See G. M. Dallas,Life and Writings of Alexander James Dallas(Philadelphia, 1871).
See G. M. Dallas,Life and Writings of Alexander James Dallas(Philadelphia, 1871).
DALLAS, GEORGE MIFFLIN(1792-1864), American statesman and diplomat, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 10th of July 1792. He graduated at Princeton in 1810 at the head of his class; then studied law in the office of his father, Alexander J. Dallas, the financier, and was admitted to the bar in 1813. In the same year he accompanied Albert Gallatin, as his secretary, to Russia, and in 1814 returned to the United States as the bearer of important dispatches from the American peace commissioners at Ghent. He practised law in New York and Philadelphia, was chosen mayor of Philadelphia in 1828, and in 1829 was appointed by President Jackson, whom he had twice warmly supported for the presidency, United States attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania, a position long held by his father. From 1831 to 1833 he was a Democratic member of the United States Senate, in which he advocated a compromise tariff and strongly supported Jackson’s position in regard to nullification. On the bank question he was at first at variance with the president; in January 1832 he presented in the Senate a memorial from the bank’s president, Nicholas Biddle, and its managers, praying for a recharter, and subsequently he was chairman of a committee which reported a bill re-chartering the institution for a fifteen-year period. Afterwards, however, his views changed and he opposed the bank. From 1833 to 1835 Dallas was attorney-general of Pennsylvania, and from 1835 to 1839 was minister to Russia. During the following years he was engaged in a long struggle with James Buchanan for party leadership in Pennsylvania. He was vice-president of the United States from 1845 to 1849, but the appointment of Buchanan as secretary of state at once shut him off from all hope of party patronage or influence in the Polk administration, and he came to be looked upon as the leader of that body of conservative Democrats of the North, who, while they themselves chafed at the domination of Southern leaders, were disposed to disparage all anti-slavery agitation. By his casting vote at a critical period during the debate in the Senate on the tariff bill of 1846, he irretrievably lost his influence with the protectionist element of his native state, to whom he had given assurances of his support of the Tyler tariff of 1842. For several years after his retirement from office, he devoted himself to his law practice, and in 1856 succeeded James Buchanan as United States minister to England, where he remained until relieved by Charles Francis Adams in May 1861. During this trying period he represented his country with ability and tact, making every endeavour to strengthen the Union cause in Great Britain. He died at Philadelphia on the 1st of December 1864. He wrote a biographical memoir for an edition of his father’s writings, which was published in 1871.
HisDiaryof his residence in St Petersburg and London was published in Philadelphia in 1892.
HisDiaryof his residence in St Petersburg and London was published in Philadelphia in 1892.
DALLAS,a city and the county-seat of Dallas county, Texas, U.S.A., about 220 m. N.W. of Houston, on the E. bank of the Trinity river. Pop. (1880) 10,358; (1890) 38,067; (1900) 42,638, of whom 9035 were negroes and 3381 were foreign-born; (1910) 92,104. Area, about 15 sq. m. Dallas is served by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé, the Houston & Texas Central, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the St Louis South-western, the Texas & New Orleans, the Trinity & Brazos Valley, and the Texas & Pacific railways, and by interurban electric railways to Fort Worth and Sherman. The lower channel of the Trinity river has been greatly improved by the Federal government; but in 1908 the river was not navigable as far as Dallas. Among public buildings are the Carnegie library (1901), Dallas county court house, the city hall, the U.S. government building, St Matthew’s cathedral (Prot. Episc.), the cathedral of the Sacred Heart (Rom. Cath.), the city hospital, St Paul’s sanitarium (Rom. Cath.), and the Baptist Memorial sanitarium. Educational institutions include Dallas medical college (1901), the colleges of medicine and pharmacy of Baylor University, the medical college of South-western University (at Georgetown, Texas), Oak Cliff female academy, Patton seminary, St Mary’s female college (Prot. Episc.), and Holy Trinity college (Rom. Cath.). The city had in 1908 three parks—Bachman’s Reservoir (500 acres); Fair (525 acres)—the Texas state fair grounds, in which an annual exhibition is held—and City park (17 acres). Lake Cliff, Cycle and Oak Lawn parks are amusement grounds. A Confederate soldiers’ monument, a granite shaft 50 ft. high, was erected in 1897, with statues of R. E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, “Stonewall” Jackson and A. S. Johnston. Dallas was in 1900 the third city in population and the most important railway centre in Texas. It is a shipping centre for a large wheat, fruit and cotton-raising region, and the principal jobbing market for northern Texas, Oklahoma and part of Louisiana, and the biggest distributing point for agricultural machinery in the South-west. It is a livestock market, and one of the chief centres in the United States for the manufacture of saddlery and leather goods, and of cotton-gin machinery. It has flour and grist mills (the products of which ranked first in value among the city’s manufactures in 1905), wholesale slaughtering and meat-packing establishments, cooperage works, railway repair shops, cotton compresses, lumber yards, salt works, and manufactories of cotton-seed oil and cake, boots and shoes and cotton and agricultural machinery. In 1900 and 1905 it was the principal manufacturing centre in the state, the value of its factory product in 1905 being $15,627,668, an increase of 64.7% over that in 1900. The water-works are owned and operated by the city, and the water is taken from the Elm fork of Trinity river. There are several artesian wells. Dallas, named in honour of G. M. Dallas, was settled in 1841, and first chartered as a city in 1856. The city is governed, under a charter of 1907, by a mayor and four commissioners, who together pass ordinances, appoint nearly all city officers, and generally are responsible for administering the government. In addition a school board is elected by the people. The charter contains initiative and referendum provisions, provides for the recall of any elective city official, and prohibits the granting of any franchise for a longer term than twenty years.
