Original scientific paper

Development of the Defence System of the Slavonic Border in the 16th Century

Milan Kruhek ; Institut za suvremenu povijest, Zagreb, Republika Hrvatska

Abstract

With the fall of Belgrade in 1521 and defeat of the Hungarian feudal army at the Mohač field in 1526, the chivalrous war game of the Middle Ages was over. War became a job of professional soldiers. Turkish military forces, well organized and armed with ever more efficient fire arms, faced Europe and the attacked countries with the necessity of finding an adequate defence.
Neither the king nor the Croatian aristocracy in Slavonia were ready to confront the Turkish military forces. An entirely new defence system had to be organized. Open battles with Turkish army and crusades could not stop the Turkish conquests.
After the defeat of Christian units led by Ivan Katzianer by Gorjani in 1537, aristocracy and the king realized that the defence of the country should be organized and commanded in a new way. So began a long period of building up the new border defence system, with border fortress as its main strongpoint. Construction of fortresses had to be such as to resist the enemy artillery. Their military garrisons had to be armed with equally effective fire arms. They had to be well supplied with military equipment and food and conducted with mature defence tactics.
Building of a defence system with such border fortresses in the area between Drava and Sava began in the middle of the 16th century. The old fortresses were restored, and completely new ones erected – fortresses with renaissance fortification contents and qualities. Fortresses in Varaždin, Koprivnica, Križevci, Ivanić and Sisak were built at that time, but also many other less important. This process was finished in greater part to 1578 (until the Assembly in Bruck on Mura) and completed by the end of the century.
At the same time the system of new military structures of the border defence forces began to develop. The basic question, i. e. the supreme command of all the defence forces at Slavonian border, was not definitely solved. The king could not deny historical right of the Croatian parliament to make sovereign decisions on the territory of Croatian state about all the questions regarding a defence war. However, the king founded his own military institutions and services that resolved the problems of his military garrisons in border fortresses. These institutions and services came into conflict with the reign of Croatian ban, because he alone, or the captain of Croatian Kingdom in his name, was allowed to command the Croatian army. The fact that the military authorities passed over to the archduke Charles (the archduke, as a member of the ruling house, should have played better the role that by that time had had the captains of the king’s auxiliary army in Croatia) did not solve the conflict with the rights of Croatian ban, because the king did not subject these two military reigns to each other, but asked for their collaboration.
Till the end of the 16th century, an entirely new system of military organization – captaincy like – was formed in the border territory between Drava and Sava. The holders of military power, captains, with seats in the main border fortresses (Koprivnica, Križevci, Ivanić) were subordinated to the supreme commander of Slavonic border, and his seat was in Varaždin. Such military system of border captaincies, although with many internal and external deficiencies, was effective and successful in stopping further Turkish conquests.
The third, equally important support of the border defence was the newly established logistic basis, i. e. a number of important background services which handled the questions of financial costs of defence, questions of supplying the border military garrisons with war equipment and food, questions of mutual connections and communications, post and intelligence services on the enemy territory. The most serious problem was the financial one. And it was solved, at least in principle and theoretically, at the Vienna Conference in 1577 and the Assembly in Bruck in 1578, when the central Austrian provinces Styria, Carniola and Carinthia, and together with them also the German countries and the king, accepted the agreement about the permanent financial support of the border defence. So, the complex defence system of the Slavonic border was based on the defence power of border fortresses, the new organization of the military forces and well organized and managed system of background services that offered logistic support to the border front. The organizing of the defence system of the Slavonic border took one half of the century. In the most difficult war years – in the last decade of the 16th century – it withstood all Turkish attacks and defended the remaining free part of the north-western Croatia, protecting at the same time Styria, Austria and south-western Hungary.

Keywords

Slavonian Border; 16th century; defence system; fortresses; Ottoman conquests

Hrčak ID:

251904

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/251904

Publication date:

15.11.1992.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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