Kingdoms of Europe - an illustrated encyclopedia

THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY 283

For long periods in their history the Hungarians have 46
been an oppressed people trying to escape imperial
Hungary as it appears today
power and foreign control. On the other hand, their
—million were Hungarian. Although Finnish is a very
efforts to control the Carpathian Basin have expressed a
determination to impose a type of Hungarian imperial distant relative of Hungarian, the two languages are not
mutually understandable; neither are the nearest Ugric
control. The Hungarians have been ethnically and lin- relatives, such as Vogul (Mansi) and Ostyak (Khanty),
guistically isolated in a region coveted by more powerful which are spoken by a few thousand herdsmen and
peoples, often in conflict with one another. fishermen living in Siberia. During the migrations of the
early Magyars, their language was influenced by contacts
Ever since the Hungarians came from the east to the with Turkic peoples and later incorporated loanwords
Carpathian Basin roughly eleven hundred years ago,
some tension has existed between the orginal Eastern from the Slavic, Germanic, and Romance languages.
cultural heritage and the new Western cultural accre- The Magyars were merely one among many of the

tions. warlike, nomadic hordes that swept into Europe from
the East, bent on conquest and plunder. Their warriors
The problem of national groups or minorities has been were as competent at fighting from horseback as were the

a recurrent factor, especially since the latter part of the Huns who preceded them or the Mongols who came

nineteenth century. During much of the past, other peo- later; but the Magyars were not as numerous as these
ples had been assimilated into Magyar culture, but in other hordes, nor, it would seem, did their leaders enter-
recent decades the ambition of the Magyars to continue tain the grandiose schemes of conquest that motivated

this process in the face of competing nationalisms had such men as Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan. The seven
been labeled "chauvinism" or "irredentism."
Hungarians oftoday are descendedfrom fierce, cruel warriors who were
Long periods of the nation's history have been marked constantly raiding their neighbors and confiscating or destroying nearly
by religious conflict. The politics of the very early period everything in their path. These Magyars, as they were called, adopted
revolved around the conflict of the original paganism and religion (Christianity) in Saint Stephens time, about a.d. 1000, and
the acquired Christianity. Paganism was defeated, but its proved to be the most mature people in the Austrian Empire.
remnants were preserved in local culture. Later, after the
emergence of Protestantism during the Reformation, a
conflict between the Roman Catholic church and the
new, more national Christianity also developed. The
struggle quickly took on political implications.

EARLY HISTORY

The Hungarians, or Magyars, arrived in the Carpathian
Basin, that is, the general area of modern Hungary, at
the end on the ninth century ad. The date usually as-

cribed by historians to this migration is 896, but it is

likely that Magyar raiding parties were already familiar
with the region from previous incursions. Before moving
into the area that eventually became their new home-
land, the Magyars had lived in the Khazar state, north
of the Black Sea, to which they had earlier migrated,
probably from the region between the great bend of the
Volga River and the Ural Mountains. Little is known
about the Magyars before they began the migration that
took them south to the Black Sea and eventually west to
the middle Danube River. Their language, which became
modern Hungarian, is of the Finno-Ugric language
group and has strong influences from the Turkic lan-
guages with which it came in contact during the Mag-

yars' indeterminate stay in the Black Sea area. These

early Magyars were a seminomadic pastoral people, who

associated in a loose tribal confederation for offense as
well as defense.

The Finno-Ugric family of languages had over 19 mil-

—lion speakers in 1970, the majority of whom over 13

284 THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

Arpad was the first chieftain of Hungary (875-907). The crown of Hungary, the one first used by Saint Stephen, has had a
stormy career since it rested on the head of the saint. The first recorded
King Stephen I on his throne time that it was "removed" from Hungary was when Countess Helen
Kottanner stole it so that Albert ITs son, born after his death in 1439,
with orb and scepter. He ruled could be crowned king ofHungary on the day ofhis birth. Alberts queen
from 997 to 1038. The Catholic performed the rite but the Hungarians refused to be governed by a baby,

Church canonized him in 1087, so they elected Ladislaus, the king of Poland, as their king. (In 1444,
and he is to this day the patron he lost his head to the top ofa lance after losing a battle with the Turks.)
saint of Hungary. Pope Hunyaadi, the great Hungarian general who survived that very battle,
Sylvester III gave him the title
of Apostolic King of Hungary had been named "governor" of Hungary by the people and officials of
and all following kings of
Hungary used the title. Hungary, but in Austria the boy, "Ladislaus of Austria, " was elected
king of Hungary, invested by the stolen crown.

Tradition holds that Pope Sylvester II gave the crown of Saint Stephen Two 1938 postage stamps ofHungary honor Saint Stephen (wearing the
to Hungary's first Christian king in the year 1000. It came to symbolize crown) and the crown itself
the essence of the Hungarian people and as such played a central role
tribes that easily and rapidly defeated the Slavs and other
in the course of Hungarian history. At the end of World War II, the
custodial guard gave over the treasure without condition to elements of
the U.S Army. This is a detailed sketch of the crown.

peoples living around the middle course of the Danube

adRiver in 896 were led by Arpad, an elected chieftain.

Although Arpad was a tribal chieftain rather than a

king, his successors later became kings of Hungary, and

the Arpad Dynasty lasted until the male line died out at

the beginning of the fourteenth century.

For the first few decades after settling along the

Danube, the Hungarian tribes seemed to consider the

area more as a base of operations than a new homeland.

The majority of the people maintained the seminomadic

—existence they had known in the East moving with

their herds from mountain pastures in summer to milder

lowlands in winter. In the meantime, marauding armies

of the tribes swept from Constantinople to the North Sea

and from southern Italy to the Pyrenees, returning with

booty and slaves but instilling fear and incurring wrath

in the countries they invaded. Finally, the Hungarians

THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY 285

The crown as it appeared in 1945 when it was turned over to the U.S.

Seventh Army for safe-keeping. The crown was returned to Hungary in

1977.

Another important crown is the ancient one from earlier rulers ofHun- A contemporary portrait of King Stephen on the back of the coronation
gary, the Monomachos crown, which is kept in the Hungarian National cloak currently stored in the Hungarian National Museum
Museum,
Roman Catholic. Stephen's later marriage to a Bavarian
suffered a catastrophic defeat by a coalition of forces of princess, the conversion to Roman Catholicism of the

the Holy Roman Empire. The defeat at Augsburg Hungarian people, and the development of a Latin al-
phabet for the Magyar language solidified the Western
proved to be a turning point in Hungarian history as the orientation of the country.
tribes ceased their depredations and became more seden-
tary along the waterways of the Carpathian Basin. After When Geza died, Stephen became ruling chieftain and
giving up their incursions into the territories of other
peoples, the Hungarians themselves endured centuries of worked strenuously to erase paganism among his people,
invasions and incursions as their adopted land proved to to convert them to Roman Catholicism, and to resist any
be a crossroads for Eastern hordes moving into Europe encroachment by the Eastern Orthodox church. As a
as well as for Germanic forces raiding the Balkans. reward Stephen received a crown from the pope (a story
doubted by some modern historians but indelibly in-
In ad. 972 Prince Geza, great-grandson of Arpad, scribed in Hungarian tradition) and, about the year ad.
became the leader of the entire Hungarian confederation 1000, became the first king of Hungary. Stephen was
and succeeded in curbing the power of the individual later canonized by the Roman Catholic church and, as
tribal chieftains. Geza, recognizing that a pagan nation Saint Stephen, became the most famous king in Hungar-
surrounded by the Eastern and Western forms of Chris- ian history. Stephen's crown was revered as the symbol
tianity would be in constant danger and fearing domina- of Hungarian nationhood until World War II.
tion from the East, admitted missionaries from the West
and permitted his son, Stephen Istvan, to be baptized a King Stephen asserted the unity of the state, the su-
premacy of the royal authority, and the need for the
unquestioning obedience of the people. Under Stephen
much of the country became crown land, personal do-
mains of the monarch from which he could derive reve-
nue as well as manpower for military service. The crown
lands remained a foundation of power for many of Ste-
phen's successors. It was also during Stephen's reign that
the vast territory of Transylvania was brought under
Hungarian hegemony.

In addition to the vast domains he already possessed,
Stephen occupied large tracts of uninhabited territories
lying between existing settlements and added land to the
royal domain. In these areas, he fortified strategic points

286 THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

Saint Stephen was succeeded by
his son-in-law, Peter Orseolo in
1038. King Peter served until
1041.

King Ladislaus I (1077-95) was Margaret of France and her husband. King Bela III (1173-96) see the
a Christian first and a Christian Crusaders off to the Holy Land.

king second He closely aligned ' <JJ"!
himself and Hungary with Pope '

Gregory VII toward the goal of
enhancing the prestige of both
royal power and the church. It
was through his efforts that Ste-
phen was canonized and soon af-
ter Ladislaus 's death he was
canonized. This is a reliquary of
King Ladislaus.

A fifteenth-century woodcut depicting King Ladislaus rescuing a fair
maiden from a Kumanian knight who was trying to abduct her. The

woodcut is based on an old legend about the king.

The seal of King Andrew II (1205-35). This golden seal was issued in
1222 as an official decree of the Golden Bull, which was a proclamation
of importance in Hungarian history. It provided that reduced taxes
would be levied against certain citizens and that there would be re-

strained ecclesiastic exploitation.

and, in time, towns grew up around the fortresses. The

king appointed administrators to guide the affairs of the
fortified areas and towns, which were embryos of future
counties, thus facilitating the development of the medi-
eval state.

In the three centuries from the coronation of Stephen
until the death of the last Arpad King in 1301, the
kingdom acquired vast new territories and assumed a

multinational, multilingual character. In addition to the

indigenous peoples who were brought under Hungarian

control, foreign colonists were invited in great numbers

to occupy the uninhabited lands of the kingdom. Many

of the peoples, particularly those from the East, were
absorbed and became completely magyarized. Others,

such as the Germans (called Saxons) who colonized

Transylvania for the Arpads in the early thirteenth cen-

In 1242, the Tatars crossed the Danube in hope of capturing or killing In this sketch, Mary ofHungary is seen being rescued by Venetians. She
the king of Hungary, Bela IV. They knew they couldn't occupy the and her mother, the widow ofLouis ofAnjou, were captured by dissidents
country because they didn 't have the organization to do it, as they were who wanted someone else on the throne. Her mother was tortured and
in the throes of the disintegration of the Mongol (Tatar) Empire and too strangled before her eyes When Louis the Great (ofAnjou) died in 1382
far from home bases This old museum miniature shows the Tatars he left no male heir to the throne ofHungary; except for Mary there was
pursuing the king. They never caught him, even though there were some no other available ruler. She found so many would-be kings that she
anxious moments The result was that Bela IV reviewed the country's could not cope with the situation. At that time, Hungary extended to the
defenses and was able to take remedial actions that safeguarded the Adriatic Sea, hence the Venetians held theirformer queen in dearfavor.
During her captivity, when her husband Sigismund was elected King of
borders for centuries. Hungary, the Venetians, having put down the Hungarian nobles who
were laying claim to the throne, came in and rescued their queen.
Mary, queen of Hungary from
1382 to 1387, was also known King Louis I, son of Charles I,
as King Mary. The daughter of was the king of Hungary from
Louis the Great, who was the
king of Poland and Hungary, 1342 to 1382. He was also the
Queen Mary was the first queen
to rule a major country in king of Poland.
Europe. The future female
monarchs based their claim on

their thrones against the

precedence of King Mary's

reign.

tury, retained their own cultures and languages and Louis I's royal palace, the Chateau de O-Zolyom

never were assimilated.

One of the most important developments in Hungar-
ian constitutional history occurred in 1222 when the
people compelled the king to sign the Golden Bull. The
Golden Bull has often been compared to the English
Magna Charta in that both documents placed limitations
upon the crown. The Golden Bull, unlike the Magna
Charta, however, was realized through the pressures of

small landholders, the so-called freemen, rather than

barons. The Golden Bull set limits on the king, but it also
had the unfortunate effect of further isolating the land-
less peasants, as they had no voice in its establishment.

Despite the Golden Bull, the thirteenth century was a
century of trouble for the country. In 1241 the Mongols
invaded Hungary, eventually gaining control of territory

288 THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

to the east and north of the Danube. This was Hungary's ert of the House of Anjou. Charles Robert gradually
first experience as a buffer state between East and West, brought some stability to the court while maintaining
but it was a costly experience in that the Western mon- peace and a measure of prosperity in the country. Under
archs allowed the Hungarians to bear the brunt of the his son, Louis the Great, Hungary extended its influence
Mongol onslaught, which actually endangered all of Eu- into the Balkans and into Poland (the throne of which
rope. Hungary stood alone, and her forces were not equal Louis also held).
to the task presented by the overpowering Golden Horde
of the Mongols. Although the Mongol invasion lasted A Atight rein was maintained on the nobility. new
only until 1242, the country was devasted and depopu-
lated. The Mongols withdrew to the Russian steppes, military system was organized in which royal forces were
from which they still presented a threat. Twice during supported by the militia of the magnates (leading nobles)
the next twenty years the Mongols offered to join the and the county forces fo the lesser nobility. Financial
Hungarians as allies, but both offers were refused as reforms, through which the state treasury became inde-
Hungary chose to retain its strongly developed Western pendent of the large estates, were accomplished. The
maintenance of the royal fortified areas was based on the
orientation. crown lands and the original counties, which became

The death of Andrew III, the last Arpad in the direct autonomous under officials appointed by the king. New

male line, initiated a period of crisis that lasted for over sources of revenue were tapped in the form of customs
two hundred years. The crises were created by growing duties, direct taxes, and a monopoly on precious metals.
Turkish pressure upon Europe, in which Hungary again
became a buffer between East and West; the Habsburg Commercial transactions with other countries were
ambition to absorb Hungary into its empire; the political improved, and by the end of the fourteenth century the
country had achieved an enviable measure of prosperity.
and social power of the great nobles who placed their As a result of a growing number of villages and towns,
a viable economy, and a flourishing of the arts and
personal welfare before that of the kingdom; and the sciences, Louis enjoyed a successful reign; moreover, his
periodic lack of effective rulers. Hungarian feudalism reissuing of the Golden Bull in 1351 helped to stabilize
reached its fullest development during this period, and
the serfs suffered as the nobles gained power. the social order.

During the more than two centuries from the end of Sigismund of Luxemburg followed the Anjous on the
the Arpad Dynasty until the Turkish conquest, Hungary
suffered from a seemingly endless power struggle, during Hungarian peasants bearing gifts offood to the king Sigismund, as was
which various royal houses of Europe vied for the crown the custom at Easter

Aof Saint Stephen. Bohemian King rapidly gave way to

a Bavarian who, in turn, was succeeded by Charles Rob-

Sigismund was already king of
Hungary (1387-1437) when he
was elected German king and

Holy Roman emperor in 1410.

THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY 289

h p»»»«>

A 1971 stamp commemorating the

450th anniversary of the death of
Prince Neagoe Basarab of Walachia

The Ville de Presburg, royal castle ofLadislaus V, King ofHungary. He 60.
was king from 1444 to 1457 and built the ville in 1453. POST/) ROMANS

King Hunyadi, historically known as Matthias Corvinus (1458-90). He *«*J

is shown here in an allegory depicting the life of his court. Hungarian throne but, because he also became the Holy
The Hungarian Diet and the Church combine to name Matthias their
Roman emperor, his interests were diffused to the detri-
king. He was crowned in 1458 when he was fifteen years of age.
ment of Hungary. At the same time, the Ottoman Turks
were becoming more menacing around the fringes of the
vast Hungarian domains. Janos Hunyadi, one of Hunga-
ry's greatest heroes, came to power as a regent and initi-
ated a long overdue policy of defense against the Turks.

He defeated them decisively at Belgrade in 1456, delay-

ing their advance into Europe for seventy years. After
Hunyadi's death, his son Matthias was elected king and
brought to the country significant talents for administra-
tion, social justice, cultural development, and military
operations at a time of great need.

Matthias Corvinus (Matyas Hunyadi), ruling from
1458 until 1490, gave Hungary a period of prosperity

and national glory. He fought the country's enemies and

established a standing army of mercenaries, which he
used as quickly against dissenting magnates as against

foreign enemies. Matthias restored the public finance
and improved the system of taxation so that the nobili-
ty's traditional exemption was eliminated, and he re-
duced the power of masters over serfs. In foreign affairs
he succeeded in becoming ruler of Bohemia, Silesia,

Moravia, Lower Austria, and other principalities. He

maintained defenses against the Turks but also recog-
nized the fundamental nature of the struggle with the
growing power of the Habsburgs. Matthias also found
time to become a great patron of the arts and of learning

in general.

After the sudden death of Matthias, the inevitable
power struggle eventually culminated in the election of

a weak king, whom the magnates could manipulate.
Many of the foreign territories that Matthias had incor-

porated broke away immediately and, internally, most of
the curbs that he had effected against the nobles were

cast aside. New law codes widened the cleavage between

the nobility and the peasantry and weakened the power
of the monarchy. Internal conditions deteriorated to the
point that, in 1514, a serious serf uprising occurred. The
uprising was suppressed with great loss of life and blood-
shed, but the reprisals that followed were even more
debilitating to the country as a whole. Tens of thousands

Coins commemorating King Matthias Corvinus The Mohacs Disaster ( 1 526). Both the internal and the externalposition
ofHungary worsened during the reign ofLouis II. The double marriage
King Louis II (1516-26) was contract of 1515, by which Archduke Ferdinand Habsburg married
the last of the kings of Ladislaus 's daughter and Louis married Ferdinands sister Maria, final-
Hungary, the end of the native ized the country's association with the Habsburgs This contract was
kings. In 1526. Hungary was made on the eve of the fight between the Habsburgs and the Turks for
divided between Turkey and the hegemony of the Mediterranean basin and central Europe. In 1519
Austria. After 1526. the only Charles Habsburg became the German emperor, but his preoccupations
native sovereigns were the in the west and the internal anarchy of the German Empire prevented
princes of Transylvania, and him from using his immense power to help Hungary against the Turks.
they came under outside Ndndorfehervdr (today Belgrade) fell in 1521.
control in 1711, when Hungary
came under Austria, and of serfs were executed because of their participation in
remained so until their the rebellion, and the conditions against which the serfs
independence in 1919. had rebelled became more burdensome than ever before.
Twelve years later, the Turkish and Hungarian armies
King Louis II was killed on met in the Battle of Mohacs, which proved to be utterly
August 29. 1526, at the Battle disastrous for the Hungarians and which initiated 150
of Mohdcs when a small, badly years of Turkish rule. Hungary never regained un-
organized Hungarian army was qualified control of the Carpathian Basin homeland that
heavily defeated by superior the original Magyars had secured over six centuries ear-
numbers of Turks.
lier.
John Zapolya, the first voivode The voivode s wife. Princess
(prince) of Transylvania Isabelle Zapolya After the defeat at Mohacs and a period of internecine
strife, Hungary was partitioned; the western and north-
V*• ern section was drawn into the Habsburg domains, the
' central area was under direct Turkish control, and Tran-
sylvania was governed by Hungarian princes under
Turkish suzerainty. The three-way partition lasted for
almost 1 50 years and finally ended in Habsburg domina-
tion rather than in independence. Hungarian nationalists
were active at all times during the long occupation; vari-
ous leaders arose to champion the cause of self-determi-
nation and, although they fought valiantly against Turks
and Austrians alike, the Hungarians could not match the
power of the Ottomans and the Habsburgs. When the
Turks were finally forced to withdraw from Hungary,
the Habsburgs were in control and forced the Hungar-
ians to accept Austrian succession to the Hungarian

crown.