DALLE(pronounced “dal,” Fr. for a flag-stone or flat tile), a rapid falling over flat smooth rock surfaces in a river bed, especially in rivers flowing between basaltic rocks. The name is common in America, and came into use through the French employés of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Well-known “dalles” are on the St Louis, St Croix and Wisconsin rivers. The “dalles” of the Columbia river are very beautiful, and have given its name to Dalles (1910 pop. 4880), county-seat of Wasco county, Oregon.
DALLIN, CYRUS EDWIN(1861- ), American sculptor, was born at Springville, Utah, on the 22nd of November 1861. He was a pupil of Truman H. Bartlett in Boston, of the École des Beaux Arts, the Académie Julien and the sculptors Henri M. Chapu and Jean Dampt (born 1858), in Paris, and on his return to America became instructor in modelling in the state normal art school in Boston. He is best known for his plastic representations of the North American Indian—especially for “The Signal of Peace” in Lincoln Park, Chicago, and “The Medicine Man,” in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. As a boy he had lived among the Indians in the Far West, and had learned their language. His later works include “Pioneer Monument,” Salt Lake City; “Sir Isaac Newton,” Congressional Library, Washington; and “Don Quixote.” He won a silver medal at the Paris Exposition, 1900, and a gold medal at the St Louis Exposition, 1904.
DALLING AND BULWER, WILLIAM HENRY LYTTON EARLE BULWER,Baron(1801-1872), better known as SirHenry Bulwer, English diplomatist and author, was born in London on the 13th of February 1801. His father, General William Earle Bulwer, when colonel of the 106th regiment, had married Elizabeth Barbara Lytton, who—as the only childof Richard Warburton Lytton, of Knebworth Park, in Hertfordshire—was sole heiress of the family of Norreys-Robinson-Lytton of Monacdhu in the island of Anglesea and of Guersylt in Denbighshire. Three sons were the fruit of this marriage. The second, afterwards Lord Dalling, was amply provided for by his selection as heir to his maternal grandmother; the paternal estates in Norfolk went to his elder brother William, and the maternal property in Herts to the youngest, Edward, known first as Bulwer the novelist and dramatist, and afterwards as the first Baron Lytton (q.v.) of Knebworth.
General Bulwer, as brigadier-general of volunteers, was one of the four commanding officers to whom was entrusted the defence of England in 1804, when threatened with invasion by Napoleon. Three years afterwards, on the 7th of July 1807, he died prematurely at fifty-two at Heyden Hall. His young widow had then devolved upon her not only the double charge of caring for the estates in Herts and Norfolk, but the far weightier responsibility of superintending the education of her three sons, then in their earliest boyhood. Henry Bulwer was educated at Harrow, under Dr George Butler, and at Trinity College and Downing College, Cambridge. In 1822 he published a small volume of verse, beginning with an ode on the death of Napoleon. It is chiefly interesting now for its fraternal dedication to Edward Lytton Bulwer, then a youth of nineteen.
On leaving Cambridge in the autumn of 1824, Henry Bulwer went, as emissary of the Greek committee then sitting in London, to the Morea, carrying with him £80,000 sterling, which he handed over to Prince Mavrocordato and his colleagues, as the responsible leaders of the War of Independence. He was accompanied on this expedition by Hamilton Browne, who, a year before, had been despatched by Lord Byron to Cephalonia to treat with the insurgent government. Shortly after his return to England in 1826, Bulwer published a record of this excursion, under the title ofAn Autumn in Greece. Meanwhile, bent for the moment upon following in his father’s footsteps, he had, on the 19th of October 1825, been gazetted as a cornet in the 2nd Life Guards. Within less than eight months, however, he had exchanged from cavalry to infantry, being enrolled on the 2nd of June 1826 as an ensign in the 58th regiment. That ensigncy he retained for little more than a month, obtaining another unattached, which he held until the 1st of January 1829, when he finally abandoned the army. The court, not the camp, was to be the scene of his successes; and for thirty-eight years altogether—from August 1827 to August 1865—he contrived, while maturing from a young attaché to an astute and veteran ambassador, to hold his own with ease, and in the end was ranked amongst the subtlest intellects of his time as a master of diplomacy. His first appointment in his new profession was as an attaché at Berlin. In April 1830 he obtained his next step through his nomination as an attaché at Vienna. Thence, exactly a year afterwards, he was employed nearer home in the same capacity at the Hague.
