he changed course when they messed up.
Auersperg had taken over from Wagner on 8 November. He had actually served in the Boka himself a quarter of a century earlier. Even more to the point, his Chief-of-Staff, Major Alphons von Kodolitsch, had probably had more experience of guerrilla warfare than any other officer in the Austrian Army; he had served in the volunteer corps sent to support the Emperor’s brother Maximilian in Mexico, fighting insurgents in the mountains between Vera Cruz and Puebla between 1864 and 1866.61 Auersperg and Kodolitsch were not content with “more of the same”; they were disposed to be critical of Wagner and did not indulge in conspiracy theories about Pan-Slavic subversion. But – as the Neue Freie Presse acidly commented – all these lessons had apparently been in vain.
Between 16 and 21 November, Auersperg had undertaken another expedition (“a five days’ campaign”) to Fort Dragalj. He prided himself on having provided Dragalj with sufficient supplies for ninety days, but the operation almost ended in disaster. Auersperg himself and his headquarters narrowly escaped capture when crossing a narrow stretch of road in a mountain valley. One of his defenders belittled the event; they had all “laughed and made jokes about that little adventure.” Only part of their baggage had been lost, when the mules bolted.62 But Auersperg’s own report included all the stereotypes of guerrilla warfare; as darkness fell “the beastly inhabitants” had attacked his columns like “hungry wolves”. The biggest difficulty of the operation was that one was never presented with a “tangible object”. “The enemy turns up suddenly where he is least expected and vanishes just as rapidly.” Of course, reinforcements might help, but then logistics also presented problems. There were simply not enough mules in the whole province for the transport of the supplies. Moreover, as Auersperg hastened to warn his superiors, there was no possibility of conducting any further operations until the end of February because of adverse weather conditions.63
The same day, on the other end of the Kotor district, a company left behind by Schönfeld had been decimated; less than two dozen survived. For the first time news from the Boka was the sort of material that made headlines. The leader of the Neue Freie Presse on 27 November opened with the line: “The rebellion has taken a turn that must be painful and embarrassing for every Austrian heart...” In a slightly schizophrenic approach, the newspaper combined an ultra-hawkish attitude towards the rebels with traditional Liberal scepticism about the arrogance of the military. It was enraged when army spokesmen put the blame for the reverses at the door of the Liberals who had insisted on cuts in the army budget. The way the army leaders managed their business, increasing their budget amounted to throwing good money after bad. The paper’s arm-chair strategists thought it was folly to try and fight the rebels from the shore. To crush the insurgents the Austrians had to occupy the high ground quite literally, by cutting the rebels off from Montenegro, that nest of robbers (no matter what their Prince said). Ottoman help should not be discouraged. In order to drive the insurgents into the sea, a flanking movement should be started from Dubrovnik – a plan that obviously involved crossing the Turkish territory.
“A Justice of Peace”: Enter Rodić
Franz Joseph thought differently. With the Greco-Ottoman crisis over Crete barely over, and a rapprochement with Russia in the offing, he and his Foreign Secretary, Count Friedrich von Beust, were against opening a Pandora’s box of the Balkans’ feuds and all its ramifications by intervening in Montenegro.64 Thömmel provided a brief with a few statistics that – at any other time – could have come straight from the offices of the cost-cutting Liberals. He calculated that 16.000 to 18.000 men had already been sent to fight no more than 1500 rifles of the insurgents, at a cost of 2 to 3 million florins (fl.). If the operations were to include Montenegro, the total would have to be raised to 40.000-50.000 men, with an expenditure of up to 50 million fl.65
Rather than escalating the conflict to protect the army’s prestige, the Emperor opted for pacification – and returned to Rodić as a “justice of the peace”. On 26 November, Rodić – at that time commanding a division in Transylvania – received orders to leave his pregnant wife and travel to Vienna as soon as possible. The ground had been prepared for him by Jovanović, after all, a former adjutant of his, who believed that things would be alright in no time at all, if only Rodić were to appear in the Boka.66 The two of them were busy exchanging letters. His leg-wound had not prevented the Colonel from making the rounds in Vienna. Archduke Albrecht, Inspector General of the Army, had even visited Jovanović in hospital and encouraged him to go and see Prime Minister Taaffe in person.67
Originally, Rodić should not have been entrusted with the command of the forces in the Boka, but only act as a “pacificator” and the Imperial plenipotentiary. The Emperor’s return might help the authorities to save face. It could be claimed that Franz Joseph had only watched events from afar. Now that he had returned, he could take matters into his own hands. Kuhn, as the Minister of War, was very much in two minds about the Rodić mission; according to Rodić’s diary notes, he still blamed Pan-Slavic agitators for the revolt and pursued his will of a wisp of a campaign against Montenegro. But he accepted the decision to use the seasonal lull of campaigns for a compromise solution. After all, the army had retired to their winter bivouac on 22 November. For the next few weeks no operations were planned. If successful, Kuhn hinted that Rodić might then be appointed governor of Dalmatia as a replacement for Wagner.68
Rodić himself initially feared that he was going to be set up as a scape-goat. He could not guarantee a successful outcome of his mission. In fact, he listed a number of rather far-reaching conditions that he insisted must be met if he were to have any chance of success. The least controversial was that he should be entitled to proclaim a general amnesty. Moreover, as a sweetener the amnesty was to be combined with generous payments to the inhabitants of the Boka whose property had suffered during the fighting. The pardoned rebels also had to be allowed to keep their weapons. On a political level, the Landwehr Bill had to be revised and the administrative personnel in Dalmatia replaced. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the military prowess of the rebels was to be translated into a political triumph.