The area of western and northern Hungary, ruled by
the Habsburgs during most of the Turkish period, wit-

nessed the orginal outbreak of the conflict between the

THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY 291

The prince of Transylvania,
Stephen Bathory, was also the
king of Poland.

sirs

STfPHAno-Ec-niXK^r.//

Stephen Bocskai, prince of Transylvania (1605-06), with his Haiduks. Commemorative stamps, 1975. Top to bottom: Michael in the Battle of
The Haiduks were the bands of homeless Hungarian warriors who had Calugareni, Michael the Bold, and Ottoman messengers bringing gifts
fled from the Turkish destruction and the despotism of the landlords
Prince Stephen solved the problem of the roaming bands ofHaiduks by to Michael.
alloting land to 10,000 of them and making them nobles in reward for

their military service.

Habsburg loyalists and the Hungarian nationalists, al- Protestantism had taken deep root in Hungary by the end of the six-
though the Nationalists later became associated with teenth century. With the Emperor Rudolf II being very anti-Protestant
Transylvania. As a result of the Habsburg success, the in policy, his brother Matthias, a strong Protestant, gathered an army
kingdom of Hungary began to experience a type of ab- and was able to force his views on the emperor. Here the emperor Rudolf
solutism that came to stand for foreign interference or II is conferring the crown of Hungary on Matthias in 1605. Matthias
took over the control of affairs in Hungary.
intervention.

The feudal bases of the nobility's position were becom-
ing weaker, and their ability to resist was weakened as
well. The Hungarian administrative apparatus declined,
and the chief organs of government were almost totally

staffed by non-Hungarians. Public finance, foreign

affairs, and defense of the kingdom were made subordi-

nate to those of Austria. Foreign troops were stationed
in the country, and their commanders were always for-

eigners. The diet was ineffectual and was largely reduced

to registering protests.

The chief aim of Turkish officials had been to take as
much as possible from the country in the shortest possi-
ble time. The Hungarian population was sharply re-

292 THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

Prince Gabriel Bethlen (1613-29) was one of the finest horse generals duced, and the people who survived were in a condition
of servitude. For defense purposes many left their indi-
of all Europe at the time. He proved his prowess as a cavalryman by
invading Hungary proper, but in the end he made peace with Ferdinand vidual farms and joined large cooperative farms, which
incorporated the lands of outlying farms and villages and
II of Germany.
formed the basis of new kinds of towns. Many of the
former towns almost disappeared. The people in outlying

regions often paid taxes not only to Turkish authorities
but also to Hungarian nobles.

Transylvania was able to maintain a semi-independent
status, usually balancing the power of the Turkish sultan
against that of the Habsburg emperor. The maintenance
of Hungarian culture and national independence was
promoted by a line of able princes and statesmen, such
as Gabriel Bethlen and George Martinuzzi. Their inter-
nal policies brought about a measure of religious toler-
ance that was unique in Europe at that time. The
Transylvanian princes also broadened the base of the
privileged classes, but they did not go as far as to elimi-
nate serfdom. Probably the Turks did not take over the

—principality because the gold coming from it the richest
—source of the precious metal in Europe was important

to them, and they no doubt believed that its uninter-
rupted production and receipt by the sultan's govern-
ment were more certain under conditions of
semi-independence than under absolute control. Tran-
sylvania remained as a symbol of the survival of the
Hungarian potential for independence, of both the Turks
and Habsburgs, as well as the ideal of east-central Eu-
ropean cooperation.

George Rakoczy II was the prince of Transylvania from 1648 to 1660. THE HABSBURG ERA

He operated on an anti-Habsburg policy and his master plan was to The final expulsion of the Turks and the confirmation of
Habsburg rule initiated a long struggle between the ab-
conquer Poland, which he attempted with the help ofSweden. However, solutist empire and a reviving country. In 1711 condi-
because he had poorly prepared for the campaign, he was soundly de-
feated in 1657. The Turks, standing by for decades hoping to destroy the tions were desperate. In the central areas, depopulated
independence of Transylvania, invaded Transylvania and in that war the under Turkish rule, the Austrian government introduced
prince was killed (1660). The country was laid waste and the Voivodes
were never again a serious threat to the Habsburgs. This coin is reported

to have a near likeness to the prince.

Michael Apafi although listed as a prince of Transylvania, was in reality Prince Francis Rakoczy (1704-11) was an instigator of the Insurrection
the Turkish governor and he reigned longer than any other ruler of of 1703, which was a peasant revolt. The Habsburgs offered Francis
Rakoczy the crown rather than take a chance on the revolt spreading into
Transylvania (1661-90). He was succeeded by his son Michael Apafi II
Austria.
(1690-99). Michael II abdicated in 1699 when the rule was taken over
by Habsburg Hungary.

THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY 293

alien and more docile groups to weaken the unruly Mag- tion of the nation. The group's activities culminated in
a conspiracy in 1795; the conspiracy was discovered, and
yar element. Much of the land was parceled out to for- many of those involved were executed or imprisoned.
eign beneficiaries of the monarch's favor, who were The development, however, became evidence of the need

recipients of political and social power, and some parts for reform. Also at this time the issue of the right of the
of the country were exempted from the jurisdiction of the
Hungarian people to employ their own language, espe-
diet, especially the military frontier district of the south.
cially in contact with officialdom, was expanding in im-
The state apparatus on the whole was Hungarian, al-
though for long periods the sovereign ruled by executive portance.

fiat rather than through traditional constitutional proce- During the reigns of Charles III and Maria Theresa
the Habsburgs had such a diversity of interests that it
Adures. discriminatory tariff policy was used to keep the was important for them to preserve peace in the east.
Under Charles III a permanent army was stationed in
country economically repressed in order to maintain it Hungary, administered by a war council and supported
as a source of cheap raw materials and food supplies. by a general war tax. Although Hungarian troops served
Peasants lived miserably, and the agricultural enterprise in the army, no Hungarian could reach the higher ranks.
The Royal Court Chancery and the Hungarian Deputy
of the countryside was hampered by outmoded systems Council were entirely dependent on the king. The Aus-
trians often retained control over the subordinate nation-
of land tenure. alities, and under this administration Transylvania and
Nevertheless, the Hungarian will to independence sur- Croatia were administered separately.

vived, and forces of national revival emerged. Their After a long period of political quiescence, Hungar-
origin was essentially the persistence and determination ians again opposed Austrian absolutism, and a great
at this time of the lesser nobility and small farmers in reform movement began about 1830. Count Istvan Sze-
defending the traditional rights of Hungary and Hungar- chenyi, a wealthy aristocrat, became a leader of the sec-
ians. Their activities were effective mainly on the level of ond Hungarian renaissance and led the forces of the
lesser nobility supporting evolutionary reform. More im-
county government, where many officials continued to be portantly, he became, in effect, a national educator defin-
locally elected and within whose assemblies national in- ing the situation and necessities of Hungary. Szechenyi,
terest could be maintained. At this level the effectiveness filled with religious devotion and sensitive to the forces
moving about him, called especially for the nation to
of the lesser nobility and a measure of democracy could
turn its attentions to its own weaknesses. He analyzed
be maintained.
the faults of the nobility, attacked their special privileges,
Toward the end of the eighteenth century a national
renaissance, notably in general literature and political and strove to incite them to enthusiasm for national
reform. Some of his followers were conservative and
theory, began in Hungary. Much influenced by the evolutionary in their thinking and willing to work under
the authority of the Habsburgs, but he also inspired
French, the movement opposed intolerance and fostered
those who believed that reform could be accomplished
Athe nobility's opposition to the Austrian monarchy.
only by a disestablishment of the existing political
significant aspect of the literature was its nativistic em- regime, an idea to which he was opposed. Szechenyi
phasis upon the contribution of the pagan Magyars to called for cultural, economic, and social reforms under
the mainstream of Hungarian culture. More impor- the rule of the Habsburgs rather than a revolution to
tantly, a large group of academicians, lawyers , writers, overthrow the alien rule.
and other professionals strove for the abolition of feudal
privileges and emphasized the peasantry as the founda- Whereas Szechenyi counseled economic and social im-
provement, Lajos Kossuth, a landless noble, advocated
The princess Rakoczy was often pictured carrying a musket rifle because political revolution and independence. Szechenyi called
she said in the barbarian state of Hungary a woman always had to be for a revolution from the top, but Kossuth wanted an
prepared for the worst. The former princess of Hesse-Rheinsfeld is
recorded in history as possessing "heroic courage" in the revolt. uprising of the common people. The one desired the

mass educated; the other, the mass unleashed. The one

counseled looking inward for the assessment of the na-
tion's problems; the other prescribed looking abroad for

the national enemy and found him in Vienna. The one's
sternest lesson was hard, critical realism; the other's
message was nationalist idealism. Szechenyi's evolution-
ary approach was enhanced by his great respect for
Great Britain and its culture and civilization. Kossuth's
revolutionary position was the product of a more active

294 THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

French influence. In effect, these two leaders became bound by the concessions made by his predecessor. The
opposite poles of the Hungarian response to the revolu- Austrians then moved with direct military force against
the Hungarians; in 1849, when their efforts fell short, the
tionary influences of the nineteenth century. Austrians asked the Russians for military assistance. The

Repression followed every demand for reform, and national minorities aroused to anti-Hungarian activity
each repression made each future demand more violent. were Croats, Serbs, Romanians, Ruthenians, and Slo-
Szechenyi's reform plans, which would have preserved
the legal framework of evolutionary change, were not vaks. The sporadic outbreaks of violence in Transylvania
enough. Kossuth assumed leadership; his prestige was between Romanians and Hungarians in 1 848 and 1849
only enhanced by imprisonment between 1837 and 1840
for the political offense, among others, of publishing the were especially bloody.
Despite the bravery and skill of the Hungarians, the
proceedings of the county assemblies. Greatly influenced
by French literary and political figures and French and imperial Austrian and Russian forces defeated them.
American revolutionary events, Kossuth transformed a This defeat was hastened by internecine strife, and the
journalistic career into a career of national political lead- head of the revolutionary government, Kossuth, was not
ership and gained renown through his slogans calling for above reproach in his role in such internal controversy.
a free people and a free fatherland. The Declaration of Independence of April 14, 1849,
which had been insisted upon by Kossuth, proved to be
The diet, which opened in November 1847, was pre- a tactical blunder. It confirmed the worst suspicions of
sented a program of conservative reform proposing the
establishment of responsible government in Hungary (as —the Vienna reactionaries that Kossuth was intellectu-
opposed to Vienna) and an elected legislature, a system
of uniform and general taxation, freedom of the press, ally unprepared to remain in a moderate position. It
and reinclusion of Transylvania in Hungary. Kossuth, created difficulties for the national forces in that it re-
quired a violation of the oath of loyalty to the king. The
however, soon demonstrated his control over the diet,
which went through a period of unproductive contro- declaration made even more determined the efforts of the
versy until news of the revolution in Paris was received. imperial and Russian armies to put down the Hungarian
Realizing the opportunity to initiate events and force
revevolution, just as it doubtless increased the fears of
change, Kossuth demanded the abolition of serfdom, the British and the French. Although they generally
popular representation, and the replacement of control supported the development of constitutional monarchy,
from Vienna by control in a Hungarian government. the British and the French could not but be alarmed at
These demands were presented to King Ferdinand, who
responded favorably by appointing Count Lajos Bat- the prospect of the dissolution of the Habsburgs, whom
thyany as president of a Hungarian council.
they considered necessary to the European balance of
Following the model of the Belgian constitution, the power.
king was to exercise his power and prerogative through
responsible ministers, whose countersignatures were re- The decision of the government in Vienna was to make
quired to give validity to his acts. The diet, established
as a bicameral legislature (the Chamber of Deputies and use of Hungary's defeat to destroy it as a state and to
the Chamber of Magnates), was to be elected for three incorporate it into the empire as a province; some of its
years. Representation was related to the payment of historic lands, such as Croatia and Transylvania, were
taxes, educational qualifications, and knowledge of the separated from it in order to reduce its unity and
Hungarian language. Several aspects of the new constitu- strength. The new emperor, Francis Joseph I, had as-
tional laws revealed the implicit radical Hungarian as- sumed the direction of the monarchy upon the abdica-
sumption, found also among the conservatives, that the tion of Ferdinand. The first seventeen years of his rule
ethnic minorities could be included within the Hungar- were characterized by the last attempt at absolute rule
under the monarchy. The national minorities, which had
ian state without regard to their own national aspira- been used against the Hungarians during the revolution,
fared equally badly during the period of reaction and
tions.
came to detest Austria as much as did the Hungarians.
Certain aspects of relations with Austria remained
Although the regime was soon changed from a mili-
vague, and control over such matters of common con- tary into a civil administration, no amelioration of the

cern as public finance, defense, and foreign affairs was Asituation took place. gigantic and corrupt state bu-
left in doubt. Austrian reactionaries and Hungarian
counterrevolutionaries tried to undo what had been ac- reaucracy and system of political police imposed perse-
complished; in 1848 they contrived to set the national cution and repression at great expense. For years it was
minorities against the Hungarians, at first covertly and controlled by Alexander von Bach, minister of internal
affairs and revolutionary agitator turned tool of absolu-
then openly. King Ferdinand, who had granted the tism. Austrian, Galician, and Czech officials dominated
concessions in March 1848, was forced to abdicate in the Hungarian administration, through which the em-
favor of Francis Joseph, who stated that he was not
—peror ruled by decree entirely without reference to a

constitution. Kossuth was forced into exile.
The general reaction was the development of a more

intense national patriotism accompanied, at least among

THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY 295

moderate and radical groups, by a hatred of everything to have an organic relationship with the traditional con-

—German or Austrian. Many significant groups their ed- Astitution. third group, made up primarily of emigres
—ucational function for the time neglected retired into
who had fled the country, insisted upon the principles of
political inactivity. Formal education itself declined in the April 1849 Declaration of Independence. The leader
of the group was Kossuth, who over decades of exile
quality; much of it remained adequate only to train those never wavered from the position. On two occasions dur-
who could fit into the bureaucracy.
ing the period they were able to continue the fight against
The remaining political groups were all united in the
view that historic Hungary had not lost its continuity the Habsburgs: the Italo-French War against Austria in
and rejected the Austrian view that by reason of rebellion
the Hungarians had forfeited the right to independence. 1859, as a result of which Austria lost Lombardy; and
They nevertheless were divided with respect to the type the war with Prussia in 1866, which removed Austria
of reform they supported. The old conservatives called from any pretense of control in Germany.
for a return to the constitutional arrangement of 1847,
which presupposed Hungarian autonomy under a gen- The group led by Deak proved to have a compromise
eral monarchy. They also desired the reestablishment of solution between the unitary concept of the Habsburgs
county autonomy. In addition to desiring the mainte- and the complete independence of the radicals. Defeat in
nance of traditional relations with Austria, this group war and diplomatic isolation, especially from Russia,
strove for some modernization. They were more politi- whose ambitions in the Balkans were causing a breach
cally passive than some other groups, but they became with that power, stimulated the emperor to choose the
more active in general cultural affairs. compromise position. His decision was supported by the
official British desire to see the monarchy maintained as
Another general group followed the leadership of Fe- a bulwark against the Russian drive toward the Balkans
renc Deak, a conservative reformer, in demanding a re- and the Dardanelles.
turn to the laws of April 1848, which the group declared
Before the compromise advocated by Deak and his
miwf»wwrff»f i n i mi followers was passed by the diet and accepted by Francis
Joseph, Count Gyula Andrassy had been appointed as
WhRURlW A^ARHRPCSIA the responsible head of a Hungarian ministry, and Tran-
HH I HH I MH I sylvania was brought again into union with Hungary.
Thus, although the Revolution of 1848 had proved abor-
tive, it in effect produced the compromise establishing
the Dual Monarchy, finally adopted in 1867, which pro-
vided a workable arrangement between Austria and
Hungary for fifty years.

mPHRWSft! WA\RkIR.Pft5P\ : IVAWkllWiSlA THE DUAL MONARCHY
:
MMMHH M mwu HHHTm H HrI; The Compromise of 1867 established a mode of relation-

i ii ( i iiii III II ship with Austria and the Habsburgs. It set forth the

?S\RkiR™: ;«QARHRw^ • ; M(miiwbi\; details of control over matters of common concern to the
MM HHM!
H» J ii fl k —two countries defense, finance, and foreign affairs. Fail-

: \VA\RHRPft>[\ : WTAMTRPOSTA : ure to deal with them in 1 848 had aroused the suspicions
of court circles that the Hungarians were seeking com-
»-» tn1. M; MMMMMUM plete independence. The arrangement of 1867 estab-
lished a legal link between the two states.
1943-1945 Hungarian stamps honoring her heritage. Top, left to right:
Arpad, King Ladislaus I, and Miklos Toldi; second row, left to right: A common monarch and the obligation to render mu-
Janos Hunyadi, Paul Kinizsi, and Count Miklos Zrinyi; third row, left
to right: Franz Rakoczy II, Count Andrew Hudik, and Arthur Georgei; tual support on matters of general concern were ac-
bottom row: Virgin Mary, Patroness ofHungary, and the crown ofSaint cepted. Parliamentary bodies were to function in both
states, and any suggestion of a general legislature was
Stephen. abandoned as an affront to Hungarian autonomy. The

ministers involved with the matters of common concern

were responsible to equal delegations from the two par-
liaments sitting alternately in the two capitals. The dele-

gations fixed the budget for the matters of common

concern, and a special committee periodically deter-
mined the relative financial contributions of the two
countries. The army was made subject to the king with
respect to its leadership and internal organization and to

2% THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

the Hungarian parliament on matters of the draft, re- nomic conditions deteriorated; hunger and privation
cruitment, and the general system of defense. Agree- became widespread. Despite the relatively large produc-
ments concerning commerce and the customs were made tion of foodstuffs in the country, the drain imposed by
the requirements of the Central Powers found produc-
subject to periodic review every ten years. tion unequal to demand.

