The development of a sense of national identity in Croatia had been impeded, first, by the long-drawn-out process of Ottoman withdrawal from the region, which was not complete until 1739; and, second, by the donation of Dalmatia—the country’s southern half—to Venice under the terms of the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. Under Venetian rule, Dalmatia deteriorated into a virtual wasteland, exploited for its timber and other raw materials, but otherwise totally neglected. After the Turkish retreat, Croatia’s northern half, Slavonia, was dominated economically by the newly established estates of Austrian and Hungarian magnates and populated by Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs, who moved in to fill the vacuum left by approximately a hundred-thousand Muslims, who fled southwards into Bosnia as the Turks withdrew.

The Croatian Diet, the Sabor, made unsuccessful attempts during the Eighteenth Century to persuade Vienna to transfer to it administrative control of the Military Frontier Region, the Krajina. When these failed, and when the administrative reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II made further inroads into Croatian autonomy, the Croatian nobility decided in 1790 to make common cause with their Hungarian counterparts by surrendering most of the prerogatives of their Sabor to the Hungarian Diet. This bid to strengthen Croatia’s negotiating position vis-à-vis Vienna tended to highlight the areas of difference between Croatians and Hungarians rather than their common objectives. For example, the Croats were determined opponents of proposals to replace Latin by Hungarian as the country’s official language. The constitutional alliance with Hungary against the Habsburg absolutism, renewed in 1825, nevertheless postponed the Croatian national awakening, although the first Slavonian (Croatian) grammar had appeared as early as 1767.

In Dalmatia, meanwhile, the impact of the Napoleonic Wars had replaced Venetian by Austrian and, from 1805, French rule. The short period of French occupation, which lasted until Napoleonic defeat, gave Dalmatia its first experience of enlightened administration, including a system of primary and secondary education, and an indigenous daily press. The restoration of Austrian rule after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 brought this artificially stimulated burst of progress to a full stop, but a seed had been sown that would germinate later in the Nineteenth Century.

From Bryan Cartledge’s The Will to Survive: A History of Hungary, London: Hurst & Company, 2011 (first published in 2006), pp. 155-156.