Editing Croats (section)

===Personal union with Hungary (1102–1918)===
{{main|Croatia in personal union with Hungary|Croatian-Ottoman Wars}}
[[File:Pacta Conventa (Croatia).jpg|thumb|255px|upright=0.8|left|[[Pacta conventa (Croatia)|Pacta Conventa]], is a historical document by which Croatia agreed to enter a personal union with Hungary. Although the validity of the document itself is disputed, Croatia did keep considerable autonomy.]]

In the 11th and 12th centuries "the Croats were never unified under a strong central government. They lived in different areas - Pannonian Croatia, Dalmatian Croatia, Bosnia - which were at times ruled by indigenous kings but more frequently controlled by agents of Byzantium, Venice and Hungary. Even during periods of relatively strong centralized government, local lords frequently enjoyed an almost autonomous status".<ref name="TNCMH" />{{rp|271–276}}

In the union with Hungary, institutions of separate Croatian statehood were maintained through the [[Sabor]] (an assembly of Croatian nobles) and the ban (viceroy). In addition, the Croatian nobles retained their lands and titles.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/143561/Croatia|title=Croatia|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=18 March 2015|archive-date=18 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150318224010/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/143561/Croatia|url-status=live}}</ref> Coloman retained the institution of the Sabor and relieved the Croatians of taxes on their land. Coloman's successors continued to crown themselves as Kings of Croatia separately in [[Biograd na Moru]].<ref>Curta, Stephenson, p. 267</ref> The Hungarian king also introduced a variant of the [[feudal system]]. Large [[fief]]s were granted to individuals who would defend them against outside incursions thereby creating a system for the defence of the entire state. However, by enabling the nobility to seize more economic and military power, the kingdom itself lost influence to the powerful noble families. In Croatia the [[House of Šubić|Šubić]] were one of the oldest Croatian noble families and would become particularly influential and important, ruling the area between [[Zrmanja]] and the [[Krka (Croatia)|Krka]] rivers. The local noble family from [[Krk]] island (who later took the surname [[House of Frankopan|Frankopan]]) is often considered the second most important medieval family, as ruled over northern Adriatic and is responsible for the adoption of one of oldest European [[statute]]s, [[Law codex of Vinodol]] (1288). Both families gave many native bans of Croatia. Other powerful families were [[House of Nelipić|Nelipić]] from [[Zagora (Croatia)|Dalmatian Zagora]] (14th–15th centuries); [[Kačić]] who ruled over [[Pagania]] and were famous for piracy and wars against Venice (12th–13th centuries); [[Kurjaković]] family, a branch of the old Croatian noble [[Gusić family]] from [[Krbava]] (14th–16th centuries); [[House of Babonić|Babonić]] who ruled from western [[Kupa]] to eastern [[Vrbas (river)|Vrbas]] and [[Bosna (river)|Bosna]] rivers, and were bans of Slavonia (13th–14th centuries); [[House of Iločki|Iločki]] family who ruled over Slavonian stronghold-cities, and in the 15th century rose to power. During this period, the [[Knights Templar]] and the [[Knights Hospitaller]] also acquired considerable property and assets in Croatia.