The politics of the period from the compromise to The successive failures of Russian military campaigns
World War I were almost entirely dominated by the and the subsequent appearance of revolution in Russia
issue of relations with Austria. Every Hungarian govern- encouraged Germany and Austria-Hungary to believe
ment was caught between unpopularity at home and an that they could win the war. The decision of the Ger-
obstructive Austrian officialdom that remained adamant man high command to carry through offensives on the
about the idea of a centralized monarchy, although Em- western front made it difficult to entertain the idea of
peror Francis Joseph was consistently loyal to the 1867 a negotiated peace. Moreover, Germany's unrestricted
arrangement. The dominating role of the question of
submarine warfare raised an issue that ruled out any
public law tended to prevent concentration by the gov- result except the unquestionable victory of one side or
ernment upon the solution of social and economic prob- the other. Finally, the entry of the United States into the
lems.
war made the Hungarians believe that their Hungarian
The problem of minorities loomed ever larger. The one
involving the Croats was the most critical and, perhaps, national state could be preserved only if they persisted in
the most revealing. The Croats received considerable
autonomy, especially in local administration, education, the fight long enough to make unreasonably high the
and justice. It was provided that their language would be price the Allies would have to pay to destroy it. At the
employed in matters connected with civil administration same time the minorities became more confident of an
and justice and in education below the higher levels. independent future, and the chance that conciliation
They were made responsible to the Hungarian govern- could make them accept a status within the Hungarian
ment through the governor and were empowered to send state became more remote.
forty deputies to the Hungarian parliament. Despite
such concessions, the Croats and other ethnic groups In October 1918 Count Mihaly Karolyi, a leader of the
were no more satisfied with their status than were the left wing of the Party of Independence, was appointed
Hungarians with dualism. premier and formed a cabinet made up of Social Demo-

At the outbreak of World War I, after the assassina- crats, radicals, and members of his own group. In No-
vember this government declared Hungary a republic.
tion of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the Hungarian Karolyi believed that a new policy of toleration toward
government faced a dilemma. If the Hungarians failed to
support the imperial government, minorities in the em- the minorities and an orientation toward the Triple En-
tente could preserve a larger Hungary. The Allies, how-
pire and the governments of peoples of similiar ethnic ever, accepted Italian, South Slav, Romanian, and Czech
background would exert pressure for the independence demands. Serbian, Romanian, and Czech army units
of those minorities on the assumption that the Dual then established areas of occupation on Hungarian terri-

Monarchy could not survive. On the other hand, a vic- tory.

tory for the Central Powers might result in the inclusion Gradually, the Karolyi government was infiltrated at
of a larger number of Slavs in the Dual Monarchy. The
situation forced the Hungarian leaders to accept the de- all levels and at key points by Communists, who had in
cision already taken. The Hungarian decision was made many cases returned from Russian prisoner-of-war
easier by the fact that the killing of the wife of the arch- camps where they had been influenced by the followers
duke had turned political assassination into an even of Lenin. The Hungarian military forces on their return
more heinous type of murder. The war policy could be
supported, or rationalized as necessary, in order to with- from the front had been disarmed before the security of
the state had been established, and the Social Democrats
stand Russian imperial aggression. On this basis most proved incapable of withstanding pressure from the left.
In March 1919 the leftist group formed a bloc with the
parties in the country, including the Social Democratic
party, were able to bring some enthusiasm to the prose- Communists. After Karolyi's resignation the Commu-
cution of the war.
nist leader, Bela Kun, formed a cabinet and, although
Before Emperor Francis Joseph died in the fall of technically not the head of government, reserved to him-
1916, he recognized the need for peace if the Dual Mon-
archy was to be preserved. The Serbs were the only Aself full powers, including those over foreign affairs.
minority that had actively attempted to obstruct entry
into the war, but it became increasingly difficult to use reign of terror was conducted by Bela Kun; its memory
troop units made up of minorities at critical points on the was a powerful factor in Hungarian resistance to com-
war front; more and more the strain on Hungarian con- munism and Russian influence. Bela Kun defended the
tingents became disproportionate to their number. Eco- country against the Czechs but, defeated by the Romani-
ans, was forced to resign after five months in power.

The leader of the new counterrevolutionary regime
was Admiral Miklos Horthy, commander in chief of the
armed forces that entered Budapest in November 1919.

THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY 297

In the absence of any possibility of a return of the Habs- Regent Miklos Horthy of
burgs, Admiral Horthy was elected regent of Hungary Nagybanya was the principal
by the parliament in 1920. The government he headed royal person who served as the
was one of reaction and initially one of terror, and it head of state in the kingless

carried out stringent reprisals against many who could monarchy that existed in
be identified with the Bela Kun and Karolyi regimes, Hungary between World War I

especially Jews. and World War II

The National Assembly on March 1, 1920, confirmed expulsion of Charles from Hungary. Charles I's removal
the selection of Horthy as regent. It also abolished the
legislation of 1867 that had established the Dual Monar- eliminated the last remnant of a royal family who could
possibly rule Hungary in the form of a monarchy.
chy arrangement, but it did not settle finally whether the
Habsburgs retained the right of succession. Even after
two attempts by Charles I to resume the throne in 1921
caused pressure to be applied on the legislature to declare
the Habsburg succession revoked, there remained a divi-
sion in Hungarian political thought on this subject.
Horthy was most instrumental in bringing about the

THE ROYAL SOVEREIGNS OF THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

Reign Title Ruler Birth Death Relationship

875-907 (Chieftain) Arpad 975 907 Great-grandson of Arpad
1011 Son of Geza
972-997 Duke Geza 1038 Son-in-law of Stephen 1
1040 1050 Brother-in-law of Stephen I
997-1038 King Stephen I (Saint Stephen) (Istvan) 1070
1100 1060 Cousin of Peter Orseolo
1038-1041 King Peter Orseolo
1134 1095 Brother of Andrew I
1041-1044 King Aba Samuel 1116 Son of Andrew I
1179 1131 Son of Bela I
1044-1046 King Peter Orseolo 1175 Son of Bela I
1206 1164 Nephew of Ladislaus 1
1046-1060 King Andrew I 1239 1163
1262 1166 Grandson of Bela I
1060-1063 King Bela I 1289 Son of Bela II
1298 1196 Son of Geza II
1063-1074 King Salomon 1326 Son of Bela II
1370 1205 Son of Bela II
1074-1077 King Geza I 1368 1235
1397 1270 Grandson of Bela II
1077-1095 King Ladislaus I (Saint Laszlo) 1424 1272 Son of Bela III
1440 1290 Son of Emeric
1095-1116 King Salomon (Coleman Beauclerc) 1440 1301 Son of Bela III
1456 1306 Son of Andrew II
1116-1131 King Stephen II (abdicated 1131) 1506 1312 Son of Bela IV
1342
1131-1141 King Bela II 1382 Grandson of Andrew II
1395
1141-1161 King Geza II 1437 Grand-nephew of Ladislaus IV
1439 Son of Charles 1
1 161-1 162 King Stephen III, the Lightning 1443 Daughter of Louis the Gre.it
1444 Husband ot M.ir\
1162-1163 King Ladislaus II 1457 Son-in-law of Sitnsmund
1490 Wife of Albert
1163-1165 King Stephen IV 1516 Grandson of Mary
1526 Son of Albert
1161-1173 King Stephen III
Nephew of I adislaus V
1173-1196 King Bela III
Son of I tdislai V o( Bohemia
1196-1204 King Emeric

1204-1205 King Ladislaus III

1205-1235 King Andrew II

1235-1270 King Bela IV

1270-1272 King Stephen V

1272-1290 King Ladislaus IV

1290-1301 King Andrew III

1301-1305 King Wenceslaus Wenzel of Bohemia

1305-1307 King Otto of Bavaria

1308-1342 King Charles I

1342-1382 King Louis the Great

1382-1387 Queen Mary

1387-1437 King Sigismund

1437-1439 King Albert

1439-1440 Queen Elizabeth

1440-1444 King Ladislaus I of Poland

1444-1457 King Ladislaus V

1458-1490 King Matthias Corvinus

1490-1516 King Ladislas of Bohemia

1516-1526 King Louis II
—1526 Hungary was divided after 1526 between Turkey and Austria.

298 THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

Reign Title Ruler Hirth Death Relations/tip

TRANSYLVANIA (1344-1711)

1344--1376--Six members <>l the Lackfy family ruled (beginning of formal rule).

1415--1438 Prince >ivode Lorand Lepei

1441--1456 Prince Lincu of Hunedoara 1456

—Sivteenth century Under control of the Turkish government 1540
1571
1526--1540 Prince- John Zaoolya 1487 1572
1586
1540--1571 Prince John Sigismund 1520 1581
1613
1571--1572 Prince Gatpai Bekesj 1600

1571--1576 King Stephen Bathory (king of Poland) 1533 1606
1608
1576--1581 Prince Christopher Bathory 1530 1613
1629
1581--1598 Prince- Sigismund 1572
1648
1599--1600 Prince Andrew 1562 1660

1600--1601 Prince Michael the Brave 1690
1713
1602--1603 Prince lioytM Szekely
1735
1602--1605 Emperor Rudolph II
1957
1605--1606 Prince Stephen Bocskai 1557 1946
1948
1607--1608 Prince Sigismund Rakoczi 1544

1608--1613 Prince Gabriel Bathory 1589

1613--1629 Prince Gabriel Bethlen 1580

1630--1630 Prince Stephen Bethlen

1630--1648 Prince George Rakoczy 1 1591

1648--1660 Prince George Rakoczy II 1621

1658--1660 Prince Achatius Bocskai

1661--1662 Prince Johann Kemeny

1682--1699 Prince Emerich Tokoli

1661--1690 Prince Michael Apafi 1632

1690--1699 Prince Michael II Apati 1680

1699--1821--Habsburg authority in Transylvania

1704--1711 Prince I rancis Rakoczy 1676

1711--1918--Hungary under Austria

1919--Kingl uss monarchy established

1919 Regent Joseph of Austria 1872

1920--1944 Regent Miklos Horthy of Nagybanya 1868

1944--1945 Regent Ferenc Szalasi 1897

1944--1945 Regent Bcla Miklos 1890

1946-—Hungary became a republic.

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Geographic position of Yugoslavia in Europe today

299

300 THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS

The South Slav groups in present-day Yugoslavia occupation of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers.

became linguistically and culturally differentiated after THE PRESLAV PERIOD

they entered the Balkan Peninsula in the sixth and sev- The earliest recorded inhabitants of the area now in-
cluded in Yugoslavia consisted of two obscure groups of
adenth centuries Their subjection to various non-Slav tribes known collectively as the Illyrians and the Thra-
cians. The Illyrians occupied much of the region west of
powers occupying the Balkan area during the next the Vardar River and north of what is now Greece,

twelve centuries fostered even greater variations among including the area of present-day Albania. Thracian
tribes occupied the regions to the east of the Illyrians, an
them in religion, language, culture, and political devel-
area that included much of the territory that later was
opment. For some six hundred years before 1914, Croats a part of the Serbian Kingdom.

and Slovenes were subordinated to the Germanic and At the beginning of the Christian Era, the western
portion on the Balkan Peninsula came under the control
Roman Catholic Habsburg Empire. The Eastern Ortho-
of the Roman Empire. Much of this territory was incor-
dox Serbs, Macedonians, and Islamized Slavs were under porated into the Roman province of Illyricum, with an

the rule of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire for much of administrative center at Salona, the present-day city of

the period between the fourteenth and nineteenth centu- Split, on the Dalmatian coast. When the Roman Empire

ries. was divided into the Eastern and Western empires in ad.
395, the region east of the Drina River bacame part of
Centuries of foreign rule, however, did not prevent the the Eastern Empire. The border between the two empires
development of a strong sense of ethnic identity within cut through Bosnia and Hercegovina.
each of the South Slav groups. Slovenes, Serbs, Croats,
Montenegrins, and Macedonians sought to maintain sep- During the fifth century the area was subjected to
arate character and identities. Serbia's successful strug- waves of raiding tribes of Visigoths, Huns, and Os-
gle to regain independence in the early nineteenth trogoths. In the sixth century the Slavs began their incur-
century stimulated the other groups to strive for inde- sions into the Balkan Peninsula and gradually
pendence. assimilated the remnants of the Illyrians and Thracians,
except for small Illyrian groups that retreated into the
During the nineteenth century, some Slovene, Croat,
and Serb intellectuals began to advocate the creation of —mountainous regions along the Adriatic coast the an-
a united and independent Yugoslav state. By 1914 the
sentiment for a union of the South Slavs was widespread cestors of the present-day Albanians.

and, at the end of World War I, the Western Allies THE COMING OF THE SLAVS

agreed to the concept of a Yugoslav kingdom to be The Slavic peoples who entered during the course of
formed by uniting the South Slav territories of the de-
feated Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy (the former approximately one hundred years eventually developed
Habsburg Empire) with Serbia, Montenegro, and north- into five main groups, differentiated in language and cus-
ern Macedonia. (Until 1929 the new state was known as toms: Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, and
the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.) Macedonians The area came to be divided not only

In 1915 exiled Slav leaders from Austro-Hungarian between the two Roman empires, but also between rival
regions had formed a Yugoslav Committee, based in branches of the Christian church. The religious estrange-
ment between Rome and Constantinople began in the
London. It gained broad support among the Slovenes, fifth century, and the schism dividing the Roman Catho-
Croats, and Serbs. In July 1917 Ante Trumbic, president lic and Eastern Orthodox faiths came in the eleventh

of the committee, signed an agreement with Serb premier century.
Nikola Pasic at Corfu, providing for the creation of a
South Slav kingdom under Alexander Karadjordjevic Generally, the boundary separating the Eastern and
Western churches coincided with that which divided the
(1921-34). The new state was to be "a constitutional, empires. For several centuries both empires and
democratic, and parliamentary monarchy" based on the churches contested control over the Slavs. Thus were
equality of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The Latin introduced the diverse political and cultural influences
and Cyrillic alphabets, the Slovene and Serbo-Croat lan- that were to continue for more than a thousand years and
guages, and the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Islamic
which were to cause divisions among the South Slavs
religions were to be given equal recognition. Parliamen-
tary representatives and local government officials were even after political unification in 1918.

to be elected through universal manhood suffrage.

After formation of the kingdom, the sense of separate-
ness that was the legacy of the past continued to exert
a significant influence on each group. Forces of unity and
cohesion were counterbalanced by the influences of eth-
nic extremism. Threats to the internal order of the state
by ethnically based political extremist groups led to the
establishment of a dictatorship in 1929, a situation that

continued until the outbreak of World War II and the

THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS 301

SOUTH SLAV HISTORY TO THE CROATS

WORLD WAR I During the sixth and early seventh centuries Croat

THE SLOVENES tribes migrated from the Dnieper River region (Ukraine)

Slovene tribes began to settle in the northwest corner into the area between the Sava and Drava rivers (Sla-
of the Balkan Peninsula in the sixth century. By the
eighth century they had submitted to the domination of vonia), the land directly south of the Slovene area

the Franks. Under Charlemagne, German Catholic mis- (Croatia), and into the northern Adriatic coastal region

sionaries had converted them to Christianity and intro- (Dalmatia). In the seventh century these tribes were con-

duced German culture. With the increase of German verted to Christianity.
influence, the Slovene peasants became serfs under the
German feudal nobility. During the tenth and eleventh Largely in response to military pressure from both the

centuries the Slovene lands were divided into the Eastern and Western Roman empires, organization on a
marches (borderlands) of Carniola, Carantania (the
family and tribal basis evolved into broader units during
name given in the eighth century to the region known
more recently as Carinthia), and Styria. the eighth century. Two principal Croat units developed,

Throughout the next two centuries the Slovenes were Dalmatian Croatia along the Adriatic, and Pannonian
ruled by a variety of petty princes until the region came
under the control of the Habsburgs in the the late thir- Croatia to the north, centering in the valley of the Sava.

teenth century. From then until 1918 the Slovene lands During the first quarter of the ninth century, the north-

were an integral part of the Habsburg domains. ern Croatians were brought under the hegemony of the
During the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries the
Franks, and Dalmatian Croatia came under the nominal
Slovenes, like the Slav groups to the south, were repeat-
edly subjected to Turkish raids. In the sixteenth century control of the Eastern Empire. Because of their relative
the Protestant Reformation had considerable influence
isolation from the two power centers, the Croatian
among the Slovenes, but the severity of the Counter-
Reformation, combined with the efforts of the Austrian groups were eventually able to shake off foreign domina-

nobility to retain power, served to reinforce both the tion and by the early tenth century had begun to develop
feudal system and the discipline of the church over the
a sense of common identity.
peasant population. The centralization policy of the
Habsburg rulers during the seventeenth century resulted About 924 a powerful zupan (tribal leader), Tomislav,
in an even greater degree of germanization. German was
made the official language for all government affairs as from Nin, a city on the Adriatic, united the Pannonian

well as for education, but Slovene national consciousness and Dalmatian Croats and was recognized by the pope
remained strong, and the masses continued to speak the
Slovene language. as king. He extended the borders of his territory inland

French troops came into the Slovene regions during to include part of Bosnia and established a kingdom that
Napoleon's campaign against Austria and, in 1809, the
Treaty of Vienna brought most of the Slovene lands and continued for nearly two hundred years.
Croatia under the control of France. These areas, along
During this time the original tribal structure of Croat
with Dalmatia, the coastal region along the Adriatic Sea,
were formed into the Illyrian provinces under a French Asociety was gradually replaced by feudalism. class
proconsul. During the brief period of French control,
there was substantial improvement in the material condi- system developed, based on landholdings. The leaders of
tions of the Slovenes. Additional schools were estab- the more powerful clans assumed the status of a heredi-
lished, and the Slovene language was given renewed
tary nobility; the royal family and the church accumu-
status.
lated extensive properties formerly held as a common
With the defeat of Napoleon's forces in the Russian
campaign, the 1815 agreements of the Congress of tribal land, and the peasants were reduced to serfdom.
Vienna restored the Slovene lands, as well as Dalmatia
and part of Croatia, to the Austrian Empire. Although In the late eleventh century the increasing strength of
Slovenes were again subjected to German control, Slo-
vene national consciousness continued to grow, and sen- the nobility limited the authority of the king, and his
timents developed favoring not only Slovene unity and
independence but the union of all the South Slavs as well. power bagan to wane. When the throne became vacant

in 1089, a long struggle ensued between rival Croat

claimants. In 1 102, with no leader strong enough to unite

King Tomislav, about the year 924, emerged as a powerful tribal leader
(zupan) having united the Pannonian and Dalmatian Croats The pope
recognized him by crowning him king. This Yugoslavian postage stamp
shows him on the throne.