When Rodić turned up in Vienna, the Emperor was still on the high seas. But Rodić was immediately received by Archduke Albrecht, who had already complained about Wagner’s “colossal blunders” to Taaffe a week before.69 The Inspector General was unhappy with the pretensions of the German Liberals and quoted as being in favour of upholding the Slavic element. He promised Rodić that he would find a receptive audience with the Emperor. Franz Joseph received Rodić the day after his arrival in Vienna, on 7 December. He accepted Rodić’s plan in principle, but worried whether such pacification would prove to be more than a stopgap solution. He also wished to limit the damage to the prestige of the monarchy and preserve the illusion of authority. That is why the rebels had to be persuaded to ask for a pardon. If everything else failed, one could always fall back on “extreme measures”.70
The concessions to the insurgents were ratified by a conference of ministers the next day (8 December).71 The suspension of the Landwehr Bill had already been urged on Taaffe by Berger two weeks earlier. Berger, the one Liberal colleague who sided with Taaffe, believed that parliament would not object to such a solution dictated by the facts.72 A modification of the Landwehr Bill could be justified by pointing to the Tyrolian example, where ancient privileges that restricted the Landwehr’s duties to the defence of the province, had also been respected. The confiscation of the rebels’ weapons should be dropped without actually saying so (stillschweigend); Rodić was to be given 20.000 fl. to compensate or bribe the locals. The Emperor himself insisted that Wagner had to go. He claimed that he had already warned against his appointment in 1868 when Giskra had insisted upon the removal of the Slavic governor Franz/Franjo von Filipović (Philippovich).73
The only dissident voice was Giskra who arrived late for the conference. He was opposed to returning the weapons to the rebels and defended Wagner. Pacification was acceptable, but it should not turn into a simple surrender before the insurgents. He also filed all sorts of legal arguments to obstruct Rodić’s appointment. The creation of the position of an Imperial Commissioner had to be approved by the Reichsrat. Franz Joseph countered by raising his bid; in that case Rodić should immediately be appointed a governor. But as a governor he would not be allowed to dispense Imperial pardons, Giskra claimed. In an aside not covered by the minutes, according to Rodić’s notes, the exasperated Emperor complained that in such a manner it was impossible to govern at all. The confrontation assumed certain significance given that Taaffe and Giskra were in the process of submitting rival memoranda to Franz Joseph about electoral reform and relations with the Slavs.