As yet ostensibly no more than a careless lounger in thesalonsof the continent, the young ex-cavalry officer veiled the keenest observation under an air of indifference. His constitutional energy, which throughout life was exceptionally intense and tenacious, wore from the first a mask of languor. When in reality most cautious he was seemingly most negligent. No matter what he happened at the moment to take in hand, the art he applied to it was always that highest art of all, thears celare artem. His mastery of the lightest but most essential weapon in the armoury of the diplomatist, tact, came to him as it seemed intuitively, and from the outset was consummate. Talleyrand himself would have had no reason, even in Henry Bulwer’s earliest years as an attaché, to write entreatingly, “pas de zèle,” to one who concealed so felicitously, even at starting, a lynx-like vigilance under an aspect the most phlegmatic. He had hardly reached his new post at the Hague when he found and seized his opportunity. The revolutionary explosion of July at Paris had been echoed on the 25th of August 1830 by an outburst of insurrection at Brussels. During the whole of September a succession of stormy events swept over Belgium, until the popular rising reached its climax on the 4th of October in the declaration of Belgian independence by the provisional government. At the beginning of the revolution, the young attaché was despatched by the then foreign secretary at Whitehall, Lord Aberdeen, to watch events as they arose and report their character. In the execution of his special mission he traversed the country in all directions amidst civil war, the issue of which was to the last degree problematic. Under those apparently bewildering circumstances, he was enabled by his sagacity and penetration to win his spurs as a diplomatist. Writing almost haphazard in the midst of the conflict, he sent home from day to day a series of despatches which threw a flood of light upon incidents that would otherwise have appeared almost inexplicable. Scarcely a week had elapsed, during which his predictions had been wonderfully verified, when he was summoned to London to receive the congratulations of the cabinet. He returned to Brussels no longer in a merely temporary or informal capacity. As secretary of legation, and afterwards as chargé d’affaires, he assisted in furthering the negotiations out of which Belgium rose into a kingdom. Scarcely had this been accomplished when he wrote what may be called the first chapter of the history of the newly created Belgian kingdom. It appeared in 1831 as a brief but luminous paper in the January number of theWestminster Review. And as the events it recorded had helped to inaugurate its writer’s career as a diplomatist, so did his narrative of those occurrences in the pages of the Radical quarterly signalize in a remarkable way the commencement of his long and consistent career as a Liberal politician. Shortly before his appearance as a reviewer, and immediately prior to the carrying of the first Reform Bill, Bulwer had won a seat in the House of Commons as member for Wilton, afterwards in 1831 and 1832 sitting there as M.P. for Coventry. Nearly two years having elapsed, during which he was absent from parliament, he was in 1834 returned to Westminster as member for Marylebone. That position he retained during four sessions, winning considerable distinction as a debater. Within the very year in which he was chosen by the Marylebone electors, he brought out in two volumes, entitledFrance—Literary, Social and Political, the first half of a work which was only completed upon the publication, two years afterwards, of a second series, also in two volumes, under the title ofThe Monarchy of the Middle Classes. Through its pages he made good his claim to be regarded not merely as a keen-witted observer, but as one of the most sagacious and genial delineators of the generic Frenchman, above all of that supreme type of the race, with whom all through his life he especially delighted to hold familiar intercourse, the true Parisian. Between the issuing from the press of these two series, Henry Bulwer had prefixed an intensely sympatheticLife of Lord Byronto the Paris edition of the poet’s works published by Galignani,—a memoir republished sixteen years afterwards. A political argument of a curiously daring and outspoken character, entitledThe Lords, the Government, and the Country, was given to the public in 1836 by Bulwer, in the form of an elaborate letter to a constituent. At this point his literary labours, which throughout life were with him purely labours by-the-way, ceased for a time, and he disappeared during three decades from authorship and from the legislature.