In the second half of the 13th century, during the [[Árpád dynasty|Árpád]] and [[Capetian House of Anjou|Anjou]] dynasty struggle, the Šubić family became hugely powerful under [[Paul I Šubić of Bribir]], who was the longest Croatian Ban (1274–1312), conquering Bosnia and declaring himself "Lord of all of Bosnia" (1299–1312). He appointed his brother [[Mladen I Šubić of Bribir|Mladen I Šubić]] as Ban of Bosnia (1299–1304), and helped [[Charles I of Hungary|Charles I]] from House of Anjou to be the King of Hungary. After his death in 1312, his son [[Mladen II Šubić of Bribir|Mladen II Šubić]] was the Ban of Bosnia (1304–1322) and Ban of Croatia (1312–1322). The kings from House of Anjou intended to strengthen the kingdom by uniting their power and control, but to do so they had to diminish the power of the higher nobility. Charles I had already tried to crash the aristocratic privileges, intention finished by his son [[Louis I of Hungary|Louis the Great]] (1342–1382), relying on the lower nobility and towns. Both kings ruled without the Parliament, and inner nobility struggles only helped them in their intentions. This led to Mladen's defeat at the [[battle of Bliska]] in 1322 by a coalition of several Croatian noblemen and Dalmatian coastal towns with support of the King himself, in exchange of Šubić's castle of [[Ostrovica, Croatia|Ostrovica]] for [[Zrin Castle]] in Central Croatia (thus this branch was named [[House of Zrinski|Zrinski]]) in 1347. Eventually, the Babonić and Nelipić families also succumbed to the king's offensive against nobility, but with the increasing process of power centralization, Louis managed to force Venice by the [[Treaty of Zadar]] in 1358 to give up their possessions in Dalmatia. When King Louis died without successor, the question of succession remained open. The kingdom once again entered the time of internal unrest. Besides King Louis's daughter [[Mary, Queen of Hungary|Mary]], [[Charles III of Naples]] was the closest king male relative with claims to the throne. In February 1386, two months after his coronation, he was assassinated by order of the queen [[Elizabeth of Bosnia]]. His supporters, bans [[John of Palisna]], [[John Horvat]] and Stjepan Lacković planned a rebellion, and managed to capture and imprison Elizabeth and Mary. By orders of John of Palisna, Elizabeth was strangled. In retaliation, Magyars crowned Mary's husband [[Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor|Sigismund of Luxembourg]].{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}
[[File:Eastern Adriatic 1500.svg|thumb|255px|Croatia in personal union with Hungary and [[Hundred Years' Croatian–Ottoman War|Ottoman expansion]] in the region in 1500]]
King Sigismund's army was catastrophically defeated at the [[Battle of Nicopolis]] (1396) as the [[Rise of the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman invasion]] was getting closer to the borders of the Hungarian-Croatian kingdom.  Without news about the king after the battle, the then ruling Croatian ban [[House of Lacković|Stjepan Lacković]] and nobles invited Charles III's son [[Ladislaus of Naples]] to be the new king.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}} This resulted in the [[Bloody Sabor of Križevci]] in 1397, loss of interest in the crown by Ladislaus and selling of Dalmatia to Venice in 1403, and spreading of Croatian names to the north, with those of Slavonia to the east. The dynastic struggle didn't end, and with the Ottoman invasion on Bosnia the first short raids began in Croatian territory, defended only by local nobles.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

[[File:Hollósy Zrínyi kirohanása.jpg|thumb|255px|upright=0.9|right|''[[Nikola IV Zrinski|Zrínyi's]] charge on the Turks from the Fortress of Szigetvár'', by [[Simon Hollósy]]]]
As the [[Ottoman wars in Europe|Turkish incursion into Europe]] started, Croatia once again became a border area between two major forces in the [[Balkans]]. Croatian military troops fought in many battles under command of [[Italia]]n [[Franciscans|Franciscan]] priest [[friar|fra]] [[Giovanni da Capistrano|John Capistrano]], the Hungarian [[Generalissimus|Generalissimo]] [[János Hunyadi|John Hunyadi]], and Hungarian King [[Matthias Corvinus]], like in the Hunyadi's [[long campaign]] (1443–1444), [[battle of Varna]] (1444), second [[battle of Kosovo (1448)]], and contributed to the Christian victories over the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottomans]] in the [[siege of Belgrade (1456)]] and [[Siege of Jajce]] (1463). At the time they suffered a major defeat in the [[battle of Krbava field]] ([[Lika]], Croatia) in 1493 and gradually lost increasing amounts of territory to the Ottoman Empire. [[Pope Leo X]] called Croatia the ''forefront of Christianity ([[Antemurale Christianitatis]])'' in 1519, given that several Croatian soldiers made significant contributions to the struggle against the [[Ottoman Turks]]. Among them there were [[ban (title)|ban]] [[Petar Berislavić]] who won a victory at [[Dubica, Bosnia and Herzegovina|Dubica]] on the [[Una (Sava)|Una]] river in 1513, the captain of [[Senj]] and prince of [[Klis]] [[Petar Kružić]], who defended the [[Klis Fortress]] for almost 25 years, captain [[Nikola Jurišić]] who deterred by a magnitude larger Turkish force on their way to Vienna in 1532, or ban [[Nikola IV Zrinski]] who helped save [[Pest (city)|Pest]] from occupation in 1542 and fought in the [[Battle of Szigetvar]] in 1566. During the Ottoman conquest tens of thousands of Croats were taken in Turkey, where they became slaves.