As a result, Rodić (who refused to serve under Giskra, anyway) was promoted to provisional military commander. Thus, he only had to report to the Ministry of War, not to the Austrian government. Wagner was made to resign on 12 December. The position of the governor was to be left vacant for the time being in order to avoid adverse comments (Dissonanzen) in parliament (where the Dalmatian MPs elected in 1867 all belonged to the Italian party). To make sure Rodić faced no obstruction from the civilian authorities, Bruno Fluck, who had already served in Dalmatia for twenty years, was appointed as a provisional head of the administration in Dalmatia. Fluck was a career civil servant from the Austrian part of Silesia, but married to a Carniolan baroness with a Slovene background. Against Giskra’s objections, he was awarded the title of a “Sektionschef”, the top rank among civil servants.74
The only remaining difficulty, typically enough, had to do with money. It was an open question whether the operations of the army in the Boka were to be paid from the funds of the “common” army or from the purely “Austrian” budget. Franz Joseph had from the very beginning opted for the latter option as the army was just assisting the Austrian civil administration.75 But who was to pay for Rodić’s special funds, the compensations or gratifications offered to the insurgents? The rebels presumably wanted cash, not financial instruments. Rodić was adamant that he would not leave without a sufficient supply of coins. However, Taaffe, whose ministry was disintegrating rapidly, was not disposed to generosity. The Emperor acted as a deus ex machina. In an acerbic note, Beck told the ministry if they could not find anybody who would take it upon himself to authorize the expenditure, the Emperor would pay from his private funds. On 19 December, Thömmel arranged another audience with Franz Joseph who told Rodić that in case of need he should simply send him a telegram.76
All is well that ends well: “The Comedy of Submission”
On 21 December, Rodić and Fluck left Vienna for Trieste. On Christmas Eve they arrived to Zadar, where Rodić met Wagner, who was unable to understand why people were blaming him. Rodić criticised his last minute sweep of the Zupa but found mitigating circumstances; as long as Lapenna and his followers dominated the Diet, probably no governor could have done better.77 Rather unexpectedly, Wagner also faced criticism from die-hard centralists; allegations surfaced that he had met Serbian emissaries, who were trying to build a potentially irredentist network in Bosnia that might be used by the Austrians if it ever became necessary.78 The real target of this campaign was the Foreign Secretary Beust, who played an ambivalent part in the fall of the Citizens’ Cabinet and who was suspected of supporting an opening to the Slavic Right. On that issue, however, Wagner was able to take cover behind Franz Joseph who did his best to squash any discussion about these behind-the-scenes manoeuvres.79
On 30 December Rodić finally arrived to Kotor. He had not been to Dalmatia for a number of years, but he made use of a network of local personalities opposed to the current ruling circles. Thömmel had already introduced Georg/Djordje Vojnović, the Podesta of Castelnuovo/Herceg Novi, who was an opposition leader in the Diet, to Beck to prepare the ground for Rodić’s mission. However, the real “man for all seasons” was Vojnović’s colleague from Budva, Stjepan Ljubiša, who appeared to be everybody’s darling – or, the spider in the net, pulling strings. Even Auersperg and Schönfeld started to sing his praises. Ljubiša had been elected to the Reichsrat, but fallen out with the Autonomist party. He had sent Giskra a report detailing the sins of his former allies. Rather conveniently, Ljubiša also had a brother who served as a top cleric (archimandrit) in Montenegro. He also helpfully suggested that he knew the commander of the Montenegrin border guards who was both “approachable and greedy”.80
On his way to Kotor, Rodić had sailed on a ship commanded by a certain Captain Gjurković, a business partner of the Tripković family and a native of Risan, the starting point of all the expeditions against the Krivošije. Gjurković had already tried to put Auersperg in touch with the rebels two months earlier but has been arrested by the controversial district commissioner Franz for his troubles.81 Second time lucky, he lost no time to meet the rebel leaders; apparently, he spent the night from 1 to 2 January 1870 negotiating with them. Even though some of them opposed the idea of throwing themselves at the government’s mercy, they agreed to meet Rodić at Knežlaz. On 3 January, Rodić was met by roughly thirty men who received him, as he put it, in a pleasingly devout manner. He demanded a show of remorse and submission. In turn, they made it clear that serving in the militia and handing in their weapons was tantamount to ruin and perdition. But after listening patiently for a long time, Rodić claimed the rebel spokesmen became more “trusting and reasonable” in the end.82