During the period of his holding the position of chargé d’affaires at Brussels, Bulwer had seized every opportunity of making lengthened sojourns at Paris, always for him the choicest place of residence. It was in the midst of one of thesedolce far nienteloiterings on the boulevards that, on the 14th of August 1837, he received his nomination as secretary of embassy at Constantinople. Recognizing his exceptional ability Lord Ponsonby, the British ambassador at Constantinople, at once entrusted to him the difficult task of negotiating a commercial treaty, which had the double object of removing the intolerable conditions which hampered British trade with Turkey and of dealing a blow at the threatening power of Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt, by shattering the system of monopolies on which it was largely based. In this difficult task Bulwer was helped by the hatred of Sultan Mahmed II. for Mehemet Ali, but the treaty was none the less a remarkableproof of his diplomatic skill, and the compliment was well deserved when Palmerston, in writing his congratulations to him from Windsor Castle, on the 13th of September 1838, pronounced the treaty acapo d’opera, adding that without reserve it would be at once ratified. Shortly after this achievement Bulwer was nominated secretary of embassy at St Petersburg. Illness, however, compelled him to delay his northern journey—almost opportunely, as it happened, for in June 1839 he was despatched, in the same capacity, to the more congenial atmosphere of Paris. At that juncture the developments of the feud between Mehemet Ali and the Porte were threatening to bring England and France into armed collision (seeMehemet Ali). In 1839 and 1840, during the temporary absence of his chief, Lord Granville, the secretary of embassy was gazettedad interimchargé d’affaires at the court of France, and thus during this critical time he had fresh opportunities of winning distinction as a diplomatist.
On the 14th of November 1843 he was appointed ambassador at the court of the young Spanish queen Isabella II. Upon his arrival at Madrid signal evidence was afforded of the estimation in which he was then held as a diplomatist. He was chosen arbitrator between Spain and Morocco, then confronting each other in deadly hostility, and, as the result of his mediation, a treaty of peace was signed between the two powers in 1844. In 1846 a much more formidable difficulty arose,—one which, after threatening war between France and England, led at last to a diplomatic rupture between the British and Spanish governments. The dynastic intrigues of Louis Philippe were the immediate cause of this estrangement, and those intrigues found their climax in what has ever since been known in European annals as the Spanish Marriages. The storm sown in the Spanish marriages was reaped in the whirlwind of the February revolution. And the explosion which took place at Paris was answered a month afterwards at Madrid by a similar outbreak. Marshal Narvaez thereupon assumed the dictatorship, and wreaked upon the insurgents a series of reprisals of the most pitiless character. These excessive severities of the marshal-dictator the British ambassador did his utmost to mitigate. When at last, however, Narvaez carried his rigour to the length of summarily suppressing the constitutional guarantees, Bulwer sent in a formal protest in the name of England against an act so entirely ruthless and unjustifiable. This courageous proceeding at once drew down upon the British envoy a counter-stroke as ill-judged as it was unprecedented. Narvaez, with matchless effrontery, denounced the ambassador from England as an accomplice in the conspiracies of the Progressistas; and despite his position as an envoy, and in insolent defiance of the Palmerstonian boast,Civis Britannicus, Bulwer, on the 12th of June, was summarily required to quit Madrid within twenty-four hours. Two days afterwards M. Isturitz, the Spanish ambassador at the court of St James’s, took his departure from London. Diplomatic relations were not restored between the two countries until years had elapsed, nor even then until after a formal apology, dictated by Lord Palmerston, had been signed by the prime minister of Queen Isabella. Before his return the ambassador was gazetted a K.C.B., being promoted to the grand cross some three years afterwards. In addition to this mark of honour he received the formal approbation of the ministry, and with it the thanks of both Houses of Parliament.
Before the year of his return from the peninsula had run out Sir Henry Bulwer was married to the Hon. Georgiana Charlotte Mary Wellesley, youngest daughter of the 1st Baron Cowley, and niece to the duke of Wellington. Early in the following year, on the 27th of April 1849, he was nominated ambassador at Washington. There he acquired immense popularity. His principal success was the compact known as the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (q.v.), ratified in May 1850, pledging the contracting governments to respect the neutrality of the meditated ship canal through Central America, bringing the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific into direct communication. After having been accredited as ambassador to the United States for three years, Sir Henry Bulwer, early in 1852, was despatched as minister plenipotentiary at the court of the grand duke of Tuscany at Florence. Shortly after his retirement from that post in the January of 1855, he was entrusted with various diplomatic missions, in one of which he was empowered as commissioner under the 23rd article of the treaty of Paris, 1856, to investigate the state of things in the Danubian principalities, with a view to their definite reorganization. Finally he was installed, from May 1858 to August 1865, as the immediate successor, after the close of the Crimean war, of the “Great Elchi,” Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, as ambassador extraordinary to the Ottoman Porte at Constantinople.