The [[Battle of Mohács]] (1526) and the death of King [[Louis II of Hungary|Louis II]] ended the Hungarian-Croatian union. In 1526, the Hungarian parliament elected two separate kings [[János Szapolyai]] and [[Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor|Ferdinand I Habsburg]], but the choice of the Croatian sabor [[Parliament on Cetin|at Cetin]] prevailed on the side of Ferdinand I, as they elected him as the new king of Croatia on 1 January 1527,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/southernslavques00seto/southernslavques00seto_djvu.txt|title=Full text of "The southern Slav question and the Habsburg Monarchy"|website=Archive.org|access-date=18 March 2015}}</ref> uniting both lands under Habsburg rule. In return they were promised the historic rights, freedoms, laws and defence of Croatian Kingdom.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

[[File:Isprava o izboru Ferdinanda I., Cetin 1527.jpg|thumb|255px|upright=0.9|left|The [[Cetingrad Charter]] from 1 January 1527, when Croatian Sabor elected the [[Habsburg monarchy]].]]However, the Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom was not enough well prepared and organized and the Ottoman Empire expanded further in the 16th century to include most of Slavonia, western Bosnia and [[Lika]]. For the sake of stopping the Ottoman conquering and possible assault on the capital of Vienna, the large areas of Croatia and Slavonia (even Hungary and Romania) bordering the Ottoman Empire were organized as a [[Military Frontier]] which was ruled directly from Vienna military headquarters.<ref>{{cite book|author=Charles W. Ingrao|title=The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ncgq08FZYlQC&pg=PA15|year=2000|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-78505-1|page=15|access-date=2 October 2020|archive-date=27 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230927203302/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ncgq08FZYlQC&pg=PA15#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> The invasion caused migration of Croats, and the area which became deserted was subsequently settled by [[Serbs]], [[Vlachs]], [[Ethnic German|Germans]] and others. The negative effects of [[feudalism]] escalated in 1573 when the peasants in northern Croatia and Slovenia [[Croatian and Slovenian peasant revolt|rebelled]] against their feudal lords due to various injustices. After the fall of [[Bihać]] fort in 1592, only small areas of Croatia remained unrecovered. The remaining {{convert|16800|km²|0|abbr=out}} were referred to as the ''reliquiae reliquiarum of the once great Croatian kingdom''.<ref name="Catholic Encyclopedia">[[s:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Croatia|Catholic Encyclopedia]]</ref>

Croats stopped the Ottoman advance in Croatia at the [[battle of Sisak]] in 1593, 100 years after the defeat at Krbava field, and the short [[Long Turkish War]] ended with the [[Peace of Zsitvatorok]] in 1606, after which Croatian classes tried unsuccessfully to have their territory on the Military Frontier restored to rule by the Croatian Ban, managing only to restore a small area of lost territory but failed to regain large parts of Croatian Kingdom (present-day western [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]]), as the present-day border between the two countries is a remnant of this outcome.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

====Croatian national revival (1593–1918)====
{{unreferenced section|date=November 2015}}
{{main|Kingdom of Croatia (Habsburg)|l1=Habsburg Croatia|Austria-Hungary}}

In the first half of the 17th century, Croats fought in the [[Thirty Years' War]] on the side of [[Holy Roman Empire]], mostly as light cavalry under command of imperial generalissimo [[Albrecht von Wallenstein]]. Croatian Ban, [[Juraj V Zrinski]], also fought in the war, but died in a military camp near [[Bratislava]], [[Slovakia]], as he was poisoned by von Wallenstein after a verbal duel. His son, future ban and captain-general of Croatia, [[Miklós Zrínyi|Nikola Zrinski]], participated during the closing stages of the war.