Rodić warmly recommended acceding to their demands. After all, carrying arms was “notoriously indispensable” to the locals. He waited impatiently for Taaffe’s reaction. In the meantime, both factions within the Cabinet had handed in their resignations, however, they had been confirmed in office while Franz Joseph was pondering about a solution to the crisis.83 On 5 January, Auersperg told Rodić that Taaffe appreciated his efforts. However, as far as the Landwehr Law was concerned, for reasons of constitutional nature, a formal declaration that it would not apply to the Boka could not be issued before the competent constitutional bodies had met.84 But there was no objection to Rodić calming the people in a suitable manner (in angemessener Weise beruhigen).85
Thus encouraged, Rodić went ahead. The ceremony of submission was enacted in Knežlaz on 11 January. Rodić gave a speech in native language, sharply admonishing his listeners for their unruly behaviour. The rebels then with all signs of grief laid down their weapons. They were immediately allowed to take them back, for the purpose of self-defence. The only point of contention arose when some of them demanded a written patent, enshrining the Imperial concessions. Rodić airily dismissed their demand; an Emperor did not cut deals with his subjects. The rebels did not insist. They saw Rodić off with “Živio!” as he boarded his boat in Risan. Gjurković was enthusiastic and told Rodić that he deserved another order of Maria Theresa for his efforts.86
The “comedy of submission”87 enacted at Knežlaz was greeted with outrage by the metropolitan public, but it was overshadowed by an outbreak of open warfare between the feuding factions of the Ministry; the two rival memoranda were published on the following day, 12 January. Taaffe’s resignation was accepted three days later. The rump of the Liberals soldiered on until the end of March. As a compensation for the criticism directed at him, Wagner succeeded Taaffe as Minister of Defence in the new cabinet. Few days after his appointment, a parliamentary committee discussed the situation in the Boka and the (in)adequacy of the government’s reaction to it. Neither side had a good word to say about the handling of the insurgency. Poles and the left wing of the Liberals emphasized that the government obviously lacked foresight, others criticized that the episode ended in a manner that was harmful to the image of the Government. Apparently, even Ljubiša talked of a “surrender”. But as Taaffe, who had been formally in charge of the Austrian Ministry of Defence at the time of the rising, was out of office by now, even Giskra insisted that the committee avoid all recriminations, in the end.88
Even so, the Hasner cabinet – and Wagner’s tenure – did not last long. On 19 March, Franz Joseph rejected their plan to submit an Electoral Reform Bill to the Parliament.89 At the end of March, a number of parties, from Poles to Tyroleans, decided to join the Czech boycott of the Parliament.90 Prime Minister Hasner asked for dissolution of the Diets trying his luck with appealing to the voters. Franz Joseph refused to go along with that strategy. He asked Count Alfred Potocki to form a government above party, to find a compromise solution between centralist and federalist positions. Potocki’s mission failed, as did his successor Hohenwart’s attempt to bring about a more clear-cut federalist reform.91 In the autumn of 1871 the pendulum swung back towards the Liberals, but Liberals of a more circumspect persuasion. Franz Joseph supposedly vowed: “I’ll never agree to another Citizens’ Cabinet”.92
Austria enjoyed a few more years of Liberal rule, until the conflict about the occupation of Bosnia drove them away from the commanding heights for good.93 But in Dalmatia the turning point of 1870 turned out to be a definite one. As soon as Giskra had left the Ministry, Rodić was officially appointed as the Governor – and he remained in that position for the next eleven years, until his retirement in 1881 (when Jovanović took over).94 In 1875, he joined Franz Joseph who toured the Dalmatian countryside and gave hostages to fortune by meeting with the Christian refugees from Ottoman Bosnia.95 The tiny Italianised elite in Dalmatia could only hope to hold their own, if they were supported from Vienna. That kind of support was no longer forthcoming. Even before Rodić’s appointment, Fluck had arrived with the agenda of clearing the way for a new majority.96 He also put a few of the reforms into operation that Thömmel had suggested, such as replacing district commissioner Franz and appointing liaison officers (Exposituren) to the outlying communities of the Boka kotorska. The state of emergency was raised.97
Rodić gained room for manoeuvre when he managed to split both the contending parties during the run-up to the first direct election to the Reichsrat in 1873.98 The Slavs came into their own – but Croats remained dependent on the support of the Serbs from the Boka. In a by-election, Fluck actually defeated Lapenna in the prestigious constituency of the highest-taxed voters of the province. Lapenna was pushed upwards a few years later, when he was appointed President of the international “tribunaux mixtes” in Alexandria.99 As far as Alesani was concerned, the Slavs’ bete noire, Rodić insisted that he had to go. Even Giskra seemed disposed to agree that Alesani would be better employed elsewhere.100 The controversial bureaucrat proved to be the proverbial man for all provinces, if not for all seasons; he was for a few years elected as an MP, too – but for the Bukovina – the crownland at the other end of Austria (but with a sizeable Orthodox population, too).
Summary: Cutting the Corners of Constitutional Propriety?