—

302 THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS

the Croat lands, the Croat nobles offered the crown other European states, and the Dalmatian cities were in

—with the blessing of Pope Paschal II to the king of a state of decay.

Hungary. Although at times the Croatians enjoyed a Like the Slovene lands, part of Croatia was incorpo-
special status, during most of the ensuing eight hundred rated into the Illyrian provinces by Napoleon in the early
years (until 1918) Croatia remained tied to Hungary. years of the nineteenth century. During the four years of
French control, schools were established; the first Croat-
In the late fourteenth century the Turks began their language newspaper appeared; commerce was stimu-
incursions into the more northern regions of the Balkan lated; and Croat nationalist sentiment was fomented.
Peninsula; and, after Bosnia fell to Turkish forces in
1463, the sultan's armies pushed into Croat lands. For After Napoleon's defeat, Slovenia, Dalmatia, and the
sixty years both the Croats and Hungarians sought to Croatian military-frontier province were restored to
resist the periodic raiding of the Turks, but in 1 526 the Austria; the rest of Croatia went to Hungary within the
Hungarian army was defeated in a disastrous encounter, Habsburg Empire. Feudalism was formally ended by the
their king was killed, and Hungarian resistance ended. Habsburg emperor, and the Slovene and Croat peasants
The next year Croatian nobles opted to submit to the were permitted to buy their land from their former feu-

Habsburg emperor Ferdinand, who that same year had dal lords.
become ruler of most of Hungary. The Turks continued
THE SERBS
to press northward and by the end of the sixteenth cen-
Serb tribes settled in the interior of the Balkan Penin-
tury had absorbed much of Croatia and almost all of sula south and east of the Croat lands during the seventh
century. Throughout these early years clans engaged
Slavonia. each other in a continual struggle for dominance. During
most of the period from the eighth through the eleventh
In 1 578 the Habsburg emperor established a "military centuries the Serbs were under the control of either Bul-
frontier province" in the depopulated southern border- gar or Byzantine rulers. In the latter half of the ninth
land of what remained of Croatia and Slavonia. Expro-
priated from Croat nobles, these lands were subject —century, Byzantine monks the most important of
—whom were Methodius and Cyril converted the Serbs
directly to the emperor, who granted them to soldier-
to Christianity and introduced Byzantine culture into
peasants, free from feudal obligations, in return for mili-
the area.
tary service.
Byzantine control was weak, however, and by the
In 1 699, when the Habsburgs recovered all of Croatia twelfth century strong tribal leaders were able to unite
and Slavonia from the Turks, the military frontier prov- the Serbs into two independent Serb states: Zeta, in the
ince was extended to include the southern half of mountainous region of present-day Montenegro and
Hercegovina; and Raska, in Serbia proper. Shortly be-
—Croatia, Slavonia, and the Vojvodina the southern part fore 1 170, Stephen Nemanja became the grand zupan of

of the Hungarian Danubian plain, directly east of Sla- Raska. He shook off Byzantine hegemony, united the
vonia. The land was settled not only by Croat peasants
but by Germans and a large number of Serbs who had two states into a Serb kingdom, and founded a dynasty
migrated into the area to escape Ottoman oppression. that in the next two hundred years made Serbia the
The descendants of these Serb immigrants later became
strongest state in the Balkans.
a controversial factor in the nineteenth-century issue of
Croatian nationalism. The Serb rulers enlisted the Eastern Orthodox church

The Croat feudal nobility opposed the efforts of the in their efforts to unite the dissident tribes. In 1196
emperor to retain the frontier lands under his direct
control, but the system was continued until the late nine- Nemanja abdicated the throne and with his son helped
teenth century. The frontier soldier-peasants became the found the great Serb Orthodox Monastery of Hilander
most loyal of the emperor's subjects; as late as World on Mount Athos in present-day Greece. The younger
War I, these frontier elements resisted Croat nationalist Nemanja later gained recognition from the Byzantine
patriarch for an independent Serbian archbishopric, and
sentiment in favor of the emperor. in 1219 (under the name of Sava) he became the first Serb
archbishop. The Serb rulers developed a fierce loyalty to
The Dalmatian coastal area of the medieval Croat the church among their people.
state was the object of three hundred years of conflict
between Hungary and the growing power of Venice. The Serbian Empire reached its zenith under its last
Some of the Dalmatian cities changed hands repeatedly. emperor, Czar Stephen Dusan (1331-35). Guided by
From the fifteenth century to the end of the eighteenth, Dusan's genius, Serbian economy and arts were greatly
most of the coastal area was subordinate to Venice and
shared in its art, commerce, and wealth. The Republic developed. In 1349 he promulgated an important legal

of Ragusa, present-day Dubrovnik, however, remained code, known as the Dusanov Zakonik, which fused By-
independent of foreign control throughout most of the
zantine law and Serbian custom into a formal legal and
period and developed its own high level of economic political system. Dusan expanded the empire to include
prosperity and culture. By the eighteenth century, the all of modern Albania, Macedonia, Epirus, and Thes-
commercial power of Venice and Ragusa had passed to

THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS 303

saly. With Dusan's death, however, rebellion by subordi- of the Serb tradition and national consciousness.
nate nobles brought about the disintegration of the During the late seventeenth century and the first half

empire. of the eighteenth, the Serb peasants supported several
vain attempts by the Habsburg armies to force the Turks
Encouraged by the disunity of the Serb state, the Otto-
out of Serbia. Brutal reprisals by the Ottoman adminis-
man Turks, who had expanded into the southern Bal- trators triggered a mass migration of thirty thousand to
forty thousand Serb families, who moved northward in
kans in the middle of the fourteenth century, advanced 1691 and settled in Habsburg-controlled Vojvodina.
against the Serbs. In 1389 the Turks met and defeated During the second half of the eighteenth century, Con-
the Serbian armies at Kosovo in what was to become the stantinople lost most of its control over its officials in
most legendary battle of Serbian history. Serbia, who then entered a period of unrestrained op-
pression and plundering of the defenseless Serb peasants.
Turkish power in the Balkans steadily increased, and As the power of the Ottoman Empire declined, Habs-
after the second great defeat of the Serbs at Smederevo burg Austria and Czarist Russia attempted to extend
in 1459 the Serb lands were placed under Turkish mili- their hegemony over the Balkans. During the late eigh-
tary occupation and so remained for more than three teenth century the two powers joined together to oust the
hundred and fifty years. Bosnia fell to the Turks in 1463, Turks, but their efforts were indecisive until the expan-
Hercegovina in 1483. Only the most inaccessible moun- sion of Napoleon's empire began to threaten Turkish

—tainous Serb area north of Lake Scutari present-day territories.
—Montenegro was able to resist Turkish domination.
With the sultan's forces under pressure from Napo-
When the Ottoman Turks overran Serbia, Macedonia, leon in the Mediterranean area, Russia moved to occupy
Turkish provinces in the eastern region of the Balkans.
and Bosnia, the Slav nobles of Serbia and Macedonia In 1804, sensing that the time was ripe for revolt, a
were killed or forced to flee to the mountains or into
Hungary. The Turkish sultan granted large landholdings —Serbian peasant, Djordje Petrovic known to his follow-

to spahis (Muslim cavalry officers), who subjected the ers as Karadjordje (Black George), led the Serbs in an

Christian raja (serfs) to a new, oppressive feudal system. uprising against their Turkish rulers. The revolution was
successful for a time, and Karadjordje established a
The Serbs continued to be tied to their land and forced
to pay heavy taxes in kind to the spahis and other Turk- short-lived government in Belgrade. When Napoleon's
ish administrators. In addition, every four years they had
to submit to the seizure of a portion of the healthiest and forces attacked Russia in 1812, Russian troops were
withdrawn from the Balkan area, and Turkey took ad-
most gifted boys in each village, whom the spahis sent
vantage of the situation to move against the Serbs. By
to Constantinople to be educated as Muslims and trained October 1813 the Serbs were defeated and Karadjordje

as part of the sultan's elite military corps, the Janissary. fled to Austria.

Many came to occupy high positions in the Ottoman In 1817 a second revolt, led by the peasant Milos
Obrenovic, forced the Turks to grant the Serbs a consid-
government. erable degree of autonomy. The mysterious murder of
During the first two hundred years of Turkish occupa- Karadjordje that same year began a blood feud between
his descendants and those of Obrenovic that affected
tion, when the Ottoman Empire was expanding and the Serbian politics until the early twentieth century.

newly conquered lands ere able to support the increasing Although Serbia remained nominally a province of
numbers of Muslim aristocrats, their rule was not intol- Turkey after 1817, the Serbs were virtually independent.

erably oppressive. As long as the Christian serfs paid By 1830, with the support of Russia, they were able to

their taxes, they were permitted to live according to Serb force Constantinople to establish Serbia as an autono-

customs and to govern their own local affairs without mous principality. Russia took the new state under its
protection, but it was not until 1878 that complete free-
direct interference from the Turkish administration. dom from Turkish domination was achieved with the
They could not be removed from their land, which con-
tinued to be treated as private family property. The signing of the Treaty of Berlin. In 1882 the Serbian ruler
Turks were tolerant of the Christian religion, although took the title of king.
they impoverished the Serbian Orthodox church by seiz-
ing most of its lands and its richest buildings. Unlike the development in Croatia, where nationalist
sentiment was fostered by an intellectual minority, Ser-
The Serbs reverted to the egalitarian rural society that bian independence was created by the peasant masses.
had characterized their social structure before the rise of
feudalism. They avoided town living, and towns were Milos Obrenovic gained additional support among the
inhabited solely by the Turkish nobility and administra- peasants by dividing the confiscated Turk properties
tors, along with the non-Slav craftsmen and traders who among them. Under the Turkish landlords the peasant
supplied them. The Serb villagers retained a high degree
of autonomy under the administration of village councils class had been given no opportunities for education, and

elected by the head of each Serb family. In the absence almost none, including the leaders, were literate. Much
of a native nobility, the members of the church hierarchy
were recognized by the Serbs as their leaders, and the
Serbian Orthodox church became the major perpetuator

304 THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS

THE MILITARY
FRONTIER PROVINCE

ADRIATIC
SEA

Yugoslavian lands divided between the Habsburg and Ottoman empires

in the early nineteenth century.

of the leadership in the government established in 1817 who used the Serbian rivalries as a means of keeping
was provided by educated Serb immigrants from Voj-
vodina. These introduced into Serbia a romantic nation- Serbia weak. Serbia remained neutral in the Crimean
alist passion for the native language and folkways that
strengthened the people's self-consciousness as a nation. War and accepted the terms of the Treaty of Paris in

In 1839, after much dissension over the autocratic 1856, which ended Russia's position as exclusive protec-
nature of Milos Obrenovic's rule, he was forced to abdi- tor of the Serbs and placed Serbia under the protection
of Austria, Great Britain, France, and Turkey. Amidst
cate in favor of his son Milan. Milan died of illness after complex internal dissensions, the Serb Parliament
reigning only twenty-five days and was succeeded by his (Skupstina) deposed Alexander in 1858 in favor of the
seventeen-year-old brother, Michael. The sultan named return of the Obrenovic Dynasty.
a group of advisers and, in 1842, the advisers, some of
Milos Obrenovic again became prince of Serbia for a
whom belonged to a group called the Defenders of the brief, autocratic period. Upon his death in 1860, he was
succeeded by his son Michael, also ruling for a second
Constitution (Ustavobranitelji), forced out the time. In 1868 Michael was assassinated, and for the next
Obrenovic prince and installed Alexander Karadjord- twenty years Serbia was ruled by his cousin Milan
jevic, son of the first Karadjordje, on the throne. Internal Obrenovic, whose scandalous private life and inattention
conflicts were aided by Russian and Austrian influences to state affairs led to widespread unrest. In 1889 Milan,

THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS 305

Milos Obrenovic, the prince of Serbia, was driven from reign by the of international unrest throughout the Balkans. Serbia
Revolution of 1839 but was recalled. After his death his son Michael was declared war on Turkey in support of the Bosnian peas-
ant uprisings in 1 876 and was rewarded by the Congress
appointed to replace him. of Berlin, which recognized its complete independence

The postage stamp showing from the Ottoman Empire. Serbia's internal weakness,
Prince Milan (Obrenovic IV)
however, enabled Austria to gain considerable influence
who had been recognized by that time as the king of over Serbian foreign affairs and trade. In 1882 Serbia was
declared a kingdom, but neither its international prestige
Serbia, attempted to regain popular support by promul- nor its internal affairs improved. Austrian influence in-
gating a new liberal constitution, but in 1 893 his succes- creased to the point where, by 1905, 90 percent of Ser-
sor Alexander set the constitution aside and instituted an bian exports and 60 percent of its imports were
oppressive oligarchic rule. Disorders and plots multi- controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy.
plied toward the end of the century.
In 1903 opposition to Obrenovic rule culminated in
Serbian political parites developed during the reign of the brutal assassination of Alexander and his wife. The
Parliament elected Peter Karadjordjevic to the throne.
Milan. By the 1880s, two larger parties, the Liberals and
the Radicals, had emerged, as well as an embryonic So- An intelligent ruler, he revived and further liberalized
cialist party. The Liberal party advocated the centraliza- the Constitution of 1889. He reorganized the country's
tion of government authority, whereas the Radicals were
distinguished by their passionate nationalsim and ad- finances and reasserted Serbian independence of action
from Austria. In 1905 the Serbs began trade negotiations
vocacy of local government. with Bulgaria and planned to shift Serbian munitions
orders from Austria to France. The Austrians tried to
The latter part of the nineteenth century was a period bring the Serbs to heel by placing a prohibitive tariff on
all Serbian livestock. The so-called pig war of 1906
threatened disaster, for pigs were Serbia's main export.
The Serbs succeeded in finding other markets, but the pig
war reinforced hostility toward the Habsburg Empire

among Serbian peasants.
This hostili ty had its counterpart in Austrian fear and

mistrust of Serbia's expansionist policies. The foreign
policy of the Radical party governments, which ruled
Serbia under the constitutional Karadjordjevic monar-
chy after 1903, was based on the slogan "Serbia must
expand or die." Expansionist efforts were directed to-
ward the south into Macedonia and west toward the
Adriatic through Bosnia and Hercegovina. These aims
brought Serbia into direct conflict with the Austro-Hun-
garian Empire and Bulgaria. The Austrians were partic-
ularly anxious because of the rapprochement that took
place just after the turn of the century between Serbia
and Habsburg-controlled Croatia.

A serious crisis was created in October 1908 when the

Austrian government annexed Bosnia and Hercegovina,
ostensibly to frustrate Serbian plans to move into the two
provinces. This unilateral move produced intense resent-
ment in both Serbia and Montenegro. Serbia received

— —encouragement but no military support from Russia.

The British government also supported Serbia's diplo-
matic protests. Germany staunchly defended Austria's
right to the territory. Thus were drawn the major out-

lines of the competing alliances that were to evolve into

World War I.

Deprived of Bosnia and access to the Adriatic, Serbian
hopes for expansion came to center on Macedonia, then
part of the Ottoman Empire. In the 1890s a number of
anti-Turk secret societies developed in Macedonia, chief
of which was the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary

306 THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS

Organization (Vatreshna Makedonska Revolutsionna Francis Ferdinand, nephew of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in
Organizatsa), whose slogan was "Macedonia for the Francis Joseph, Austria, the his royal naval uniform
Macedonians." Violent pressure groups representing heir apparent after the suicide
Greek, Serbian, and Bulgarian interests also proliferated of Crown Prince Rudolf, did
and kept the region in constant turmoil. From 1911 to not fare much better, for he
1912 various alliances were formed between Bulgaria, was assassinated along with his
Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro, marking a temporary wife in Sarajevo on June 28,
triumph over centuries of disunion and distrust. In 1912 1914, in what history records as
the quick victory of the Balkan allies over Turkey, in the
first Balkan War, led to a dispute between Serbia and the "opening shot of the Great
Bulgaria over the sharing of Macedonia, which the war World War. " His wife was
had freed from Ottoman rule. During June and July of Sophie, the countess of Chotek
1913, supported by Greece, Montenegro, and Romania, and the duchess of Hohenberg.
Serbia defeated the Bulgarians. By the subsequent Treaty
of Bucharest, the Serbs acquired a much larger share of The archduke
in an official royal photograph with
—Macedonia extending almost to the southern boundary the duchess Sophie and their children

granted the new state of Yugoslavia after World War I.
The simultaneous creation of the independent state of

Albania, however, frustrated Serbia's plans to reach the

Adriatic.

Serbian successes in the Balkan wars acted as an im-
petus for the other Slavic peoples within the Austro-
Hungarian Dual Monarchy, and the Austrian
government decided to eliminate the Serbian threat.

Therefore, when Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to
the Habsburg throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo
(Bosnia) in June 1914 by a member of a secret pro-Serb
terrorist group, the Austrian government presented
Serbia with an ultimatum whose terms were so harsh as
to preclude acceptance by the Serbs. The Serbian govern-
ment suggested international arbitration of the question,
but Austria declared war on July 28, 1914. Within a
week Germany had aligned with Austria, while Great
Britain, France, and Russia came to Serbia's defense.
The war was destined to end Habsburg hegemony over
the Balkans and to forge a Yugoslav state.

BOSNIA AND HERCEGOVINA —ism during the twelfth century. It gained widespread

Serb groups settled the region of Bosnia and Her- popular adherence as a protest against the proselytism of
cegovina during the seventh century, but the area was
separated from Serbia in the tenth century and experi- both existing major religions. Many Bosnian nobles and
enced a different history. Bosnia or Bosna (from the
Bosna River) appears to have originated as a small prin- a large portion of the peasantry persisted in the heresy
cipality in the mountainous region of the upper reaches despite repeated attempts by both the Catholic and East-

of the Bosna and Vreba rivers. The name Hercegovina ern Orthodox churches to extirpate the cult. The chaos
orginated in the fifteenth century when a powerful Bos- caused by this religious struggle laid the country open to
the Ottoman Turks after their defeat of the Serbs in 1459.
nian noble, Stephen Vuksic, gained control of lands in By 1463 the Turks controlled Bosnia and, twenty years
the southern part of Bosnia and took the title of Herzog, later, gained control of Hercegovina; many Bogomil no-
bles and peasants accepted the Islamic religion of their
the German equivalent of duke, from which came the
name of the region. conquerors.