[[File:Madarász - Zrínyi és Frangepán.jpg|thumb|255px|right|''Peter Zrinyi and Ferenc Frangepán in the Wiener-Neustadt Prison'' by [[Viktor Madarász]].]]
In 1664, the Austrian imperial army was victorious against the Turks, but Emperor [[Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor|Leopold]] failed to capitalize on the success when he signed the [[Peace of Vasvár]] in which Croatia and Hungary were prevented from regaining territory lost to the Ottoman Empire. This caused unrest among the Croatian and Hungarian nobility which plotted against the emperor. Nikola Zrinski participated in launching the conspiracy which later came to be known as the [[Magnate conspiracy]], but he soon died, and the rebellion was continued by his brother, Croatian ban [[Petar Zrinski]], [[Fran Krsto Frankopan]] and [[Ferenc Wesselényi]]. Petar Zrinski, along the conspirators, went on a wide secret diplomatic negotiations with a number of nations, including [[Louis XIV of France]], the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]], [[Swedish Empire|Sweden]], the [[Republic of Venice]] and even the [[Ottoman Empire]], to free Croatia from the Habsburg sovereignty.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

Imperial spies uncovered the conspiracy and on 30 April 1671 executed four esteemed Croatian and Hungarian noblemen involved in it, including Zrinski and Frankopan in [[Wiener Neustadt]]. The large estates of two most powerful Croatian noble houses were confiscated and their families relocated, soon after extinguished. Between 1670 and the revolution of 1848, there would be only 2 bans of Croatian nationality. The period from 1670 to the Croatian cultural revival in the 19th century was Croatia's political Dark Age. Meanwhile, with the victories over Turks, Habsburgs all the more insistent they spent centralization and germanization, new regained lands in liberated Slavonia started giving to foreign families as feudal goods, at the expense of domestic element. Because of this the Croatian Sabor was losing its significance, and the nobility less attended it, yet went only to the one in Hungary.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}
[[File:Dragutin Weingärtner, Hrvatski sabor 1848. god.jpg|thumb|255px|left|The Croatian ''Sabor'' (Parliament) in 1848, by Dragutin Weingärtner]]
In the 18th century, Croatia was one of the crown lands that supported Emperor [[Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles]]'s [[Pragmatic Sanction of 1713]] and supported Empress [[Maria Theresa]] in the [[War of the Austrian Succession]] of 1741–48. Subsequently, the empress made significant contributions to Croatian matters, by making several changes in the feudal and tax system, administrative control of the Military Frontier, in 1745 administratively united Slavonia with Croatia and in 1767 organized Croatian royal council with the ban on head, however, she ignored and eventually disbanded it in 1779, and Croatia was relegated to just one seat in the governing council of Hungary, held by the [[ban (title)|ban]] of Croatia. To fight the Austrian centralization and absolutism, Croats passed their rights to the united government in Hungary, thus to together resist the intentions from Vienna. But the connection with Hungary soon adversely affected the position of Croats, because Magyars in the spring of their nationalism tried to Magyarize Croats, and make Croatia a part of a united Hungary. Because of this pretensions, the constant struggles between Croats and Magyars emerged, and lasted until 1918. Croats were fighting in unfavorable conditions, against both Vienna and Budapest, while divided on Banska Hrvatska, Dalmatia and Military Frontier. In such a time, with the fall of the [[Venetian Republic]] in 1797, its possessions in eastern [[Adriatic]] mostly came under the authority of France which passed its rights to Austria the same year. Eight years later they were restored to France as the [[Illyrian Provinces]], but won back to the Austrian crown 1815. Though now part of the same empire, Dalmatia and Istria were part of [[Cisleithania]] while Croatia and Slavonia were in Hungarian part of the Monarchy.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}
[[File:Vlaho Bukovac, Hrvatski preporod (svecani zastor Hrvatskog narodnog kazalista u Zagrebu).jpg|thumb|255px|right|The national revival began with the [[Illyrian movement]] in 1830.]]
In the 19th century Croatian [[romantic nationalism]] emerged to counteract the non-violent but apparent [[Germanization]] and [[Magyarization]]. The Croatian national revival began in the 1830s with the [[Illyrian movement]]. The movement attracted a number of influential figures and produced some important advances in the [[Croatian language]] and culture. The champion of the Illyrian movement was [[Ljudevit Gaj]] who also reformed and standardized Croatian. The official language in Croatia had been Latin until 1847, when it became Croatian. The movement relied on a South Slavic and Panslavistic conception, and its national, political and social ideas were advanced at the time.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

