The Germans and the East

German Colonization in the Banat and Transylvania in the Eighteenth Century

89 German฀Colonization฀in฀the฀Banat฀and฀ Transylvania฀in฀the฀Eighteenth฀Century ◆฀฀฀Karl฀A.฀Roider฀and฀Robert฀Forrest฀฀฀◆ German colonization in the eighteenth-century Habsburg Monarchy focused on two areas, the Banat of Temesvar (Timoşoara) and Transylvania. In the case of the Banat, Habsburg policy did not focus exclusively on filling those lands with Germans because they were Germans. There the Habsburgs were eager primarily to provide a population for a recently acquired area depopulated by war and disease. Still, they regarded the Germans as bringing civilization and culture to an area they believed needed some of both. In Transylvania, Habsburg policy-makers, while having a more complex policy of immigration, believed a larger German presence would serve the same purpose. Indeed, there they hoped that mingling and perhaps marriage with the local Magyars might dampen the Hungarian tendency to object to Habsburg rule. In both cases encouragement of population growth and economic development common to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Cameralism played roles in Habsburg policy that sent Germans to the East. Cameralism, associated with such Habsburg thinkers as Johann Joachim Becher, Wilhelm von Schroeder, and Philip Wilhelm von Hörnigk, was an economic theory that recognized that real power rested not so much on the strength of the monarchy’s army as on the strength of its economy, including the well-being of its subjects. These Cameralists argued that the state must invest in agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, and infrastructure because the wealth derived from those endeavors would enable it to sustain the kind of bureaucracy and military that would assure its safety. The Banat became a Habsburg possession following the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–1718. In 1699, at the Treaty of Carlowitz (Sremski Karlovci), the Austrians acquired most of old Hungary north of the Danube/Sava River line with the exception of the Banat, a land bordered on three sides by the Danube, Tisza, and Maros (Mureş) rivers. In the subsequent war, the Habsburg armies conquered and secured not 90 ◆ KARL A. ROIDER AND ROBERT FORREST only the Banat, but the fortress of Belgrade and a substantial portion of Serbia. The Habsburgs did not declare this land reconquered and thus subject to the Hungarian crown, but rather newly acquired (neoacquisita) and liable to direct administration from Vienna. On the advice of his foremost military advisor, Prince Eugene of Savoy, Emperor Charles VI (1711–1740) established a commission to govern the Banat and to recommend policies to improve it.1 The฀Banat The Banat offered the Habsburgs the opportunity to conduct a controlled experiment in the implementation of Cameralist ideas. It represented a confined space of approximately 11,150 square miles (28,879 kilometers) which was considerably underpopulated. A census by the Hofkriegsrat conducted in late 1718 counted a population of 85,000 in this space, or a rather low 7.62 people per square mile. That census was probably wrong, because later scholarship indicated that the population was more likely 300,000, or 26 people per square mile.2 The severe undercounting by the Hofkriegsrat could have been attributed to all kinds of reasons, but in any case even 26 people per square mile indicates a sparse population. Because of its small population and its status as a land controlled by the crown without interference from estates or a resident nobility, the Banat was a perfect place to see if Cameralist policies worked. The Habsburgs could bring in settlers, provide them with the means to raise crops and livestock, engage in infrastructure improvements—especially in controlling water since the area was marshy and swampy—introduce policies related to disease control, and generally turn it into a model of how a modern state could improve a backward land. The first task was to find colonists, and in the 1720s the most fertile recruiting ground was the Holy Roman Empire, especially the Rhineland. That area had suffered considerably during the War of the Spanish Succession, was burdened by high taxation, and did not offer much new land to its freehold peasants.3 In fact, that area had already seen recruiters of various kinds, including British who were looking for settlers in Ireland and North America, French who wished to settle French Guiana, Russians already interested in moving people to the Volga and Black Sea regions, and even Spaniards for the sparsely inhabited Sierra Morena. But there is no evidence that the Habsburgs in this early period were interested in settling only Germans in the Banat. Rather...