With hindsight, the insurgency in the Boka kotorska had arrived at just the right time to drive a final “nail into the coffin” of the Citizens Cabinet.101 Liberal journalists saw the hidden hand of a conservative camarilla at work behind the stirrings of discontent at the periphery, with Archduke Albrecht a favourite target of such allegations.102 Of course, it is unlikely that any of those “usual suspects” actually pulled strings to create difficulties for the Liberals in the fringes of the Black Mountains. But they made the most of it. The way the Military – out of all institutions – condoned and tolerated an insurgency that cost them more than a hundred soldiers killed in action, was surprising enough.103 Even more so, the way an agent like Captain Thömmel, as if sprung from the pages of a spy novel, leap-frogged all channels of command to roll up the Liberal front from the periphery, was well calculated to raise eyebrows.104 But then the Prime Minister of the day, Count Taaffe, even if he was on his way out, agreed with his initiatives. Giskra, as the Minister of the Interior, might have taken issue with the Emperor, when Franz Joseph forced the removal of Wagner as the Governor. However, he was waiting for a more important – and popular – issue (electoral reform) to hand in his resignation few weeks later (20 March 1870).105
There is a saying about French King Francis I after his defeat at Pavia in 1525, when he had lost everything but his honour. The peace of Knežlaz almost worked the other way round. The Monarchy had suffered a loss of prestige, but won everything else. In the end, almost everyone agreed that it was pointless to continue fighting the highlanders who had misunderstood the terms of the Landwehr Law. Franz Joseph’s U-turn was the beginning of a success story. In the future, the Serbs of the Boka kotorska proved themselves to be far from trouble-makers, although n neighbouring Herzegovina draft riots reoccurred in 1882.106 During the World War I, there was a mutiny in Kotor – but only among the naval ratings, not the local population.107
Archival Sources
– KA: Kriegsarchiv Wien
MKSM: Militärkanzlei Seiner Majestät, Box 364 (11-3, 12-3),
KM: Kriegsministerium Präs. 1869, 25-12,
MS/PK: Marinesektion/Präsidialkanzlei I-12,
Nachlass B/2:2 (Beck „memoirs”),
Nachlass B/670:7 (Diary Kuhn) Nachlass B/1100:13 (Diary Rodić).
Nachlass Plener, Box 6 (letters Ignaz to Ernst v. Plener).
Published Primary Sources
Die Insurrection in Dalmatien. Eine historisch-kritische Darstellung der österreichischen Kriegsoperationen in den Boccha di Cattaro. Vienna: Moritz Perles, 1870.
Literature
Allmayer-Beck, Johann-Christoph. Der stumme Reiter. Erzherzog Albrecht, der Feldherr “Gesamtösterreichs”. Graz: Styria, 1997.
„Amnestirana Austrija“: ustanak u Boki kotorskoj 1869./1870.
Nemiri protiv novačenja u Boki kotorskoj u jesen 1869. godine bili su značajni iz više razloga. Prije svega, činilo se da su rezultat pravih nesporazuma, jer vlada nije bila nesklona popustiti stanovnicima Boke koji nisu morali služiti standardne tri godine u „zajedničkoj“ vojsci, već samo na vrlo kratka razdoblja u Landwehr-u. Pobuna je bila iznenađujuće uspješna u vojnom smislu, jer su pobunjenici natjerali austrijsku vojsku da im prepusti Krivošije, kada su zbog zime zaustavljene operacije. Što je važnije, u političkom smislu ustanak je zapečatio sudbinu liberalnog „Građanskog ministarstva“, koje se u to vrijeme raspadalo u Beču. Car je isprva inzistirao na brzom slamanju pobuna. Liberalni ministar rata (barun Kuhn) i guverner Dalmacije (general Wagner), pokušali su provesti takvo vojno rješenje. Kuhn, koji je sumnjao da panslavenski agitatori raspiruju pobunu, čak se poigravao idejom o eskalaciji sukoba napadom na Crnu Goru. No, šef Carevog vojnog kabineta brigadir Friedrich Beck poslao je niže rangiranog satnika Gustava Thömmela u Boku da izvidi situaciju. Thömmel, poznat kao prijatelj crnogorskog kneza Nikole, na spektakularan način je preokrenuo odnos snaga. Thömmelova su izvješća zapravo potaknula cara da promijeni smjer i napravi potpuni zaokret. U prosincu, nakon što se vratio s Levanta s otvaranja Sueskog kanala, Franjo Josip povjerio je pukovniku Gabrijelu Rodiću, bivšem ađutantu bana Jelačića, zadatak da uvjeri – i potkupi – pobunjenike kako bi sklopili mir. Rodićeva inicijativa nije završila samo „komedijom pokoravanja“ prigodom sklapanja mira u Knežlazu (11. siječnja 1870.), već su on i njegov suradnik, barun Fluck, njemački karijerni činovnik, postavili temelje za revoluciju u dalmatinskoj politici , tako trajno okončavši dominaciju talijanaške „autonomaške“ stranke.
Ključne riječi: pobuna protiv novačenja; Boka kotorska; amnestija; mir u Knežlazu; general Gabrijel Rodić; brigadir Friedrich Beck; satnik Gustav Thömmel