Situated on the dividing line between the areas of Ro- The Islamized nobles were allowed to retain their
lands and their feudal privileges, and the peasants who
man Catholic and Eastern Orthodox religious influence,

Bosnia and Hercegovina suffered from constant internal
turmoil from the tenth through the fifteenth centuries.
This situation was complicated by the introduction from

—Bulgaria of an ascetic heretical Christian cult Bogomil-

J

THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS 307

Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife about to enter their official terms of the Treaty of San Stefano. The congress placed
car moments before their assassination Bosnia and Hercegovina temporarily under the adminis-
tration of Austria-Hungary, and in 1908 the Austro-
accepted Islam were granted land free from feudal obli- Hungarian Dual Monarchy unilaterally annexed the two
gations. The Christian nobles were killed and Christian
provinces.
—peasants subjected to the same oppressive rule but by
—the converted nobility as their Serbian counterparts. Under Austro-Hungarian control, the Bosnians were
not permitted any degree of self-rule. Individuals from
The Bosnians became the most conservative Muslims in other parts of the Dual Monarchy were brought in to
the Ottoman Empire, opposing every attempt by the administer the area. Material conditions in Bosnia and
sultan to modernize the empire through secularization of Hercegovina improved considerably, but the peasants
the administration and to moderate the oppressive sub- were still subject to the basic features of the old feudal
ordination of non-Muslim subjects. system. Nationalist tendencies developed among the
population as a result of influences from neighboring
Early in the nineteenth century, the Christian peasants Serbia and Croatia. In 1914 the population was divided:
revolted against the Islamic nobility in a series of upris-
ings, which were bloodily suppressed. In 1850 the Turk- the Catholics, many of whom wished to retain their ties
with the monarchy; the Eastern Orthodox Serbs who
ish government itself put down the Bosnian aristocracy wanted to unite with Serbia; and the Muslims who were

and established a centrally controlled Turkish adminis- divided on the issue, some fearing both proposals. Revo-
tration. The Christian serfs continued to rebel against lutionary sentiments were widespread, particularly
the new administration, and by 1875 both Bosnia and among the youth, and it was a young Bosnian, Gavrilo
Hercegovina were in a state of general revolt. The follow- Princip, who on June 28, 1914, assassinated Archduke
ing year Serbia and Montenegro declared war on Turkey Francis Ferdinand and his consort the duchess of
in support of the insurrection. In 1 877 Russia entered the Hohenberg, during their visit to Sarajevo.
war against Turkey in order to increase its influence
THE MONTENEGRINS
among the Balkan Slavs. The Russian army defeated the
In medieval times the area north of Lake Scutari was
Turks in January 1878, and the Treaty of San Stefano, known as Duklja, or Zeta. In the twelfth century it came
which the Russians dictated in March 1878, provided for under the rule of Stephen Nemanja of Serbia, but after
the recognition of an autonomous government in Bosnia
and Hercegovina.

The Habsburg and British governments, fearing the

growing influence of Russia in the Balkans, called the
Congress of Berlin in July 1878, which revised the basic

308 THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS

King Alexander I ofSerbia (1889-1903) and Queen Draga. Both were The first prince-bishop of

assassinated in 1903. Montenegro was DanHo

Petrovic (1697-1737).

King Nicholas I of Montenegro (1910-18) first served as the prince of
Montenegro for fifty years, from 1860 to 1910

The wedding picture of King Alexander and Queen Draga his death Serbian power dwindled, and the region was
ruled by a succession of local rulers.
Peter I ofSerbia (1903-21). King A political cartoon ofPeter I with
Peter I united the three kingdoms After the Turkish victory over Serbia in the late four-
of Serbia. Croatia, and Slovenia. his sword holding the heads ofhis
assassinated predecessors. King teenth century the region, which had come to be known
Alexander and Queen Draga. as Montenegro, the Venetian variant of the Italian word
for "black mountain," became a refuge for Serbs who
£•) wp»<* n }iuTt " refused to live under the Islamic Ottomans. Although
Montenegro repeatedly suffered attacks by Turkish and
King Peter I Karadjordjevic. This postage stamp shows him as he ap- other external forces over a period of some four centu-
peared later in life. ries, it was never fully subdued. The constant struggles

of the Montenegrins, particularly those with raiding
Turks and Albanians, resulted in the development of the
Montenegrin reputation for bellicosity.

In the early sixteenth century Montenegro became a
type of theocracy with vladike (Eastern Orthodox bish-
ops) exercising both temporal and spiritual control. The
vladike were elected by local assemblies until 1697 when
succession was restricted to the family of Danilo Pe-
trovic Njegus. Since the vladike were celibates, the line
passed from uncle to nephew. The Njegus family ruled
Montenegro as bishop-princes for more than one hun-
dred and fifty years. Under the successive vladike the
territory was doubled in size.

In 1851 the offices of bishop and prince were sepa-
rated, but the Njegus family continued to rule. Nicholas
I become the prince in 1 860 and remained the ruler of

Montenegro until the outbreak of World War I.

The Treaty of Berlin (1878) greatly increased the size
of Montenegro and granted formal recognition of the

country as a princedom. Nicholas I established a parlia-
mentary constitution in 1905 and took the title of king

in 1910. At the outbreak of World War I, in 1914, he
went into exile. An opposition political movement,
known as the Montenegrin Committee, was formed in
Geneva and began to press for the incorporation of Mon-

tenegro into a union of all South Slavs. In 1918 Nicho-
las's rule was ended, and Montenegro became part of the
Yugoslav Kingdom.

THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS 309

THE MACEDONIANS tion scattered throughout the Macedonian area. In 1896
Long an area of contention and competition between an underground independence movement, the Internal
Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, was organized
the powers that figured prominently in the history of the within Macedonia. Torn between the competing forces,
Balkans, the territory covered by the historical-geo- the Macedonian peasants responded to the organiza-
tion's slogan "Macedonia for the Macedonians."
graphic term Macedonia has been divided among the
states of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece. Strategically Competition over Macedonia eventually led to the
located and ethnographically complex, Macedonia Balkan Wars of 1912-13. Montenegro, Serbia, Greece,
and Bulgaria joined together in a successful campaign to
typifies the Balkan problem of conflicting interests and drive the Turks from Macedonia. Once this goal was
achieved, however, the victors were unable to reach
rival peoples. agreement on the division of the territory, and Bulgaria
attacked the Greek and Serbian forces in Macedonia.
Slav tribes settled in the region, an area considerably Montenegro, Romania, and Turkey joined with Greece
larger than Yugoslavia's Macedonian Republic, in the
seventh century, at which time the territory was under Aand Serbia to defeat Bulgaria. peace treaty, signed in
the control of the Eastern Empire. During the ninth
Bucharest in 1913, ceded north and central Macedonia
century much of Macedonia was incorporated by the to Serbia, granted the southern region to Greece, and
Bulgars (also South Slavs) into the first Bulgarian Em- provided for a small extension of the Montenegrin fron-
tiers. Bulgaria retained a small portion of eastern Mace-
pire. In the latter half of the tenth century the region donia. The areas of old Macedonia that came under
Serbian control in 1913 were included within the Serb
again came under Byzantine domination, which was territory under the Yugoslav Kingdom, then were given
troubled by repeated uprisings of the Macedonian Slavs.
the status of a republic in post- World War II Yugoslavia.
During the fourteenth century most of Macedonia was
ROOTS OF THE YUGOSLAV MOVEMENT
conquered by the Serbian ruler Stephen Dusan, who set
up his capital at Skopje. After the death of Dusan the The movement for the unification of all South Slavs into

Serbian Empire disintegrated and, following the historic an independent Yugoslav state originated during the
battle of Kosovo in 1389, the major part of Macedonia brief period of French control of Slovenia and Dalmatia
again came under Turkish control and remained so until early in the nineteenth century. The ideal of South Slav

the twentieth century. unity first gained momentum among linguists and poets

As Bulgarian nationalism developed in the nineteenth and, until the early years of the twentieth century, the
century, the Bulgarians, after much controversy, were
unity movement was restricted to the literary intelli-
successful in gaining Turkish approval for a separate gentsia. The small part of the population that took an
Bulgarian Orthodox church (the Exarchate). Since the interest in politics tended to be primarily focused on
authority of the Exarchate covered most of Macedonia local partriotism, and the most powerful political parties
and part of Serbia as well as Bulgaria, the church became
a means of extending Bulgar influence, a fact particularly Yugoslavia, Slovene lands before 1918
resented by the Serbs.
GERMANY AUSTRIA
Rivalry between Serbs, Bulgars, Greeks, and Turks
was increased in the late nineteenth century. Russian ^0< i v
troops invaded Turkey in 1877 and dictated terms of the .*** -^
Treaty of San Stefano (1878), providing for a greatly ^>SALZBURG
enlarged, autonomous Bulgaria that was to include most
of Macedonia. Opposed by the Austro-Hungarian and TYROL ^
British governments, the Treaty of San Stefano was
quickly nullified by the Treaty of Berlin (1878), which \ STYR1A
was to prove a great disappointment to almost all ele-
ments of the Balkan population. The Treaty of Berlin CAR1NTHIA /
returned Macedonia to Turkey, established an indepen-
dent but greatly reduced Bulgaria, and allowed Austrian J "V
forces to occupy Bosnia and Hercegovina. Along with
renewed Turkish control of Macedonia, the Austrian W* ITALY 4 ^jM^S
presence in Bosnia and Hercegovina came as a bitter CARNIOIA
blow to Serbian aspirations. The end result was to in- .,.
crease Serbian and Bulgarian rivalry in Macedonia, and
Bulgaria continued to use the Treaty of San Stefano as AOHItTK

a basis for its claims to the area. CD- UOVIMS

Bulgarian, Serbian, and Greek organizations launched GCIMANJ
intensive propaganda campaigns in Macedonia to
strengthen their particular claims. Even Romania en- I1AUANS
tered the contest, basing its claim on the Vlach popula-
Jl

310 THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS

[ UtOATU SLAVONIA ^>ftty ^ WARTIME DEVELOPMENTS
World War I found Slavs fighting on both sides. The
•"•^^ BOSNIA v.
1 Serbian army strongly resisted repeated Austrian inva-
( sions, but Bulgaria's entry into the war on the side of the
SER8U Austrians tipped the balance. By the end of 1915 a joint
V German-Austrian-Bulgarian attack forced the Serbian
government and army to retreat across Albania whence,
S\ with Allied help, it reached the island of Corfu, and
Serbia became divided administratively between Bul-
" ; iji3 \ garia and Austria-Hungary. The Serbian army re-
grouped on Corfu and was transported to the Salonika
• y *• front. By 1918 it was able, with French, British, and
Italian forces, to march up the Vardar River valley from
MViMNMMUINWUII \< ~.* Salonika back into Serbia. By the beginning of Novem-
^^B-INMWUMH<M . ber 1918 the Serbs had cleared most of their homeland
H~(.rt> of enemy occupation.

South Slav territories are formed into the Yugoslav state (1918). In the independent kingdom of Montenegro, the peo-
ple rebelled, in October 1918, against the wartime Aus-
in both Serbia and Croatia developed in support of these trian occupation and set up a national assembly that
particularist sentiments. The repression by Croatia of a deposed the anti-Serbian king and declared for union
with Serbia. In November 1918 the Croatian nationalists
—Serb minority comprising about 25 percent of the total voted in the Zagreb council for immediate union with
—population of Croatia after 1881 and rival Serb-Croat Serbia and Montenegro, without waiting to establish any
agreement on the terms of the union, and invited the
interests in Bosnia and Hercegovina dimmed the pros- Serbian prince, Alexander, to assume regency over the
pects for unity among the Yugoslavs during the last new nation. Only Croat Peasant party leader Stephen
Radic dissented, demanding guarantees of the integrity
years of the nineteenth century.
of Croatia in the new union. On December 4, 1918, the
After the turn of the twentieth century, however, a
various Slavic groups declared Alexander head of the
new generation of political leaders emerged, inspired kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.

with the ideal of South Slav unity. In 1903 the leader of THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOM
the nationalistic Croat Peasant party hailed the newly
crowned Serbian king, Peter, with "Long live the King The kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was
of Yugoslavia." In 1905 forty deputies from Dalmatia to
the Imperial Diet in Vienna demanded a union between constituted of seven disparate elements: the independent
Dalmatia and Croatia and the granting, by the Hungar-
ian government, of political freedoms to Croatia. Serbian kingdom of Serbia, including part of Macedonia; the
independent kingdom of Montenegro; Croatia-Slavonia,
political leaders seconded this demand and proposed formerly somewhat of a home rule area under Hungary;
joint political action between Croats and Serbs. In 1908 Vojvodina, plus two small districts between Slovenia and
the Austrian government put a number of Serbs on trial, Hungary, formerly integral parts of Hungary; the Slo-
vene lands, long Austrian provinces; Dalmatia, an Aus-
using fabricated treason charges in an attempt to dis- trian province of Serbo-Croatian inhabitants; and Bosnia
credit Serbia by allegedly proving its complicity in a plot and Hercegovina, formerly administered jointly by
Austria and Hungary.
to absorb Croatia. The trial served, rather, to draw the
two Slav peoples closer together. Serbian successes in the The kingdom comprised several ethnic groups speak-
Balkan Wars of 1912-13 aroused enthusiastic demon-
strations among the Croats, Slovenes, and the inhabi- ing a variety of languages and adhering to three major
religions. About 74 percent of the 12 million inhabitants
tants of Bosnia and Hercegovina. When World War I spoke Serbo-Croatian, 8.5 percent spoke Slovene, and
several other languages were represented. About 46 per-
began, even Montenegro, which was independent and in cent of the population was Eastern Orthodox, 39 percent
some ways a rival to Serb expansionist aims, was offi-
Roman Catholic, and over 1 1 percent Muslim. Most
cially considering unity with Serbia. Croats and Slovenes were Roman Catholic, and almost

By 1914 every Slav province within the Austro-Hun- all the Serbs were Eastern Orthodox. Economically, the
garian Dual Monarchy had at least one major political state was largely rural: 80 percent of the population was
party that supported Yugoslav unity. The Serb Radical supported directly by agriculture, and only three towns
party, which had been a proponent of a Greater Serbia,
split shortly after the war started, and its younger faction
shifted its support to a democratic Yugoslav state.

THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS 311

had populations of over one hundred thousand. Much of which affiliated with the Communist Inernational (Co-

Athe area had been depopulated by war. long history of mintern). This revolutionary party basically followed a
Greater Serbia policy in regard to the nationalities prob-
foreign rule by non-Slavs uninterested in the economic lem.
or cultural development of the area was reflected in pov-
erty and a high illiteracy rate. No party gained an absolute majority in the elections

The overwhelmingly rural character of the population to the Constituent Assembly, and a coalition of the Radi-
as well as its ethnic and cultural heterogeneity had a cals and Democrats, which had dominated the Parlia-
marked effect on developments during the interwar pe- ment since the war, held the power to formulate the new
riod. The peasant had a deep-seated mistrust of city constitution. King Alexander swore allegiance to the
dwellers, large absentee landowners, and representatives constitution on Saint Vitus Day, a Serbian national holi-

of foreign governments. After independence the peasants day, in June 1921, and it was thenceforth known as the
remained aloof and suspicious of the complex political Vidovdan (Saint Vitus Day) Constitution.
and economic ideas originating in the cities. Thus, only
a small minority of the population, particularly special- After the assassination of the newly appointed minis-
interest groups, were represented in the government. ter of the interior, Milorad Draskovic, by a Bosnian
Autocratic government and ethnic nationalist groups
characterized the country's political life. Communist terrorist, the Parliament, as one of its first
acts, outlawed the Communist party. Communist depu-
THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIMENT ties were forced to vacate the 58 seats that they had won

(1919-29) in the 419-seat Parliament, largely as a result of a protest

Border disputes delayed efforts to settle the internal or- vote against the Radical policies. From then until 1941
the Communist party operated underground.
der of the new state until November 1920. The disputes
involved borders with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, Pasic, who had become premier, followed an essen-
and Albania. The dispute with Italy continued until
tially Serbian program that alienated the Slovenes and
1924, but boundaries with Yugoslavia's other neighbors Croats. In 1924 Pasic dissolved the Croat Peasant party
and imprisoned its leader, Radic, for denouncing his
were settled more amicably, for the most part on the regime and demanding semiautonomy for Croatia. Ra-
dic gained his freedom by abandoning his demands, re-
basis of ethnographic distribution of population. forming his program, and entering into an alliance with
Before elections to the Constituent Assembly were Pasic. It was short-lived, however, for Pasic died in 1926,
and Radic reversed himself, moving back into the oppo-
held in November 1920, the kingdom was administered sition. In June 1928 Radic was assassinated on the floor
by the king, assisted by the Serbian Parliament. The of the Parliament by a fanatical Montenegrin and was
Parliament, however, had last been elected in 1911 and succeeded as leader of the Croat Peasant party by Vlatko
after the war represented neither Yugoslav nor even Ser-
bian public opinion. The self-appointed provisional gov- Macek, who continued Radic's intransigent support for
ernments of Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia, established
during the last days of the war, had difficulty function- Croat autonomy.
During this entire period neither the Radical party nor
ing.
the Croat Peasant party was strong enough to govern by
Political party activity, however, was not lacking. The itself, and neither was able to form a durable coalition
conservative Serbian Radical party, led by Nikola Pasic, with the other parties. Twenty-four governments suc-
was the strongest single party, representing the new rul- ceeded each other in rapid succession between 1919 and
ing group of the remnants of the former large landhold- 1929. Serbian hegemony remained predominant, and
ers and some of the emerging urban professional and Croatian resentment increased markedly. By January
business class. The more liberal Democratic party,
formed by a union of the dissident Radicals, the former King Alexander I
Serb-Croat coalition of Zagreb, and the Slovene Liberals, of Yugoslavia (1921-34)
also appealed to the urban middle class. Stephen Radic
had formed a Peasant party in Croatia before the war
and continued after the creation of the Yugoslav state to
lead the only major party that claimed to represent the
peasants. His program, however, made few concessions

to the peasants but stressed rather his political aims for
a federated, republican state.