In the winter of 1865 Bulwer returned home from the Bosporus, and retired with a pension. He was elected member for Tamworth on the 17th of November 1868, and retained his seat until gazetted as a peer of the realm on the 21st of March 1871, under the title of Baron Dalling and Bulwer of Wood Dalling in the county of Norfolk. Upon the eve of his return to his old haunts as a debater and a politician he had asserted his claim to literary distinction by giving to the world in two volumes his four masterly sketches of typical men, entitledHistorical Characters. This work, dedicated to his brother Edward, in testimony of the writer’s fraternal affection and friendship, portrayed in luminous outline Talleyrand the Politic Man, Cobbett the Contentious Man, Canning the Brilliant Man, and Mackintosh the Man of Promise. Two other kindred sketches, those of Sir Robert Peel and Viscount Melbourne, having been selected from among their author’s papers, were afterwards published posthumously. Another work of ampler outline and larger pretension was begun and partially issued from the press during Lord Dalling’s lifetime, but not completed. This was theLife of Viscount Palmerston, the first two volumes of which were published in 1870. A third volume appeared four years afterwards. Even then it left the story of the English statesman broken off so abruptly that the work remained at the last the merest fragment. It was completed by Evelyn Ashley.
Lord Dalling died unexpectedly on the 23rd of May 1872 at Naples. He had no issue, and the title became extinct. In his public career he enjoyed a three-fold success—as ambassador, as politician and as man of letters. His popularity in society was at all times remarkable, mainly no doubt from his mastery of all the subtler arts of a skilled conversationalist. The apparent languor with which he related an anecdote, flung off abon mot, or indulged in a momentary stroke of irony imparted interest to the narrative, wings to the wit and point to the sarcasm in a manner peculiarly his own.
(C. K.)
DALLMEYER, JOHN HENRY(1830-1883), Anglo-German optician, was born on the 6th of September 1830 at Loxten, Westphalia, the son of a landowner. On leaving school at the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to an Osnabrück optician, and in 1851 he came to London, where he obtained work with an optician, W. Hewitt, who shortly afterwards, with his workmen, entered the employment of Andrew Ross, a lens and telescope manufacturer. Dallmeyer’s position in this workshop appears to have been an unpleasant one, and led him to take, for a time, employment as French and Germancorrespondentfor a commercial firm. After a year he was, however, re-engaged by Ross as scientific adviser, and was entrusted with the testing and finishing of the highest class of optical apparatus. This appointment led to his marriage with Ross’s second daughter, Hannah, and to the inheritance, at Ross’s death (1859), of a third of his employer’s large fortune and the telescope manufacturing portion of the business. Turning from astronomical work to the making of photographic lenses (seePhotography), he introduced improvements in both portrait and landscape lenses, in object-glasses for the microscope and in condensers for the optical lantern. In connexion with celestial photography he constructed photo-heliographs for the Wilna observatory in 1863, for the Harvard College observatory in 1864, and, in 1873, several for the British government. Dallmeyer’s instruments achieved a wide success in Europe and America, taking the highest awards at various international exhibitions. The Russian government gave him the order of St Stanislaus, and the French government made him chevalier of the Legion of Honour. He was for manyyears upon the councils of both the Royal Astronomical and Royal Photographic societies. About 1880 he was advised to give up the personal supervision of his workshops, and to travel for his health, but he died on board ship, off the coast of New Zealand, on the 30th of December 1883.
His second son,Thomas Rudolphus Dallmeyer(1859-1906), who assumed control of the business on the failure of his father’s health, was principally known as the first to introduce telephotographic lenses into ordinary practice (patented 1891), and he was the author of a standard book on the subject (Telephotography, 1899). He served as president of the Royal Photographic Society in 1900-1903.
DALL’ ONGARO, FRANCESCO(1808-1873), Italian writer, born in Friuli, was educated for the priesthood, but abandoned his orders, and taking to political journalism founded theFavillaat Trieste in the Liberal interest. In 1848 he enlisted under Garibaldi, and next year was a member of the assembly which proclaimed the republic in Rome, being given by Mazzini the direction of theMonitor officiale. On the downfall of the republic he fled to Switzerland, then to Belgium and later to France, taking a prominent part in revolutionary journalism; it was not till 1860 that he returned to Italy, where he was appointed professor of dramatic literature at Florence. Subsequently he was transferred to Naples, where he died on the 10th of January 1873. His patriotic poems,Stornelli, composed in early life, had a great popular success; and he produced a number of plays, notablyFornaretto,Bianca Capello,FasmaandIl Tesoro. His collectedFantasie drammatiche e lirichewere published in his lifetime.
