The outbreak of the insurrection in Poland in January 1863 made the Military Frontier highly interesting for those nations which expected the Polish question to have wider international repercussions. Immediately after the outbreak of the insurrection, Oreskovic amplified his "operational war plan" which he had drafted a year earlier. He devoted particular attention to the rising in Bosnia, which was to be effected with the help of the frontier units. The plan made provision for an incursion into Bosnia from the north, from Croatia, rather than from the east, from Serbia. Thereby Oreskovic wanted to secure for his further action those northern regions of Bosnia which were "most exposed to Austrian intrigues." Furthermore, he believed that if the battlefield were to be placed close to the Croatian Military Frontier, he would be able to obtain the greatest possible military assistance. As the frontiersmen were held to be the best skilled soldiers in Europe, he expected them to constitute the core of an army of regular units which "everyone would admire for its prowess." The plan provided not only for an incursion into Bosnia by the frontiersmen, but also, in the event of need, for assistance "in the Bulgarian battle area." To organize and equip 8,000 frontiersmen, Oreskovic made provision of some 40,000 ducats. He supposed that the number of volunteers from the Frontier might double, and even reach the figure of about 20,000 men, but only provided the beginning of the action was successful.⁴⁶

By the end of the winter of 1863, some war preparations in Serbia had already gotten under way. The volunteer frontiersmen, who had come during bombardment of Belgrade crisis in 1862, and after the disbandment of the volunteer corps had been scattered all over Serbia, were ordered by the military authorities to assemble near Sabac. The Serbian steamboat "Deligrad," with three barges, was to transfer the volunteers from Belgrade to Brcko. One company of the Bosnians in Serbia was sent to western Bosnia through Karlovac in Croatia, where they were to receive arms from the frontiersmen and begin the uprising.⁴⁷ However, they were thwarted by the Austrian authorities. Owing to the treachery by former Garibaldian, Giuseppe Bideschini, the military authorities of Austria managed to uncover the secret committee in Karlovac which had the job of linking up with the Italian liberation movement, and with the money received from Italy to redouble its efforts in the recruitment of volunteers and preparation of the insurrection. An investigation established that the uprising was prepared by Serbia and that the frontiersmen were to help by making an incursion into Bosnia under the leadership of their committees. The authorities found out that the final objective of the entire movement was the creation of a Southern Slav state, which would encompass the Military Frontier. This disclosure led to the arrest of the more prominent members of the Karlovac Committee. Those arrested included Petar Uzelac, a merchant from Karlovac, the retired lieutenant Stevan Priljeva, Captain Mihailo Loncar of the Lika Regiment, and the Orthodox chaplain of the Ogulin Regiment, Father Jovan Sorak. Searches brought to light a list of officers and Orthodox priests from the Karlovac and Banska Krajina, who had agreed to collaborate in preparing the uprising in Bosnia.⁴⁸ One man particularly interested in the fate of the detained people, whose arrest was concealed from the public, was Danilo Medakovic. In the newspaper Napredak, he simply requested the Croatian newspapers, who being closer to the events were supposed to be better informed, to say something about the detainees, who were all Serbs, and who, according to him, had come to grief because they "intended to buy ammunition for the Bosnian Christians in case of need."⁴⁹

Almost at the same time as the secret committee in Karlovac was uncovered and its members put under arrest, Ilija Gutesa, an agent of the Serbian government in Zagreb, whose underground name was Albini, was also arrested. With his arrest, the authorities uncovered the code for the ciphered letters with which he kept contact with Belgrade. The materials found on Gutesa led A. T. Brlic, one of the most active Croat collaborators with Serbia in carrying out revolutionary propaganda and fomenting the uprising, to suspect that Matija Mrazovic, a prominent member of the Croatian National Party, was compromised in the eyes of the authorities because of his links with Serbia.⁵⁰ Brlic's suspicion suggests that Mrazovic at this time, early in 1863, might have had some contacts with Belgrade. However, at present it is not known with whom he may have maintained those links and with what object in view.

Fairly well acquainted with the work of the secret committees in the Frontier, with the plans of raising insurrections and with the far-flung network of arms smugglers, Austria tried to put a stop to the various illegal activities instigated from Belgrade by making arrests and undertaking other measures. It feared an uprising in Bosnia not only because of Bosnia, which it wanted for itself, but also because it feared that the conflagration in the Balkans could easily spread to its southern regions bordering on Turkey. To prevent this from happening, Austria either posted all the doubtful Frontier officers, mainly those of Serbian nationality, to other areas, "far from their homeland," as Oreskovic wrote, or relieved them of their command posts. In less than one year, from the end of May 1862 to early February 1863, 117 Serbian officers from the Military Frontier had been dislocated. This was a heavy blow to Serbia's revolutionary plans, which led Oreskovic, dissatisfied with what had been achieved, to write critically: "It should not be surprising - even if there were to be a general uprising at all - if the Bosnian units bordering on the Croatian Military Frontier should reveal themselves to be more difficult and intractable."