By the 1840s, the movement had moved from cultural goals to resisting Hungarian political demands. By the royal order of 11 January 1843, originating from the chancellor [[Klemens von Metternich|Metternich]], the use of the Illyrian name and insignia in public was forbidden. [[File:Balkans Animation 1800-2008.gif|thumb|255px|left|Modern political history of the Balkans from 1796 onwards.]]This deterred the movement's progress but it couldn't stop the changes in the society that had already started. On 25 March 1848, was conducted a political petition "''Zahtijevanja naroda''", which program included thirty national, social and liberal principles, like Croatian national independence, annexation of Dalmatia and Military Frontier, independence from Hungary as far as finance, language, education, freedom of speech and writing, religion, nullification of serfdom etc. In the [[revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire]], the Croatian [[Ban (title)|Ban]] [[Josip Jelačić|Jelačić]] cooperated with the Austrians in quenching the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1848]] by leading a military campaign into Hungary, successful until the [[Battle of Pákozd]].{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

Croatia was later subject to Hungarian hegemony under ban [[Levin Rauch]] when the Empire was transformed into a dual monarchy of [[Austria-Hungary]] in 1867. Nevertheless, Ban Jelačić had succeeded in the abolition of [[serfdom]] in Croatia, which eventually brought about massive changes in society: the power of the major landowners was reduced and arable land became increasingly subdivided, to the extent of risking famine. Many Croatians began emigrating to the [[New World]] countries in this period, a trend that would continue over the next century, creating a large Croatian [[diaspora]].

From 1804 to 1918, as many as 395 Croats received the rank of [[general officer|general]] or [[admiral]], of which 379 in the army of the [[Austro-Hungarian Monarchy]], 8 in the [[Russian Empire]], two each in the French and Hungarian armies, and one each in the armies of the [[Ottoman Empire]], the [[Republic of Venice]], [[Portuguese Empire]] and Serbia.<ref name="HrvPov">{{cite web|url=https://hrvatska-povijest.hr/vojna-povijest-hrvata-od-1804-do-1918-godine-cak-395-osoba-s-podrucja-hrvatske-dobilo-je-generalski-ili-admiralski-cin-od-cega-379-u-vojsci-habsburske-monarhije-odnosno-austro-ugarske|last=Lipovac|first=Marijan|website=hrvatska-povijest.hr|title=Vojna povijest Hrvata – Od 1804. do 1918. godine čak 395 osoba s područja Hrvatske dobilo je generalski ili admiralski čin, od čega 379 u vojsci Habsburške Monarhije, odnosno Austro-Ugarske|language=hr|date=6 February 2024}}</ref> By rank, 173 were [[brigadier general]]s, 142 [[major general]]s, 55 [[lieutenant general]]s, two generals, three [[Stožerni general|staff generals]], 17 [[rear admiral]]s, one [[viceadmiral]] and two admirals.<ref name="HrvPov"/>