DALMATIA(Ger.Dalmatien; Ital.Dalmazia; Serbo-Croatian,Dalmacija), a kingdom and crownland of the Austro-Hungarian empire, in the north-west of the Balkan Peninsula, and on the Adriatic Sea. Dalmatia is bounded, on the landward side, by Croatia and Bosnia, in the N. and N.E.; and by Herzegovina and Montenegro, in the S.E. and S. Its area amounts to 4923 sq. m.; its greatest length, from north-west to south-east, is 210 m.; its breadth reaches 35 m. between Point Planca and the Bosnian frontier, diminishing to less than 1 m. at Cattaro. Near the ports of Klek and Castelnuovo the Herzegovinian frontier comes down to the sea,1but only for a total distance of 14½ m.
Physical Features.—No part of the Mediterranean shore, except the coast of Greece, is so deeply indented as the Dalmatian littoral, with its multitude of rock-bound bays and inlets. It is sheltered from the open sea by a rampart of islands which vary greatly in size; a few being large enough to support several thousand inhabitants, while others are mere reefs, swept bare by the sea, or tenanted only by rabbits and seabirds. This Dalmatian archipelago, separated from the Istrian by the Gulf of Quarnerolo, forms two island groups, the northern or Liburnian, and the southern; with open water intervening, off Point Planca. In calm weather the channels between the islands and the mainland resemble a chain of landlocked lakes, brilliantly clear to a depth of several fathoms. As a rule, the surrounding hills are rugged, bleached almost white or pale russet, and destitute of verdure; but their monotony is relieved by the half-ruined castles and monasteries clinging to the rocks, or by the beauty of such cities as Ragusa, or Arbe, with its fantastic row of steeples overlooking the beach. The principal islands, Arbe, Brazza, Curzola, Lacroma, Lesina, Lissa and Meleda, are described under separate headings. The promontory of Sabbioncello, or Punta di Stagno, which juts out for 41 m. into the sea, between Curzola and Lesina, is almost another island; for its breadth, which nowhere exceeds 5 m., dwindles to about 1 m. at the narrow isthmus which unites it with the shore. There are two small ports on this isthmus—on the south, Stagno Grande (Serbo-Croatian,Ston Veliki), once celebrated for its salt and shipbuilding industries, and, on the north, Stagno Piccolo (Ston Mali). Dalmatia possesses a magnificent anchorage in the Bocche di Cattaro, and there are numerous lesser havens, at Sebenico, Traù, Zara and elsewhere along the coast and among the islands.
The country is almost everywhere hilly or mountainous. On the Croatian border rises the lofty barrier of the Velebit, which culminates in Sveto Brdo (5751 ft.), and Vakanski Vrh (5768 ft.). The Dinaric Alps form the frontier between Dalmatia and Bosnia; Dinara (6007 ft.), which gives its name to the whole chain, and Troglav (6276 ft.), being the highest Dalmatian summits. North-west of Sinj rise the Svilaja and Moseć Planinas; the ridges of Mosor and Biokovo, with Sveto Juraj (5781 ft.), follow the windings of the coast from Spalato to Macarsca; Orjen marks the meeting-place of the Herzegovinian, Montenegrin and Dalmatian frontiers, and the Sutorman range appears in the extreme south. The barren dry limestone of the Dalmatian highlands has been aptly compared with a petrified sponge; for it is honeycombed with underground caverns and water-courses, into which the rainfall is at once filtered. Thus arises a complete system of subterranean rivers, with waterfalls, lakes and regular seasons of flood. Even the few surface rivers vanish and emerge again at intervals. The Trebinjčica, for instance, disappearing in Herzegovina, supplies both the broad and swift estuary of Ombla, near Ragusa, and the fresh-water spring of Doli, which issues from the bottom of the sea. Apart from the Ombla, and the Narenta (Serbo-Croatian,Neretva; Roman,Naro), which creates a broad marshy delta between Metković and the sea, Dalmatia has only three rivers more than 25 m. long; the Zermagna (Zrmanja,Tedanium), Kerka, (Krka,Titius), and Cetina (Cetina;NaronaorTilurus). The Zermagna skirts the southern foothills of the Velebit and falls into the harbour of Novigrad. Better known is the Kerka, which rises in the Dinaric Alps and flows south-westward to the Adriatic. Near Scardona (Skradin) it spreads into a broad lake, and forms several fine waterfalls, after receiving its tributary the Cikola (Čikola), from the east. South of Spalato, the Cetina, which also springs from the Dinaric Alps, descends to the sea at Almissa (Omiš), after passing between the Mosor and Biokovo ranges. There are a few small lakes near Zara, Zaravecchia and the Narenta estuary; while the fertile, but unhealthy, hollows among the mountains fill with water after heavy rain, and sometimes cause disastrous floods. But most parts of the country suffer from drought.
For an account of the chief geological formations seeBalkan Peninsula. Small quantities of iron, lignite, asphalt and bay salt are the only minerals of commercial importance.