Social Democratic parties had gained support among
peasants and workers during the 1890s in Serbia,
Croatia, and Slovenia. In 1919 the Serbian Social Demo-
crats took the lead in fusing the three parties into a new
Socialist Worker's party (Communist) of Yugoslavia,

312 —

1929 the parliamentary system had broken down, and THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS

King Alexander decided to step in. He dissolved the Queen Marie-Mignon with the King Alexander and his son.
newborn son, Crown Prince Peter Crown Prince Peter
Parliament, abolished the Vidovdan Constitution, and
assumed all governing authority. Kings Tomislav and Alexander in a 1929 stamp

Despite the unstable political situation, economic Many of these measures were directed toward unifica-
progress had not been seriously impaired during the first
ten years of Yugolavia's existence. Agriculture was en- tion of the divided country. In October 1929 Alexander
couraged, and a series of good harvests permitted the
export of an agricultural surplus. Railroad communica- changed the name of the state to the Kingdom of Yugo-
tion and a sizable Yugoslav merchant marine were devel-
oped. slavia and replaced the former provinces with nine re-

In 1921 Yugoslavia entered into bilateral treaties with gions (banovine), in many cases disregarding ethnic and

Czechoslovakia and Romania to guarantee mutual de- historical boundaries. Despite the fact that Croatia
fense against any possible aggression by Hungary and
Bulgaria. This Little Entente was supported and proper was left almost intact, the Croats interpreted
these measures as simply a means of preserving Serbian
financed after 1924 by France.
Ahegemony. number of Croat leaders fled the country.
THE PERIOD OF THE DICTATORSHIP
Some sought assistance from Bulgaria, Italy, and Hun-
(1929-34)
gary; others began a press campaign in western Europe,
King Alexander declared his assumption of power to be propounding the justice of Croatian claims for auton-
omy. Within and without the country extremist Croat
temporary, to last only until the abuses of the previous
party regimes could be overcome. Initially, the king's —nationalists formed a political movement the Ustasi

move was well received by most segments of the popula- which developed into a Fascist organization. The exiled
tion, and many looked to Alexander's personal rule for Ustasi leader, Ante Pavelic, was given refuge in Italy and
had the support of the Mussolini government.
relief from the country's political tensions.
During the first two years, however, King Alexander Faced by growing discontent in Croatia, as well as

issued a series of decrees that greatly restricted individ- among the Serbs, and feeling the need to gain the confi-

ual rights and strengthened the monarchy. The death dence of foreign governments, particularly of France,
penalty or a long prison sentence was imposed for all acts Alexander decided to revive the parliamentary system.
of terrorism, sedition, or dissemination of Communist
propaganda. Political parties based on a regional or reli- In September 1931 he promulgated a new constitution,
gious character were declared illegal, and freedom of the
press was eliminated. All municipal and departmental but all the legal restrictions declared in the preceding
councils were abolished. The crown assumed the power
to remove judges, and the Council of Ministers was made two years remained in effect. An upper house was

responsible solely to the king. created, its members partly elected and partly appointed
by the king, to share power with the previously estab-
Alexander I of Yugoslavia was Queen Marie-Mignon lished Parliament (Skupstina). The new constitution
the second son of Peter I of
gave legal sanction to Alexander's strict personal con-
Serbia. He changed the name of
trol.
his kingdom to Yugoslavia in

1929. He is seen here in 1922 at

the wedding ceremony with Prin-
cess Maria of Romania, his fu-
ture queen of Yugoslavia.

V

THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS 313

King Alexander with the French foreign minister, Louis Barthou. in To seek outside support for his weakening government
Marseilles, France, moments before they are assassinated on October 9,
1934 King Alexander sought a rapprochement with Bulgaria
in 1933. The next year he was instrumental in the cre-
77ie assassination scene. The murderer, Vlada Georguiev, has struck ation of a Balkan entente between Yugoslavia, Romania,
and the king is dead. His military escort, Lieutenant Colonel Piollet, can Turkey, and Greece. During the same year he sailed to
be seen beating the murderers head with his sword. France to strengthen the ties between France and the
states of the Little Entente (Yugoslavia, Romania, and
The economic depression that had swept the United Czechoslovakia), and in October he was assassinated in
States and western Europe also had a major effect on Marseilles by Ustasi terrorists, reportedly aided and
Yugoslavia. The collapse of agricultural prices and a run financed by Italy and Hungary, both under Fascist con-
on the banks in 1931 were followed by the loss of foreign trol. Although the majority of Yugoslavs had disap-
proved of Alexander's dictatorial policies, he had been
Acredits and a serious shortage of foreign exchange. personally liked and had been a symbol of Yugoslav
unity and independence. His assassination brought an
severe winter added to the difficulties by sharply reduc- outburst of grief and rage from all but the most radical
ing the exportable agricultural products. among the Croat extremists.

The combination of King Alexander's strong personal THE REGENCY PERIOD (1934-^1)
rule and a catastrophic deterioration in Yugoslavia's
economic position lent additional impetus to the growth Alexander's son, Peter Karadjordjevic, was eleven years
of extremist groups. The Ustasi movement gained rap- old at the time of his father's death. In his will, Alexan-
idly. The University of Belgrade became a center of polit- der had named his cousin, Prince Paul, to act as regent
ical intrigue and student disorders. Secret terrorist until Peter reached his maturity. After assuming the
organizations began to be active throughout the country,
but the underground Communist party lacked strong regency, Prince Paul did not take advantage of the mood
leadership and remained largely ineffective. Demands by of conciliation and hope that greeted the new king, but

opposition political leaders for a return to constitutional continued Alexander's controversial policies. Although

monarchy and for the protection of the rights of the Macek was released from prison, opposition parties still
were forbidden to operate. In May the first general elec-
various national groups led to large-scale arrests, includ-
ing that of Vlatko Macek. tions to the Parliament in eight years were held. Opposi-
tion candidates were not allowed to campaign on party

programs, but they won more than 1 million out of 2.8

million votes. Nevertheless, the complex electoral system
allowed the government party to attain 301 seats, with
67 going to the opposition.

The opposition deputies boycotted the Parliament and
met in a counter-Parliament in Zagreb. As leader of the
major Croat poltical movement, Macek was able to come

to an agreement with the Serbian Democratic and
Agrarian party leaders conderning their goals. This
marked the beginning of a Serb-Croat rapprochement in
opposition to the authoritarian government.

Alexander's son became Peter II

after the death of his father. He

was but eleven years old at the
time, so Alexanders will was
followed and his (Alexanders)

cousin Paul was named regent

until Peter reached his majority.

Peter II FWWfTW

(1940)

150'wocnv.' a
m-Hc- JUGOSU/UA

inwi it

314 THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS

Princes Tomislav and Andrei, brothers Prince Paul ruled as regent
of King Peter II (1936) from 1934 until he was ousted
by the revolution of March 27,
In June 1935 Prince Paul appointed a young Radical 1941. His downfall came after
party businessman, Milan Stojadinovic, as premier. Al- he met with Hitler at
though the premier promised a democratic government Berchtesgaden, Germany, in
and a wide measure of autonomy for Croatia, no March 1941 and agreed to have
progress was made in either direction, and opposition to Yugoslavia join Bulgaria and
Stojadinovic quickly developed among Croats, as well as Turkey in the Tripartite Pact
with Germany. Italy, and
among Serbs within the Radical party. In December Japan. Peter II then took over
1936 Prince Paul reopened negotiations with Macek to- but by April 15. 1941 had to
ward the granting of semiautonomy to Croatia within a flee to London in exile.
federalist state. Negotiations became stalemated, how-
Hitler, the dictator who
—ever, over the disposition of Bosnia whether it should controlled Germany during
World War II, talked Prince
be included in the Croatian autonomous region, be tied Paul into having Yugoslavia
to Serbia, or become autonomous.
join in an alliance with
Paul's foreign policy added to the internal political Germany.

tensions. As France's power to guarantee Yugoslavia's On March 27, 1941, the British

security system based on the Little Entente weakened, government recognized King Peter II
Paul felt constrained to seek security in closer relations as the head of the Yugoslavian
government (in exile). This was the
with the rising German and Italian states. Yugoslavia first postage stamp the exiled
became economically dependent on Germany. In 1936 government issued from London,

and 1937 Paul concluded agreements with Bulgaria and Peter II takes the Oath ofAccession on March 28, 1941, with Patriarch
Italy that strained Yugoslav relations with France and Gavrilo officiating at the Dedinye Palace, and becomes king of Yugo-

the Little Entente. slavia.
In the midst of the growing international tensions in

the period immediately preceding World War II, Prince

Paul apparently recognized the urgency of reaching a
settlement in the Serb-Croat problem before the Ustasi
and other extremist national groups hopelessly divided
the country. After several months of negotiations be-

tween Dragisa Cvetkovic, who was then premier, and

Prince Paul on the one hand, and Macek, leader of the
Croat Peasant party, on the other, a sporazum (agree-
ment) was reached that allowed the Croatian people to

establish a local assembly (diet) of their own and have a
measure of autonomy. At the same time Macek became
vice premier of the Yugoslav government. The sporazum

satisfied most of the Croats but was denounced by the
Slovenes and the Serbs whose regions were still under the

direct control of Belgrade.

EVENTS LEADING TO WORLD WAR II

Faced by the growing threat of German and Italian ag-

gression, Yugoslavia tried to maintain its neutrality.

When the Yugoslav leaders became aware of the ulti-

mate Nazi and Fascist intentions, the country had nei-
ther internal strength nor foreign support to oppose
them effectively. Although Yugoslav public opinion was
incensed against Berlin and Rome, the government re-

THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS 315

mained diplomatically neutral when Italy attacked ment was greeted with wild enthusiasm throughout the
Greece and Germany invaded Romania in mid- 1940. country as a defiance of Hitler. The Russians, British,
and Americans congratulated the government, and
Early in 1941 Premier Cvetkovic was summoned to Churchill said that in the coup d'etat "Yugoslavia found

Berchtesgaden, where Hitler suggested that Yugoslavia, her soul."
Bulgaria, and Turkey join the Tripartite Pact between
Germany, Italy, and Japan. By the beginning of March On April 6, without a declaration of war, the German
Bulgaria had agreed, and Prince Paul flew secretly to
Berchtesgaden to negotiate with Hitler. By March 20 he —air force began the bombing of Belgrade which Simovic
was resigned to the necessity of signing the pact but still —had declared an open city and the German army
hoped that Yugoslavia would be guaranteed its territo-
rial integrity and spared the demand for troops. Under crossed the border into Yugoslavia. The bulk of the in-
orders from Prince Paul, Cvetkovic went to Vienna and vading forces came from Bulgaria; other armies entered
from Hungary, Romania, and Albania with the support
on March 25 agreed to German terms. of Hungarian and Italian troops.
On his return two days later Cvetkovic found Belgrade
Germany and the Soviet Union were still bound by the
in an uproar. The news of his secret mission had reached
the public. That night a group of Serbian army and air Molotov-Ribbentrop nonaggression pact, and the Yugo-
force officers led a coup d'etat against Prince Paul, who slav Communists saw in the defeat of Yugoslavia their
was forced to resign as regent and seek exile. King Peter opportunity to come to power. The animosity of the
assumed the throne before reaching his majority, Cvet- Croats toward the Serb-dominated Yugoslav govern-
kovic and other members of his government were ar- ment and their desire for a fully independent Croatia led
rested, and a new government headed by General of the
many to welcome the German invasion. These factors,
Army Dusan Simovic was formed with Macek as a vice
along with poor equipment, inadequate communica-
premier. tions, and problems with troop disposition, made early
defeat inevitable. By April 15, 1941, King Peter and the
Although Simovic assured the Germans that the
Vienna agreement would be honored, the new govern- —government had fled first to Palestine and ultimately to

London, England, thus ending the monarchy form of
government for Yugoslavia.

King Peter visits with the president of the United States, Franklin D. Peter IPs wedding. Standing, left to right: duke of Gloucester; duchess
Roosevelt, at the White House in Washington, D.C. in 1942. of Kent; King George VI; King Peter II; King Haakon VII (Norway);
the bride and queen. Princess Alexandra of Greece; Princess Aspasia of
Joseph Broz Tito became president of Yugoslavia in 1953. He is seen Greece; King George II of Greece; and Prince Bernhard of the Nether-
lands. Seated, left to right: Queen Elizabeth; Prince Thomas, brother
here, center, on a state visit to Greece in 1954. King Paul and Queen of Peter II; and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands The wedding
Frederica were his host and hostess took place in London, England, on March 20, 1944.

King Peter II as he appeared in
England during World War II.

When the British government

backed Tito as the leader of
postwar Yugoslavia, King Peter

moved to Paris He moved to
Monte Carlo in the 1950s and,

after several visits to the United

States, made his permanent
residence in New York and
California He died in Denver,
Colorado, on November 4, 1970,
and was buried at the Serbian

Monastery in Libertyville,

Illinois

316 THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS
THE ROYAL SOVEREIGNS OF THE YUGOSLAV KINGDOMS

SERBIA

Reign Title Ruler Birth Death Relationship

600-Serbia established by emigrants from the Carpathian Mountains 1766 1817 Son of Milos Obrenovic
1780 1860 Son of Milos Obrenovic
1459-1829--Serbia ruled by Turkey 1819 1839 Son of Karadjordje
1823 1868 Son of Milos Obrenovic
1804-1813 National leader Karadjordje (George Petrovic) 1806 1885 Grand-nephew of Milos Obrenovic
Son of Milan I
1817-1839 Prince Milos Obrenovic 1854 1901 Son of Alexander
1876 1903
1839 Prince Milan 1844 1921 Nephew of Sava
Nephew of Peter I
1839-1842 Prince Michael Nephew of Danilo

1842-1858 Prince Alexander Karadjordjevic Son of Peter I
Cousin of Alexander 1
1858-1860 Prince Milos Obrenovic Son of Alexander I

1860-1868 Prince Michael

1868-1882 Prince Milan

1882-1889 King Milan I

1889-1903 King Alexander I

1903-1921 King Peter I Karadjordjevic

1915-1918—Occupied by Austria

—1918 Serbia part of Yugoslavia

CROATIA

1091—Under Hungary

—1526 Under Turkey
—1809-1813 Part of France; under Austria-Hungary when it became part of Yugoslavia

1813-1918—Croatia declared independent 1941

—1944 Kingdom created by Italians

1941-1943 King Aimone of Spoleto
—1943-1945 Croatia under Germans
—1945 Reunited with Yugoslavia after World War II

MONTENEGRO

1697-1737 Prince-Bishop Danilo Petrovic 1677 1737
1737-1756 Prince-Bishop Sava 1782
1756-1766 Prince-Bishop Vasili 1760 1766
1766-1774 Prince-Bishop Stephen the Little 1812 1774
1774-1782 Prince-Bishop Sava 1826
1782-1830 Prince-Bishop Peter I 1841 1830
1830-1851 Prince-Bishop Peter II 1851
1851-1860 Lord Danilo II 1860
1860-1910 Prince Nicholas I 1921
1910-1918 King Nicholas I

YUGOSLAVIA

—1918 Kingdom proclaimed

1919-1921 King Peter I (of Serbia) 1844 1921
1888 1934
1918-1921 Regent Alexander
1893
1921-1934 King Alexander I 1923

1934-1941 Regent Paul

1934-1945 King Peter II

—1945 Yugoslavia becomes a Communist republican regime.

M%m

8

omso Spain

The ancient kingdoms of Spain fifteenth century. For a period in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries Portugal was also part of that Iberian
An important and productive region in the Roman Em-
federation.
pire, Spain's national history can be dated from the fifth
century ad., when a Germanic successor state was es- Spain was deeply involved in European affairs from
the sixteenth into the eighteenth century and in the six-
tablished in the former Roman diocese of Hispania. Al- teenth century was the foremost European power.
Spain's kings ruled provinces scattered across Europe.
though it lacked internal political unity throughout the The Spanish Empire was global, and the impress of
Middle Ages, Spain is nevertheless one of the oldest Spanish culture was so pervasive, especially in the Amer-
nation-states in Europe. It acquired its present-day bor-
ders and was united under a personal union of crowns by
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in the late

317

318 THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN

icas, that in 1975 Spanish was the native tongue of 200 matriarchal, collective, and tenaciously independent
million people outside Spain.
clans.
Modern Spanish history has been marked by recurrent
Another distinct ethnic group in the western Pyrenees,
political instability, military intervention into politics, the Euskera or Basques, predated the arrival of the Iberi-
ans. Their pre-Indo-European language has no links
frequent breakdown of civil order, and periods of repres- with any other language, and attempts to identify it with
sive government. Spain possessed the constitutional pre-Latin Iberian have not been convincing. The name
framework in the nineteenth century for parliamentary Vascones, from which Basque is derived, was given them
government not unlike that of Great Britain and France by the Romans.
but was unable to develop institutions capable of surviv-
ing the social, economic, and ideological stresses of The Iberians shared in the Bronze Age revival (ca.
Spanish society. The hopes placed in the Second Repub- 1900-1600 b.c.) common to the Mediterranean basin. In
lic after 1931 by advocates of liberal parliamentary the east and south urban settlements were established,
democracy in Spain and throughout Europe were never
possibly through the amalgamation of tribal units that
realized. developed into a system of city-states. Their govern-
ments followed the older tribal pattern and were des-
The Spanish civil war (1936-39), which claimed more
than half a million lives, was a recapitulation on a larger Apotic, governed by warrior and priestly castes.
scale and in an infinitely more brutal context of conflicts
that had erupted periodically for generations. Not only sophisticated urban society emerged with an economy
did it divide Spain, but it polarized European opinion as based on the export of gold and silver and the trade in
well, tested the idealism of the Western democracies, and tin and copper, plentiful in Spain, for bronze. The most
served as a proving ground for the weapons and tactics important of the Iberian city-states was Tartessos, the
biblical Tarshish, which, after a period of domination by
of World War II. the Phoenicians, flourished in the sixth and fifth centu-
ries b.c. The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned Tar-
After the civil war Spain became identified worldwide tessos, and a later Greek commentator, Phylarchus,
with Generalissimo Francisco Franco y Bahamonde, the related with some exaggeration that the Tartessians
leader of the Nationalists. Although indebted to the Axis drank water "though they are the wealthiest of mankind
powers for their support during the civil war, Franco (for they possess very great quantities of silver and gold)
and . . . they never eat but once a day from thrift and
kept Spain nonbelligerent during World War II. wear the most magnificent clothes."

IBERIA The Iberian towns were the beneficiaries of cultural
currents that moved with commerce across the Mediter-
The people who were later named Iberians, or dwellers ranean from Greece and the Near East. The Iberians

along the Ebro, by the Greeks, migrated to Spain in the adopted alphabets for their non-Indo-European lan-
guage from Greek and Punic sources, and a wide variety
third millennium B.C. The origin of the Iberians is a of inscriptions indicate that literacy was not confined to

subject for debate, but archaeological evidence of their a cultural elite.
metallurgical and agricultural skills supports the theory
Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians competed
that they came from the eastern Mediterranean. Other with the Iberians for control of Spain's coastline and the
peoples of Mediterranean origin settled on the coast dur-
ing the same period and together with the Iberians fused sources of the interior. Merchants from Tyre may have
with the diverse autochthonous inhabitants.
The Iberians were driven as slaves in the days of Roman conquest. In
The Iberians lived in small, tightly knit, sedentary this allegorical illustration the Roman emperors Julius Caesar and
tribal groups, isolated from one another by geography.
Each developed distinct regional and political identities. Augustus are seen holding court over their subjects in Spain.
Intertribal warfare was endemic.