The Serbian government's secret links with the Military Frontier cost around 60,000 forints per annum. To organize the illegal actions even better, it was necessary, according to Garasanin, to spend annually at least 100,000 forints. When official circles in Italy requested cooperation with Serbia at the time of the insurrection in Poland, in anticipation of an anti-Austrian movement in Hungary, Garasanin proposed, in June 1863, that the government in Turin financially assist the Principality's work in the Military Frontier. The Italian government accepted Serbia's proposal and sent money to Oreskovic through General Türr or various agents. It is not possible to establish exactly what resources Italy contributed to finance the action in the Military Frontier, but Garasanin was not satisfied with this aid. In 1866 he told Consul Scovasso that Italy two years previously had refused to participate in the expenses for the work in the Military Frontier, which for Serbia were much too high.⁵²

Although Serbia was not financially in a position to organize its activities in the Frontier on a broader basis, the Principality of Serbia held an important place in Italo-Hungarian plans to involve the Frontier in any future conflict with Austria. Italians and Hungarians did take Serbia into consideration in their liberatory plans and wanted her to participate in a concerted anti-Austrian action. Serbia was interesting to them because of the Military Frontier, because the Belgrade government was believed to hold in its hands the levers which moved the frontiersmen. An important testimony about this was left by Oreskovic, the central figure in work with the frontiersmen. He wrote: "Whenever a foreign power negotiated with Prince Mihailo, negotiated not with the prince of a small Serbia, but with the leader of all Southern Slavs, and, very importantly, with the supreme commander of the gallant frontier army."⁵³ Oreskovic wrote these words thirty years after the event, but this is also how he viewed small Serbia at the time of his greatest activities. He told General Istvan Türr in 1864: "I reiterate what I have often told you: to win over the Southern Slavs in Austria, at least those who can resolve the whole thing decisively, these being the inhabitants of the Military Frontier, be they Croats or Serbs, it is indispensable to win over the Principality of Serbia. An agreement to this end with the Principality, whose demands for national progress are as reasonable as those of Hungary, and which is entitled to leadership among the Southern Slavs, should be obtained first, and it is furthermore, desirable and beneficial for both sides."⁵⁴

An official offer to the Italian government to come to an agreement with Serbia was made by Garasanin to Consul Scovasso in the summer of 1864. In the hope that it would be accepted, Oreskovic in September of the same year drafted an aide memoire about the role of the Military Frontier in a war between Italy and Austria. It proposed that an insurrection be launched in Hungary and in the Military March simultaneously, to be followed by Italy's entry into the war. In the planned collaboration between the men of the Frontier and the Hungarians and Italians, provision was made for the landing of Hungarian and Italian troops on the Dalmatian coast, which would permit the frontiersmen to procure artillery and obtain supplies from the areas under Turkish rule, whence he expected assistance from the "militant element." Being in favour of an agreement between Italy and Serbia, he stressed the importance and military strength of the Principality, pointing out that its assistance in a war against Austria could only be counted on if the planned general insurrection in Turkey were called off. He intimated that this could be achieved with Napoleon's assistance, if he persuaded the Porte to hand over Skadar, Sabac, and Smederevo to Serbia. He ended his aide memoire with the warning that the Italian government must hurry with the war if it wanted collaboration and help from the Military Frontier, because Austria had already started removing from it those officers whose loyalty and fidelity it doubted.⁵⁵

Negotiations leading to an agreement between Italy and Serbia, under which Serbia, under certain conditions would join the war against Austria, did not come to fruition. No reply ever came from Turin to Garasanin's offer of an agreement. This outcome was due to a number of events, including first of all the quelling of the insurrection in Poland, dissensions within the Italian movement for unification, and the changes which took place in the Italian government after it was taken over, late in 1864, by General La Marmora. This was also the moment when the entire network of secret agents along the Military Frontier was broken, following the betrayal of Lt. Aleksandar Vukobratic, one of Oreskovic's close collaborators. Thus Serbia's political propaganda in the Military Frontier was temporarily brought to a halt, and Oreskovic was compelled to look for new collaborators.⁵⁶