The climate is warm and healthy, the mean temperature at Zara being 57° F., at Lesina 62°, and at Ragusa 63°. The prevailing wind is the sirocco, or S.E.; but the terrible Bora, or N.N.E., may blow at any season of the year. The average annual rainfall is about 28 in., but a dry and a wet year usually alternate.
Fauna.—Bears, badgers and wild cats, with a larger number of wolves and foxes, find shelter in the Dinaric Alps and on the heights of Svilaja, Mosor and Biokovo; while jackals exist on Curzola and Sabbioncello, almost their last refuges in Europe. Roedeer are uncommon, and the wild boar, chamois, red-deer and beaver are extinct; but hares and rabbits abound. The game-laws are not strict, and are often evaded by the Morlachs; but moderate sport may be obtained in the fens formed by the Cetina about Sinj, and the lagoons of the Narenta estuary; both regions being frequented by wild swans, geese, duck, snipe and other aquatic birds. Among land-birds, the commonest are quails, woodcock, partridges, and especially the so-called “stone-fowl” (Steinhuhn,Perdix Graeca). Tortoises are numerous; snakes, lizards, scorpions and innumerable sand-flies infest the dry hillsides; and the limestone caverns are peopled by sightless bats, reptiles, fish, flies, beetles, spiders, crustacea and molluscs.
Fisheries.—No region of Europe is richer in its marine fauna and flora. Sponge and coral fisheries afford a valuable source ofincome to the peasantry, many of whom also go northward for the sardine and tunny fisheries of the Istrian coast, while salmon, trout and eels are caught in the Dalmatian rivers.
Flora.—The olive, almond, fig, orange, palm, aloe, myrtle, locust-tree and other characteristic members of the Mediterranean flora thrive in the sheltered valleys of the Dalmatian littoral, where almond-blossoms appear in mid-winter, and the palm occasionally bears ripe fruit. Themarasca, or wild cherry, is abundant, and yields the celebrated liqueur calledmaraschino. But at a little distance from the rivers and on the more exposed parts of the coast the aspect of the country changes entirely. Patches of thin grass, heather, juniper, thyme, tamarisks and mountain roses hardly relieve the bareness and aridity of the seaward slopes.
Forests.—Oaks, pines and beeches still, in a few parts, clothe the landward slopes, but, as a rule, the forests for which Dalmatia was once famous were cut down for the Venetian shipyards or burned by pirates; while every attempt at replanting is frustrated by the shallowness of the soil, the drought and the multitude of goats that browse on the young trees.
Agriculture.—Little more than one-tenth of the whole surface is under the plough; the rest, where it is not altogether sterile, being chiefly mountain pasture, vineyards and garden land. Asses are the favourite beasts of burden; goats are strikingly numerous; and sheep are kept for the sake of their mutton, which is almost the only animal food freely consumed by the peasantry. Cattle-breeding, bee-keeping, and the cultivation of fruit and vegetables, especially potatoes and beetroot, are among the principal resources of the people, while wheat, rye, barley, oats, Indian corn, hemp and millet are also grown. Viticulture is carried on with great and increasing success (seeWine).
Land-tenure.—Individual proprietorship of the soil is rare, for, despite the decadence of thezadrugaor household community, the tenure of land and the privilege of using the communal domain still appertain to the family as a whole. There are a few large estates, but most of the land is parcelled out in small holdings.
Industries.—Besides fishing, farming and such allied trades as shipbuilding, wine and oil pressing, and the distillation of spirits, notablymaraschino, a few other industries are practised, such as tile-burning and the manufacture of soap; but these are of minor importance. Certain crafts are also carried on by the country-folk, in their own homes; thus the peasant is sometimes his own mason, carpenter, weaver and miller. Manufactured goods and foodstuffs are imported, in return for asphalt, lignite, bay salt, wine, spirits, oil, honey, wax and hides; and there is a lucrative transit trade with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Turkey and various Adriatic and Mediterranean ports.
Communications.—Communications are defective, some parts of the interior being only accessible by the roughest of mountain roads. The principal railway, in point of size, traverses the central districts, linking together Knin, Spalato, Sebenico and Sinj; but the southern lines, which unite Dalmatia with Herzegovina and terminate at Ragusa, Metković and Castlenuovo on the Bocche di Cattaro, are almost of equal importance, Cattaro being one of the chief outlets for Montenegrin commerce, while the vessels which steam up the Narenta to Metković carry the bulk of the sea-borne trade of Herzegovina. In 1897 Dalmatia possessed 151 post and 98 telegraph offices.