Celts crossed the Pyrenees into Spain in two major
waves of migration in the ninth and seventh centuries
B.C. Celtic settlement was concentrated north of the
River Duero and the River Ebro where the Celts fused
with the Iberians to form distinct groups, called Cel-

tiberians. They were farmers and herders, who also ex-

celled in the metalworking crafts, which the Celts had
brought with them from their Danubian homeland by
way of Italy and southern France. Celtic cultural influ-
ence was dominant, and the Celtiberians appear to have
had no social or political organization larger than their

THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN 319

established their outpost at Cadiz, "the walled enclo- the aristocratic class and played a part in governing
sure" (Punic, Gadir; Greek, Gades), as early as 1 100 b.c Spain and the empire. The latifundia, extensive estates
controlled by powerful magnates, were superimposed
as the westernmost link in what became a chain of Punic without difficulty on the landholding system already op-
cities and outposts lining the southern coast. If the ac-
cepted date of its founding is accurate, Cadiz is the oldest erative among the Iberians.
city in western Europe and older than Carthage, the The Romans laid out the new cities of Zaragoza,
greatest of the Punic colonies. From Cadiz, Phoenician
seamen explored the west coast of Africa as far as Sene- Merida, and Valencia and improved existing ones. They
gal and reputedly ventured far out on the Atlantic.
—provided amenities found throughout the empire the-
Greek pioneers from Rhodes landed in Spain in the
eighth century b.c, and later Colaeus, a merchant from aters, arenas, baths fed by aqueducts, and the forum,
the Greek island of Samos, returned home with a cargo
of silver after having sailed through the Straits of Gibral- focal point of every Roman city. The local administrative
tar. The Greek colony at Massilia (later Marseilles)
maintained commercial ties with the Celtiberians in division was the civitas, which often corresponded to an
what is now Catalonia. In the sixth century b.c. Massil- Iberian tribal area but always centered on a city or town.
ians founded a polis at Ampurias, the first of several
established on the Mediterranean coast of the peninsula. The economy expanded under Roman tutelage as part of

HISPANIA the imperial system. With North Africa, Spain served as

After its defeat by the Romans in the First Punic War a granary for the Roman market, and its harbors ex-

(264-241 b.c), Carthage compensated for the loss of ported gold, wool, olive oil, and wine. Agricultural pro-
duction was extended by the introduction of irrigation
Sicily by rebuilding a commercial empire in Spain. From projects, some of which remain in use. The Hispano-

Cartagena (Carthago Novo), three generations of the —Romans the romanized Iberians and the Iberian-born
Barcid Dynasty directed Carthaginian expansion, estab- —descendants of Roman soldiers and colonists had all

lishing new towns and subduing the Iberians in the inte- achieved the status of full Roman citizenship by the end
rior. Spain became the staging ground for Hannibal's
epic invasion of Italy during the Second Punic War of the first century a.d. The emperors Trajan (reigned
98-117), Hadrian (117-38), and Marcus Aurelius (161-
(218-201 b.c). 80) were born in Spain.

Roman armies also invaded Spain, using it as a train- The Vulgar Latin developed into a distinct provincial
usage, which in turn evolved into Spanish regional dia-
ing ground for officers and a proving ground for tactics
during the campaigns against the Carthaginians and lects. Spain remained in the mainstream of Hellenistic
Iberians. Resistance from the Iberians was fierce and
culture throughout the Roman period and produced its
prolonged, and it was not until 19 b.c. that the Roman share of Silver Age writers, among them the Stoic
philosopher Seneca (5 b.c.-a.d. 65), who was born in
emperor, Augustus, was able to complete the conquest Cordova. Some authorities read Seneca's Spanish back-

of Spain. ground (his mother is thought to have been an Iberian)

Romanization of the Iberians proceeded quickly upon into his Stoicism.
conquest. Called Hispania by the Romans, Spain was not
a political entity but was originally divided into three Christianity was introduced into Spain in the first cen-
provinces (nine by the fourth century a.d.), each gov- tury and had become popular in the cities by the second
erned separately. More important, Spain was for more century. Little headway was made in the countryside,
than four hundred years part of a cosmopolitan world however, until the late fourth century, by which time
Christianity was the officially recognized religion of the
empire bound together by law, language, and the Roman
road. From every part of the empire men of many races, Roman Empire. The major heresies of the early church
united in a common Roman identity, came to Spain as
were in evidence, but the Spanish church remained or-
government officials, as merchants and, in the greatest thodox. Orosius, a Spanish bishop, was the author of the
creed formulated at the Council of Nicaea (325) to refute
numbers, as soldiers who settled on Spanish land, often
Arianism. Bishops, who had official civil as well as eccle-
with native wives, after their long terms of service. In
addition Iberian soldiers, employed as mercenaries for siastical status in the late empire, continued to exercise
several centuries by the Carthaginians, enlisted in large
their authority to maintain order when civil government
numbers in the Roman army. Emperor Hadrian, who had broken down in Spain in the fifth century, and the
Council of Bishops, which met at Toledo, became an
ruled from a.d. 117 to 138, used tough Iberian legion-
important instrument of stability during the Visigothic
naires to man his wall across Britain. ascendancy.

Tribal leaders and urban oligarchs were admitted into In 405 the Vandals and Suevi crossed the Rhine,
ravaging Gaul until driven by another Germanic tribe,
the Visigoths, into Spain. The Suevi established a king-

dom in the remote northwestern corner of the peninsula.

The hardier Vandals, never more numerous than eighty
thousand, occupied the region that bears their name

Andalusia.

320 THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN

Because large parts of Spain were outside his control, powers. Bloody family feuds went unchecked. Civil war,
the Western emperor, Honorius (395-423), commis- royal assassinations, and usurpation were commonplace.
sioned the willing Visigoths under their king, Ataulphus, The Visigoths had acquired and cultivated the apparatus

and his Roman consort, the emperor's sister, Galla of the Roman state but not the ability to make it operate

Placida, to restore order, giving them the right as fo- to their advantage. Without a well-defined hereditary
ederati to settle in and govern Spain in return for defend- succession to the throne, rival factions encouraged for-
ing it. The Visigoths were among the most highly eign intervention by the Greeks, Franks, and finally the
romanized of the Germanic peoples. The Visigoths sub- Muslims in domestic disputes and royal elections.
dued the Suevi and compelled the Vandals to sail for
North Africa. In 484 they established Toledo as the AL-ANDALUS
capital of their Spanish monarchy. The Visigothic occu-
pation was in no sense a barbarian invasion. Successive Early in the eighth century armies from North Africa
Visigothic kings ruled Spain as patricians holding impe- began probing the Visigothic defenses of Spain, initiating

rial commissions to govern in the name of the Roman the centuries-long Moorish epoch. The people who
emperor. Though the authority of the emperor in Con- became known to western Europeans as Moors were the
Arabs who had swept across North Africa from their
stantinople was nominal there, Spain remained in theory
Middle Eastern homeland and the Berbers, inhabitants
a part of the Roman Empire.
of Morocco whom the Arabs had conquered and con-
The Germanic peoples in Spain numbered no more
than three hundred thousand in a population of 4 mil- verted to Islam.
lion, and their overall influence on Spanish history is
generally seen as minimal. They were a privileged war- In 71 1 Tarik ibn Zizad, a Berber and the governor of
rior elite, though many of them lived as herders and Tangier, crossed into Spain with an army of twelve thou-
farmers in the valley of the River Tajo and on the central sand (landing at a promontory that later bore his name,
plateau. Hispano-Romans continued to run the civil ad- Gib al-Tarik or Gibraltar). They came at the invitation
ministration, and Latin remained the language of gov- of a Visigothic clan to assist it in rising against King
ernment and commerce. The two peoples retained
separate and distinct legal codes, though the distinctions Roderic, who died in battle, leaving Spain leaderless.

over the years tended to be blurred. Having decided the outcome of an internal Spanish feud,
Religion was the most persistent source of friction Tarik returned to Morocco, but the next year Musa ibn
Nusair, the Muslim governor in North Africa, led the
between the Catholic Hispano-Romans and their Arian best of his Arab troops to Spain, intent on staying. In
Visigoth overlords. At times it invited open rebellion and
was exploited by restive factions within the Visigothic In July 711. Amir Tarik led the
aristocracy to weaken the monarchy. In 589 Recared Goths in an invasion of Spain,
renounced his Arianism before the Council of Bishops at
Toledo, accepting Catholicism and assuring an alliance which lasted with their presence
between the Visigothic monarchy and the Hispano- and rule until 1492.
Romans, who proved themselves more reliable than his
own rebellious chieftains. The first Moorish amir.
Tarik
AThe Visigothic monarchy was elective. new king

was nominated from the royal family, according to Ger-
manic tradition, on the basis of the candidate's "throne-
worthiness." In Spain after Recared's conversion the
Council of Bishops functioned as a legislative assembly
to ratify royal elections and to confer on the king the
charismatic character of a theocratic monarch. This was
symbolized in the rite of coronation, which Spain's Visi-
gothic monarchs were the first among the Germanic
rulers of the successor states to use and which was mod-

eled on the forms used by the Christian Roman emper-

ors. The kings aiso were entitled to intervene in the

administrative affairs of the church, inaugurating a royal

prerogative that persists in Spain.

Court ceremonials from Constantinople that pro-
claimed the imperial sovereignty and unity of the Visi-
gothic state were introduced at Toledo. In fact warlords
and great landholders had assumed wide discretionary

THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN 321

A native princess brought before Amir Abderraman (730-32) for his line flourished for two hundred and fifty years. Nothing
approval. The Moorish amirs had an eye for Spanish women. in Europe compared with the wealth, power, and sheer
brilliance of al-Andalus during the Cordovan period.
three years he subdued all but the mountainous region
in the extreme north and initiated forays into France, In 929 Abder-Rahman III, who was half European as
which were stemmed at Poitiers in 732. were many of the ruling caste, elevated the emirate to the

Al-Andalus, as Islamic Spain was called, was orga- status of a caliphate, cutting Spain's last ties with Bagh-
nized under the civil and religious leadership of the ca- dad and establishing that thereafter al-Andalus's rulers
liph of Damascus. Governors in Spain were generally would enjoy complete religious as well as political sover-
Syrians whose political frame of reference was deeply
influenced by Byzantine practices. The largest contin- Aeignty. similar process attended the breakdown of
gent of Moors in Spain, however, were the North Afri-
can Berbers, recent converts to Islam, hostile to the Arab hegemony throughout the Islamic world in the
sophisticated Arab governors and bureaucrats, and given tenth and eleventh centuries.
to a religious enthusiasm and fundamentalism that were
to set the standard for the Islamic community. Berber Hisham II, grandson of Abder-Rahman III, inherited
settlers fanned out through the country and made up as the throne in 976 at age twelve. The royal vizier, Ibn Abi
Amir (al-Mansur), became regent and established him-
much as 20 percent of the population of the occupied self as virtual dictator. For the next twenty-six years the
territory. The Arabs constituted an aristocracy in the legitimate caliph was no more than a figurehead, and
al-Mansur was the actual ruler. Al-Mansur wanted the
revived cities of Spain and on the latifundia, which they caliphate to symbolize the ideal of religious and political
unity as insurance against any renewal of civil strife. He
had inherited from the Romans and Visigoths. reinforced this by insisting on strict conformity with
Most of the Gothic nobility converted to Islam and religious orthodoxy and by creating a professional army

retained their privileged position in the new society. The personally loyal to the vizier to replace the unreliable
countryside, only nominally Christian, was also success- regional forces under local lords. Notwithstanding the

fully Islamized. An Hispano-Roman Christian commu- fact that al-Mansur employed Christian mercenaries, he
nity survived in the cities. Jews, who constituted more preached jihad, or "holy war," against the Christian
states on the frontier, undertaking annual summer cam-
than 5 percent of the population, continued to fill an paigns against them, which served not only to unite
important place in commerce, scholarship, and the pro-
Spanish Muslims in a common cause but also to extend
fessions.
Muslim control in the north temporarily.
The term Mozarabs (Arablike), used to identify the The Cordovan caliphate did not long survive al-Man-
Christians in al-Andalus, indicates the impact of the new
cultural influences on the country. Social customs and sur's dictatorship. With his firm and often cruel grip off
mores, dress, food, and artistic styles were significantly the reins of government, the caliphate was torn apart by
influenced. The native Romance dialect was regularly rival claimants to the throne, local aristocrats, and army
written in Arabic characters, and in some cities use of commanders who staked out taifas, independent re-
Arabic had become so widespread among Mozarabs that gional city-states. Some of them, such as Seville,
it was used in the Christian liturgy. Granada, Valencia, and Zaragoza, became strong emi-
rates, but all were subject to frequent political upheavals,
The Arab-dominated Umayyad Dynasty at Damascus warring among themselves and making long-term ac-
was overthrown in 756 by the Abbasides, who moved the commodations with the emerging Christian states.
caliphate to Baghdad. One Umayyad prince fled to Spain
and, as Abder-Rahman I (756-88), founded a politically In the ninth century Cordovan Mozarabs, led by their
independent emirate with its capital at Cordova in what
bishop, invited martyrdom by denouncing Mohammed
was then the farthest extremity of the Islamic world. His
in public, but physical violence remained the exception

until the eleventh century, when the Christian states
became a serious threat to the security of al-Andalus and

Mozarabs there were harassed. Many Mozarabs fled to

the Christian north, where their artistic talent and tech-
nical skill, the product of two cultures, had a fructifying

effect.

CASTILE AND ARAGON

Active resistance to the Muslim invasion in the eighth
century had been limited to small groups of Visigoth
warriors. They took refuge in the mountains of Asturias
in the old Suevian Kingdom, the least romanized and

322 THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN

Pelayo. the first Christian king least Christianized region in Spain. According to tradi-
of Asturias (and Leon), the son tion Pelayo (d. 737), a king of Oviedo, first rallied the
of Favila. the duke of natives to defend themselves, then urged them to take the
Cantabria, is seen presiding offensive beginning the seven-hundred-year-long Recon-
over his council in this sketch. quest (Reconquista), which became the dominant theme

King Ordono III of Leon (950-55) was the first Spanish king to be in medieval Spanish history. What began as a matter of
buried at Leon. survival in Asturias became a crusade to rid Spain of the
Muslims and an imperial mission to reconstruct a united
King of Aragon, James I. the monarchy in Spain. The two ideals were inextricably
Conqueror (1213-76), saying bound together.
goodbye to his wife before
departing for the Balearic The kings of Leon, as Pelayo's successors were styled

Islands as they extended Christian control southward from As-
turias, tore away bits of territory, which were depopu-
Ms£' •^S lated and fortified against the Muslims and then resettled
as the frontier was pushed forward. The kingdom's cen-
ter of political gravity always moved in the direction of
the military frontier.

In the tenth century, strongholds were built as a buffer
for Leon along the upper Ebro in the area that became

known as Castile, the "land of castles."
In 981 Castile became an independent county and in

1004 was raised to the dignity of a kingdom by the
Sanchez Dynasty. Castile and Leon were reunited peri-
odically through royal marriages, but their kings had no
better plan than to divide their lands again among their
heirs. The two kingdoms were permanently joined as a
single state in 1230 by Saint Ferdinand III of Castile (d.

1252).

Under Frankish tutelage a barrier of pocket states was
constructed along the range of the Pyrenees and on the

Catalonian coast to hold the frontier of France against
Islamic Spain. Out of this Spanish march emerged the
kingdom of Aragon and the counties of Catalonia, which
expanded, as did Leon-Castile, at the expense of the
Muslims. (Andorra is the last independent survivor of
the march states.)

The counts of Barcelona were descended from Wilfrid
the Hairy, who at the end of the ninth century declared
his fief free of the French crown and monopolized lay
and ecclesiastical offices on both sides of the Pyrenees,
dividing them, according to Frankish custom, among
members of the family. By 1 100 Barcelona had dominion
over all of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. Aragon
and the Catalan counties were federated through a per-
sonal union after the marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV,

count of Barcelona, and Petronilla, heiress to the Arago-

nese throne, in 1 137. He assumed the title king of Ara-

gon but continued to rule as count in Catalonia.
Berenguer and his successors thus ruled over several

realms, each with its own government, legal code, cur-

rency, and political orientation.
Valencia, seized from its Muslim emir, became fede-

rated with Aragon and Catalonia in the thirteenth cen-
tury. With the union of the three crowns, Aragon (the
term most commonly used to describe the federation)
rivaled Venice and Genoa for control of Mediterranean

THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN 323

trade. Aragonese commercial interests extended to the Queen Berengaria, wife of
Black Sea, and the ports of Barcelona and Valencia pros- Richard I of England, became
pered from the traffic in textiles, drugs, spices, and the regent in 1217 for her son

slaves. Ferdinand III. the Saint.

Weakened by their disunity, the eleventh-century King Ferdinand III, the Saint
taifas fell piecemeal to the Castilians, who had reason to
King Pedro III, the Great (1276-
anticipate the completion of the Reconquest. When To- 85), monarch of Aragon and
Catalonia, watchesfrom a moun-
ledo was lost in 1085, the alarmed emirs appealed for aid taintop as the French flee Spain.
to the Almoravids, a militant Berber party of strict Mus-
Pedro I. the Cruel, was the king
lims, who in a few years had won control of the Maghreb ofLeon and Castile from 1350 to
(northwest Africa). The Almoravids turned back the 1369. For which of his crimes he
received his nickname is not cer-
Christian advance and incorporated all of al-Andalus, tain, but ranking high would be
except Zaragoza, into their North African Empire. They the imprisonment and murder of
attempted to stimulate a religious revival based on their his wife, Queen Blanche ofBour-

own evangelical brand of Islam, but in Spain the move- bon.
ment soon conformed with the religious attitudes of the
taifas. The Almoravid state fell apart by the mid-twelfth

century under pressure from another religious group, the

Almohads, who extended their control from Morocco to
Spain and made Seville their capital. The Almohads

shared the crusading instincts of the Almoravids and
posed an even greater military threat to the Christian
states, but their expansion was stopped decisively in the
epic battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), a watershed
in the history of the Reconquest. Muslim strength ebbed
thereafter. Ferdinand III took Seville in 1248, reducing
al-Andalus to the emirate of Granada, which had bought
its safety by betraying the Almohads' Spanish capital.
Granada remained a Muslim state but as a dependency
of Castile.