During the Polish uprising and in the course of Italo-Serbian and Serbo-Hungarian negotiations on cooperation, there were few contacts between representatives of the Serbian government and Croatian politicians. One such contact, although only episodic in character, was that which was established with the vice-zupan of the county of Rijeka, Ivan Voncina. Voncina was one of the leading members of the Croatian Independent Party, which included in its ranks a number of prominent Serbs from Croatia and which in the national question held broad Yugoslav visions. By all appearances, Voncina probably knew about Serbia's activities in the Military March. This is suggested by the fact that in November 1863, Oreskovic sent Lt. Aleksandar Vukobratic to Rijeka to get from Voncina a map of the Istrian and Dalmatian coast, which Garibaldi needed for his planned landing on the Adriatic coast.⁵⁷

During the Polish uprising, Eugen Kvaternik, who after mid-October 1863 was for the second time in exile, joined an international conspiracy against Austria. An important place in this revolutionary plan, which was forged by Polish and Hungarian emigrés in collaboration with the Italian government, was assigned to the Military Frontier and the frontiersmen. Because the frontiersmen were to be included in the planned action, Kvaternik was also persuaded to cooperate. He was induced to take part in the plan by the Czech revolutionary and emigré, J. V. Fritsch. According to the plan of the Polish national government, whose agent Kvaternik had become in March 1864, the movement in Croatia had to be synchronized with the Italian movement for unification. It was necessary to send proclamations and brochures to Croatia, and in Italy to recruit volunteers for the Croatian Legion among the frontiersmen and other Austrian soldiers stationed there. Kvaternik was instructed to purchase a printing press in Italy and to write to Ante Starcevic with the request that a popular government be set up in Croatia. He made his cooperation conditional upon the demand that the army, which would cross the Adriatic from Italy to land on Croatian state territory, should appear under the Croatian and not the Hungarian flag. To finish what he had undertaken to do, Kvaternik received from the Polish national government 1,000 franks and gave a written undertaking to promote Croatia's collaboration with Poland, Italy, Hungary, Bohemia and other nations against Austria. Thanks to this collaboration, the treaty which the Polish national government concluded with the Hungarian national committee provided for the creation of a Croatian state, which would be independent of Hungary. Fulfilling his contractual obligations to the Polish national government, already in March 1864, while he was in Paris, Kvaternik wrote a proclamation addressed to soldiers from Croatia who were in Italy. It was printed together with a proclamation in the Czech and Polish languages, calling upon soldiers to fight against Austria. In the meanwhile, a committee was set up in Zagreb which wanted the uprising in Croatia and the landing of allied troops on the Dalmatian coast to run concurrently. Prompted by former Austrian officers, among whom Oreskovic was a key person, and encouraged by proclamations of the Zagreb Committee and Garibaldi, the Military Frontier would also rise. Kvaternik wrote his proclamation to the frontiersmen following instructions from the Zagreb Committee. Like the proclamation on the setting up of the popular government, it was not printed in Italy but in Geneva, because the Italians did not permit Kvaternik to print propaganda material in their territory. They did not even permit him to work on the setting up of a Croatian legion, for in the meanwhile Garibaldi had broken off his treaty on joint action with Poland, and Kvaternik had come into conflict with the Italians because of the territories (Istria and Dalmatia) which after liberation were to go to either Italy or Croatia.⁵⁸

When the uprising in Poland was crushed in mid-June 1864 and when the Hungarian liberals, led by Ferenc Deák, were about to find a common basis for agreement with the court, thus resolving the Hungarian national question, the plans of the Polish, Czech and Hungarian emigrés on destroying Austria through revolution had to be abandoned. Knowing full well that nothing would come of the action, Kvaternik attempted to achieve something on his own. He firmly believed that

conditions for the raising of an insurrection in the Military March were more favourable than in any other part of Austria.⁵⁹ For as long as he hoped to solve the Croatian question with the help of Polish, Czech, and Hungarian emigrés and the Italian government, Kvaternik was against opening the Eastern Question and thereby the Serbian question as well. He wanted to keep Turkey on the sidelines during the settlement of the Croatian question, so that its territory, in case of need, might serve as a sanctuary.⁶⁰ Obviously, such a solution did not suit the Serbian government and the Serbs. As a Croatian patriot who did try hard to solve the national question of his people in the best possible way, Kvaternik had completely neglected the burning national problems of the Serbs. This is why differences sprang up between the Rightists and the Serbs over the best way of the solving of the Croatian and Serbian national questions respectively. 

Biblioteka | Action among Frontiersmen in the 1866 War

Copyright © 1997 by Vasilije Krestic
Copyright © 1997 by BIGZ , Beograd
Copyright © 1998 by Serbian Unity Congress