Kingdom of Dalmatia
The Kingdom of Dalmatia on the Adriatic coast was from 1797 until the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, apart from an interruption 1805-1814/1815, an Austrian crown land. The state capital was Zadar.
Development
Formation
After the end of the Venetian Republic as a result of the occupation of Venice by the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Venetian possessions were, like most of the rest of the Venetian territory attached to the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea by the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797 to Austria. From the Venetian possessions in Dalmatia and Boka Kotorska in the Austrian crown land of Dalmatia was born. It stretched from the island of Rab and Karlobag in the north to the south of Budva. The maritime city-state of Dubrovnik was at that time still retain its independence.
After the conquest by Napoleon's troops, the country was annexed to France in 1805 with the Peace of Pressburg and formed a part of his Illyrian Provinces. In the year 1814/15 was made after the Congress of Vienna, the entire stretch of land, now including the territory of the former Republic of Ragusa, in Austria back. The crown land now extended to Spizza (today sutomore ) near bar
From 1815 to 1867
On the Prevlaka a fort was built to control vessel traffic in the Bay of Kotor military. After the revolution events in 1849 Dalmatia was subordinate to the Ban of Croatia. In conflict with the Slavic majority population dominated by Italian-speaking elite Dalmatian parliament tried to keep Dalmatia in the Association of Austrian provinces. Only the Slavic National Party demanded in on October 9, 1861 the Emperor passed address the restoration of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia, for which they claimed the same independence with respect to the Austrian states, the Hungarians until the revolution of 1848 / had possessed 49.
Austro- Hungarian compensation
After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 Croatia - Slavonia was an autonomous country part of the Hungarian half of the empire, while Dalmatia was beaten to Cisleithania and thus remained in Austria. Against the wishes of the Croatian majority, however, remained a formal association with the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia. The continuing political division remained until the end of the Austro -Hungarian Monarchy a political point of conflict.
In the Austrian Dalmatia first Italian was used as an official language as already under Venetian rule continued. Croatian or Serbian language was between the 1870s and 1880s to the business language of the Dalmatian land day after South Slavonic -oriented parties had won there the majority. As external official language of the state authorities, the Croatian or Serbian language was equated to the Italian in this period, however, internal official language of the state authorities remained until shortly before the First World War, exclusively Italian. Also in German texts from the Central authorities, it remained common practice to use the Italian language forms for Dalmatian toponyms.
Population
According to official ( Austrian ) statistics, the population of Dalmatia in 1869 was 458 611 persons ( 384 180 Slavs, Italians 55 020 ), in 1880, 476 101 persons ( 440 282 Slavs, Italians 27.305 ). In 1900, the Kingdom of Dalmatia had with an area of 12,835 km ² total of 610,000 inhabitants. Of these, 565,000 were Slavs ( Croats and Serbs ), 15,000 Italians and 2,300 German. Approximately 100,000 people (about 16.5 percent) were orthodox creed, more than 83 percent of the residents were Roman Catholic.
Due to the poor soil conditions of this crown land was the poorest in the Danube monarchy.
Legislation, administration
See also: Dalmatian parliament ( with list of governors )
The overall political authority in Dalmatia was the governor's office in Zara (Zadar), where there was also a top state and a regional court. These were three district courts and 33 district courts. The population was spread out with 81 local congregations with 841 villages.
The political division took place in district headquarters.