Aragon's territorial aims were fulfilled in the thir-

teenth century when it annexed Valencia. The Catalans,
however, looked for further expansion abroad, and their
economic views prevailed over those of the parochial
Aragonese nobility, who were not enthusiastic about for-
eign entanglements. Pedro III, king of Aragon from
1276 until 1285, had been elected to the throne of Sicily
when the French Angevins (House of Anjou) were ex-
pelled from the island kingdom during the uprising in
1282. Sicily and later Naples became part of the federa-
tion of crowns, and Aragon was brought into the center
of Italian politics, where Spanish interests remained em-

broiled into the eighteenth century.

Catalan expansionism was not limited to the actions

of the legitimate authorities. The Grand Catalan Com-

pany, a corporation of almogdvers (light infantry
troops), freebooting mercenaries sometimes in the ser-
vice of the Byzantine emperor, carved out an indepen-
dent duchy of Athens in Greece and governed it

throughout most of the fourteenth century. The Catalan
economy was controlled by the independent, highly indi-
vidualistic, and often ruthlessly competitive entre-
preneurs of the urban oligarchy. The Catalan nobility
competed with the merchants and bankers of Barcelona
for a share in the commercial market.

Feudalism, which bound nobles to the king-counts

324 THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN

Henry II of Castile (1369-79) was Henry IV in a portrait from life
known in history as the count of by Camarauz

Trastamara. He was, in character,

nearly as cruel as Pedro the Cruel;
as loose in morals and only slightly
inferior as a tyrant. His was the
reign with the rivalry of Pope
Urban VI and the antipope
Clement, so he withheld the
customary contribution to the Holy
See. Henry also recovered the vast
amounts of gold and other fortunes
of Pedro's and this very money
today represents the wealth of the
royal family.

economically and socially as tenants to landlords, had King Henry IV of Castile
been introduced into Aragon and Catalonia from (1454-74) was called Henry the
France. It produced a more clearly stratified social struc-
ture than Castile's and consequently greater tension Impotent because after he married
Blanche of Navarre in 1440. he
among classes. Castilian society was less competitive, failed to produce an heir. Blanche,
more cohesive, and more egalitarian. The labor-free pro- after thirteen years of marriage,
"complained that the 'debitum
duction of wool left far fewer occasions for class struggle conjugale' was not paid, " and as
than did the labor-intensive commerce and industry of damages received an annulment in
Barcelona and racially diverse Valencia. Castile at- 1453.
tempted to compensate through political means, how-
ever, for the binding feudal arrangements between crown Aragon, where another branch of the Trastamaras
and nobility that it lacked. The guiding theory behind succeeded to the throne in 1416, was affected by the
the Castilian monarchy was one of political centralism to
social disruption and decay of institutions common to
be won at the expense of local fueros, but the kings of much of Europe in the late Middle Ages. For long peri-

Castile never succeeded in creating a unitary state. Ara- ods the overextended Aragonese kings resided in Naples,
gon-Catalonia accepted and developed, not without con- leaving their Spanish realms with weak, vulnerable gov-
flict, the federal principle, and no concerted attempt was ernments. The economic dislocation caused by plague
and the commercial decline of Catalonia was the occa-
made to establish a political union of the Spanish and sion for repeated revolts by regional nobility, town cor-
porations, peasants and, in Barcelona, the urban
Italian principalities outside of their personal union un-
der the Aragonese crown. Beyond conflicting local loyal- proletariat.
ties, therefore, the principal regions of Spain were
divided in their political, economic, and social orienta- THE GOLDEN AGE
tions. Catalonia particularly stood apart from the rest of
the country. Stability was brought to both kingdoms in 1469 through
the marriage of royal cousins, Ferdinand of Aragon
Both Castile and Aragon suffered from political insta- (1452-1516) and Isabella of Castile (1451-1504). Ferdi-
bility in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In Castile nand had grown up in the midst of civil war, and Isabel-
the Trastamaras, who took the throne in 1369, created la's succession had been bloodily disputed by her niece
Juana in a conflict in which rival claimants had been
a new aristocracy to whom significant authority was
—given assistance by outside powers Isabella by Aragon
granted. Castilian kings were often dominated by their
validos (court favorites) and, because the kings were and Juana by the king of Portugal, who was her suitor.
weak, nobles competed for control of the government. The direction in which Iberian unification would pro-

ceed, linking Castile with Aragon, was determined by
the outcome of that struggle, concluded in 1478. Ferdi-
nand succeeded his father in Aragon the next year. Both
Isabella and Ferdinand understood the importance of
unity: she, in terms of ideological uniformity, and he, as
part of a politcal process. Together they effected institu-
tional reform in Castile and left Spain one of the best
administered countries in Europe.

THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN 325

3

John II on a medallion
of the time

King Don Juan II (John) of
Leon and Castile (1406-54).
John II was the weakest and
most despicable of the princes

that ever ruled in Spain.

Blanche the Tattler, as she was The leading sovereigns ofSpain from 1474 to 1886. Left, top to bottom:
known, became the "Heiress of Isabella II (1833-68), Isabella I (1474-1504), and Philip I (1504-6).
Navarre" upon the death of her Center, top to bottom: Charles I (V, 1519-56), Alfonso XII (1874-86),
brother Charles in 1461. But her
male competition for the throne of and Philip V (1701-24). And right, top to bottom: Maria Cristina
Navarre led to her imprisonment in (1886), Ferdinand V (1506-16), and Philip II (1556-98).
the Castle Orthez in Beam, where
she was under continual sexual Even with the personal union of the Castilian and
assault and torture for two years, Aragonese crowns, Castile, Aragon, Catalonia, and Va-
until her captors poisoned her in lencia remained constitutionally distinct political entities
1464. Her death paved the way for and retained their separate councils of state and parlia-

that ancient kingdom to be ments. Ferdinand, who had received his political educa-
partitioned between France and tion in federalist Aragon, brought a new emphasis on

Spain, constitutionalism, consultation with the estates, and re-
spect for local fueros to Castile, where he was king con-
In 1469, Ferdinand of Aragon, sort (1479-1504) and remained as regent after Isabella's
son of King John II, married death in 1504. Greatly admired by Machiavelli, Ferdi-
Isabella of Castile, which united nand was one of the most skillful diplomats in an age of
the two countries into one Spain. great diplomats and assigned to Castile its predominant
role in the Dual Monarchy.

Ferdinand and Isabella resumed the Reconquest, dor-
mant for more than two hundred years, and in 1492
captured Granada and earned for themselves the title
Catholic kings. After the long history of Islamic Spain
was brought to an end, attention turned to the internal
threat posed by a Muslim population increased by sev-

326 "

THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN

Queen Isabella as a child

The marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand in 1469

The queen in her youth, from Isabella and Ferdinand receive the keys to Granada from Abou Abdilehi
an original print of the time (Boabdil), Moorish king of Granada (1482-92) on January 2. 1492. The
place still bears a plaque with the inscription "El ultimo suspiro del
moro," which translates as "The last sigh of the Moor.

During his coreign, Ferdinand was known as Ferdinand the Catholic.

The queen s armor as it
has been preserved

A portrait of Isabella I.

the Catholic

THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN 327

t

I

*
1

i/JI

T y*• t

/

***

/< famous painting of The Education of Boabdil, the last King of Isabella and Ferdinand welcoming Columbus on his return from the
Granada Americas

Christopher Columbus explaining his forthcoming trip to the Americas Tomb of Prince Juan, son of Isabella and Ferdinand, located in the
to Isabella and Ferdinand in a famous painting by Vacslav Brozik Church of St. Thomas in Avila

eral hundred thousand by the incorporation of Granada. more heterogeneous than that of any other European
"Spanish society drove itself," J. H. Elliott writes, "on nation and contained significantly large non-Christian
a ruthless ultimately self-defeating quest for an unattain- communities. In Granada especially they constituted a
conquered majority of doubtful loyalty. Moriscos
able purity." (Granadan Muslims) were given the choice of voluntary
exile or conversion to Christianity. There was a prece-
Everywhere in sixteenth-century Europe it was as- dent for Jewish conversion, and Conversos (Jewish con-
sumed that religious unity was a necessary ingredient of verts to Christianity) had filled important government
political unity. Insistence on religious conformity was and ecclesiastical posts in Castile and Aragon for more
therefore not unique to Spain, but there was a greater
sense of urgency in enforcing it. Spain's population was

328 THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN

Spain in the fifteenth century Queen Juana and Philip I reigned from 1504 to 1506, when Philip died
and the queen grieved herself into insanity. Here she is shown in a vigil
than one hundred years. Many had married or pur-
chased their way into the nobility. Muslims in recon- at Philips gravesite.

quered territory, Mudejars, also had lived quietly for The church in an attempt to exorcise Queen Juana
generations as peasant farmers and skilled craftsmen. The tomb in Granada of King
Valencia retained a Mudejar majority in 1500. Philip and Queen Juana, the
parents of Charles I
After 1525 all residents of Spain were officially Chris-
tian, but forced conversion and nominal orthodoxy were The birth of Charles I in 1500. He was king ofSpain from 1519 to 1556.
not sufficient for complete integration into Spanish soci- He also reigned as Charles V, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
ety. Purity of blood (pureza de sangre) regulations were
imposed on candidates for positions in the government
and the church, not only to prevent Moriscos from be-
coming a force again in Spain but to eliminate participa-
tion by Conversos as well, though their families might
have been Christian for generations. There was a scram-

ble to reconstruct family trees in many of Spain's oldest

and finest families.
The task of enforcing uniformity of religious practice

was put in the hands of the Inquisition, a state-controlled
Castilian tribunal authorized by papal bull in 1478 and
soon extended throughout Spain. It was originally in-
tended to investigate the sincerity of Conversos, espe-

cially those in the clergy, who had been accused of being

crypto-Jews.

For years laws were laxly enforced, particularly in
Aragon, and nominally Christian Jews and Moriscos
continued to observe their religions in private. In 1568
a serious rebellion broke out among the Moriscos of

Andalusia, who sealed their fate by appealing to the
Turks for aid. The incident led to mass expulsions

throughout Spain and the eventual exodus of hundreds
of thousands of Conversos and Moriscos, some appar-
ently devout Christians. The last of them was expelled in
1609. "Wherever we are, we weep for Spain," laments a

Morisco in Don Quixote, "for after all, there we were
born, and it is our natural fatherland."

In the fifteenth century Portuguese mariners were
opening a route around Africa to the East and, together
with the Castilians, they had planted colonies in the
Azores and the Canaries, the latter islands assigned to

THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN 329

Queen Isabella of Portugal,

the consort of Charles V

Charles V at the Battle of Muhlberg Spain by papal decree. The conquest of Granada allowed

The triumphant entry of Charles V and Pope Clement VII into Bologna the Catholic kings to divert their attention to exploration
but, though blessed by Isabella, Christopher Columbus's
for Charles's coronation in 1530 first voyage in 1492 was financed by foreign bankers. In

1493 Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia, a Catalan)
sanctioned the division of the unexplored world between
Spain and Portugal. The Treaty of Tordesillas signed by
Spain and Portugal one year later moved the line of
division westward and allowed Portugal to claim Brazil.

In the exploration and exploitation of the New World,

Spain found an outlet for the crusading energies stimu-

lated by the war against the Muslims. New discoveries

and conquests came in quick succession. Vasco Nunez de
Balboa reached the Pacific in 1513, and the survivors of
Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the circum-

navigation of the globe in 1522. In 15 19 the conquistador

Hernando Cortes subdued the Aztecs in Mexico with a
handful of followers, and between 1531 and 1533 Fran-
cisco Pizzaro overthrew the Inca Empire and established
Spanish dominion over Peru.

In 1493, when Columbus brought fifteen hundred
colonists with him on his second voyage, a royal admin-
istrator had already been appointed for the Indies. The

Council of the Indies (established in 1 524) acted as an
advisory board to the crown on colonial affairs, and trade
with the colonies was regulated by the House of Trade

(Casa de Contratacion). The newly established colonies
were not Spanish but Castilian. They were administered
as appendages of Castile, and the Aragonese were pro-
hibited from trading or settling there.

Ferdinand and Isabella were the last of the Tras-
tamaras, and Spain was not again ruled by a native

dynasty. When their sole male heir, John, who was to

have inherited all his parents' crowns, died in 1497, the
succession passed to his sister Juana (a younger sister
was Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII).
Juana had become the wife of Philip the Handsome, heir
through his father, Emperor Maximilian I, to the Habs-
burg patrimony and through his mother to the Burgun-
dian domains, which included the Netherlands and
Franche-Comte. Their son, Charles of Gaunt (Ghent),
was recognized as lord in the Netherlands provinces on

Philip's death in 1506. On Ferdinand's death in 1516,

Charles inherited Spain and its colonies and Naples
(Juana, called the Mad, lived until 1555 but was judged
incompetent to rule) and, when Maximilian I died in
1519, the Habsburg domains in Germany. Shortly after-

—

330 THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN

Charles I loved the sport of bullfighting from horseback. ward he was selected Holy Roman emperor to succeed

Philip II, king of Spain, was born in 1527, the only son of Emperor his grandfather. In such a way the most diverse empire
since Rome's, stretching around the globe, was brought
Charles V (of the Holy Roman Empire). He was known as the Demon
of the South. He had no equal among Spanish monarchs, for he was together in a matter of a few years under Charles V

invested with the duchy of Milan, 1540; married Maria of Portugal, Charles I of Spain.
1543; succeeded to the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, 1554; married Charles's closest attachments were to his birthplace,
Mary Tudor of England, 1554; succeeded to the lordship of the Nether-
lands, 1555; became king of Spain on abdication of his father, 1556; Flanders, and he surrounded himself with Flemish ad-
married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry II, of France, 1557; proclaimed
himself king of America, 1565: married Anne of Austria, the former visers who were not appreciated in Spain. The town
betrothed of his son Don Carlos, 1572; and acquired the throne of
Portugal in 1580. corporations (comunidades) of Castile and Leon rose in
revolt against their absentee king in 1520 and 1521. His

duties as Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain never
allowed him to rest too long in one place. As the years

of this long reign passed, Charles drew closer to Spain,
which because of its manpower and the wealth of its
colonies was increasingly called upon to maintain the
Habsburg Empire.

When he abdicated in 1556 to retire to a Spanish

monastery, Charles divided his empire. His son, Philip
II (reigned 1556-98), inherited Spain, the Italian posses-
sions, and the Netherlands (the industrial heartland of
Europe in the mid-sixteenth century). For a brief period

(1554-58) Philip was king of England as Mary Tudor's
husband. In 1580 Philip was acknowledged king of Por-

tugal through succession from his mother, and the
Iberian Peninsula had a single monarch for the next sixty

years.

Philip II was a Castilian by education and tempera-

ment. He was seldom out of Spain and knew no other
language but Spanish. He governed his scattered domin-

ions through a system of councils, such as the Council
of the Indies, staffed by professional civil servants, whose
activities were coordinated by a council of state responsi-
ble to Philip. Its function was advisory only. Every deci-
sion was Philip's, every question required his answer,
every document his signature. His father had been a
peripatetic emperor, but Philip, a royal bureaucrat, ad-
ministered every detail of his empire from the EscoriaJ,

Philip II, as a young man Mariana of Austria, the second
(photograph, duke of wife of Philip II

Wellington estate) (by Velasquez)

THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN 331

the forbidding palace-monastery-mausoleum begun in
1563 on the barren plain outside Madrid.

By marrying Ferdinand, Isabella had united Spain,
but she had also inevitably involved Castile in Aragon's
wars in Italy against France, hitherto Castile's ally. The
motivation in each of their children's marriages had been

—to circle France with Spanish allies Habsburg, Burgun-

dian, and English. The succession of the Habsburg
Dynasty with its broader Continental interests and com-
mitments drew Spain onto the center stage of European
dynastic wars for two hundred years.

Well into the seventeenth century music, art, litera-
ture, theater, dress, and manners from the Golden Age
were admired and imitated, setting a standard by which
the rest of Europe measured its culture. Spain was also
Europe's preeminent military power and had occasion to

—exercise its strength on many fronts on land in Italy,

Germany, North Africa, and the Netherlands and at sea
against the Dutch, French, Turks, and English. Spain
was the military, diplomatic, and spiritual standard-

In 1651, a daughter was born to Philip II and Mariana and named Philip II sufferedfrom gout. He is seen here receiving a delegation from

Margaret Maria. In the christening scene by Velasquez, the "Infanta" Holland with his foot propped up on a chair. Philip said that he would
is seen, center, with her godmother, Infanta Maria Theresa, left. prefer living with his inflamed big toe to giving up drinking.

Elizabeth of Valois,
queen of Spain, the third

wife of Philip II

Philip II with the royal architect and engineer at the site planning the
building of the Escurial Royal Palace, which Philip wanted to be the

biggest in the world.

Anne of Austria, the young bride
promised to Don Carlos, ended
up the fourth wife of Philip II.

332 THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN

The Escurial (Escorial) built by Philip II in memory of his father, moil'V No»<Kf». A«ilo«i »'ogon.n Cro.m F™J (.rjv^m Domwii -an Hobibwg, Alii ISJA
Charles I. is theformer residence (near Madrid) ofmany kings ofSpain.
It is a massive palace, monastery, and church that contains royal tombs Spoixlh Hobibvrgi Alii ISM
and a priceless collection of rare paintings.

Spain in its European setting in the sixteenth century

Philip II in later years

Philip III (1598-1621). He is A painting of Philip IV
(1621-65) by the famous
recorded in history for his
artist Velasquez
helplessness, imbecility,

dissipation, and idleness.

The last of the Moorish people being expelled from Spain by Philip III bearer of the Counter-Reformation. Spanish fleets de-
feated the Turks at Malta (1565) and at Lepanto (1572)

— —events celebrated even in hostile England preventing

the Mediterranean from becoming an Ottoman lake. The
defeat of the Grand Armada in 1588 averted the planned
invasion of England but was not a permanent setback for
the Spanish fleet. It recovered and remained an effective
naval force in European waters.

Sixteenth-century Spain was ultimately the victim of

its own wealth. Military expenditure did not stimulate

domestic production. Bullion from American mines
passed through Spain as through a sieve to pay for troops
in the Netherlands and Italy, to maintain the emperor's
forces in Germany, for ships at sea, and to satisfy con-
spicuous consumption at home. Dutch commercial in-
terests, for instance, so prospered from supplying the
Spanish army that they resisted concluding the war in

the Netherlands.

The seventeenth century was a period of unremitting
political, military, economic, and social decline. Neither
Philip 111(1598-1621) nor Philip IV (1621-65) was com-

petent to give the kind of clear direction of which Philip
II in his prime had been capable. Responsibility passed