Chief Towns.—The chief towns are Zara, the capital, with 32,5062inhabitants in 1900, Spalato (27,198), Sebenico (24,751), Traù (17,064), Ragusa (13,174), Macarsca (11,016), and Cattaro (5418). All these are described under separate headings.
Population and National Characteristics.—With a constant excess of male over female children, the population increased steadily from 1869 to 1900, when it reached 591,597. Of this total 1% are foreigners and about 3% Italians, whose numbers tend slowly to diminish. The Morlachs, who constitute the remaining 96%, belong to the Serbo-Croatian branch of the Slavonic race, having absorbed the Latinized Illyrians, Albanians and other alien elements with which they have been associated. The name ofMorlachs,MorlaksorMorlackscommonly bestowed by English writers on the Dalmatian Slavs, though sometimes restricted to the peasantry of the hills, is an abbreviated form ofMavrovlachi, meaning either “Black Vlachs,” or, less probably, “Sea Vlachs.” It was originally applied to the scattered remnants of the Latin or Latinized inhabitants of central Illyria, who were driven from their homes by the barbarian invaders during the 7th century, and took refuge among the mountains. Throughout the middle ages the Mavrovlachi were usually nomadic shepherds, cattle-drovers or muleteers. In the 14th century they emigrated from central Illyria into northern Dalmatia and maritime Croatia; and these regions were thenceforward known asMorlacchia, until the 18th century. Gradually, however, the Mavrovlachi became identified with the Slavs, whose language and manners they adopted, and to whom they gave their own name. In northern Dalmatia the Slavs of the interior are still calledMorlacchi; in the south this name expresses contempt. Of the Vlachs, properly so called, very few are left in the country; although the name Vlachs (q.v.) is frequently used by the Slavs to designate the Italians and the town-dwellers generally. The literary languages of Dalmatia are Italian and Serbo-Croatian; the spoken language is, in each case, modified by the introduction of various dialect forms.
The Morlachs wear a picturesque and brightly-coloured costume, resembling that of the Serbs (seeServia). In appearance they are sometimes blond, with blue or grey eyes, like the Shumadian peasantry of Servia; more often, olive-skinned, with dark hair and eyes, like the Montenegrins, whom they rival in stature, strength and courage; while their conservative spirit, their devotion to national traditions, poetry and music, their pride, indolence and superstition, are typically Servian. Dalmatian public life is deeply affected by the jealousies which subsist between the Slavs and the Italians, whose influence, though everywhere waning, remains predominant in some of the towns; and between Orthodox “Serbs,” who use the Cyrillic alphabet, and Roman Catholic “Croats,” who prefer the Latin.
Government.—Dalmatia occupies a somewhat anomalous position in the Austro-Hungarian state system. Itself a crownland of Austria, returning eleven members to the Austrian parliament, it is severed geographically from the other Austrian lands by the Hungarian kingdom of Croatia. Ethnologically it is one with Croatia, and it is included in the official title of the Croatian king, i.e. the emperor. The political system is based on a law of the 26th of February 1861. The provincial diet is composed of 43 members, comprising the Roman Catholic archbishop, the Orthodox bishop of Zara and representatives of the chief taxpayers, the towns and the communes. Benkovac, on the main road from Zara to Spalato, Cattaro, Curzola, Imotski, 21 m. N. by E. of Macarsca, Knin, Lesina, Macarsca, Ragusa, Sebenico, Sinj, Spalato and Zara, give names to the twelve administrative districts, of which they are the capitals.
Defence.—Conscription is in force, as elsewhere in Austria, and the Dalmatian coast furnishes the Austrian—as formerly the Venetian—navy with many of its best recruits.
Religion.—Roman Catholicism is the religion of more than 80% of the population, the remainder belonging chiefly to the Orthodox Church. The Roman Catholic archbishop has his seat in Zara, while Cattaro, Lesina, Ragusa, Sebenico and Spalato are bishoprics. At the head of the Orthodox community stands the bishop of Zara.
The use of Slavonic liturgies written in the Glagolitic alphabet, a very ancient privilege of the Roman Catholics in Dalmatia and Croatia, caused much controversy during the first years of the 20th century. There was considerable danger that the Latin liturgies would be altogether superseded by the Glagolitic, especially among the northern islands and in rural communes, where the Slavonic element is all-powerful. In 1904 the Vatican forbade the use of Glagolitic at the festival of SS. Cyril andMethodius, as likely to impair the unity of Catholicism. A few years previously the Slavonic archbishop Rajčević of Zara, in discussing the “Glagolitic controversy,” had denounced the movement as “an innovation introduced by Panslavism to make it easy for the Catholic clergy, after any great revolution in the Balkan States, to break with Latin Rome.” This view is shared by very many, perhaps by the majority, of the Roman Catholics in Dalmatia.
Education.—Education progressed slowly between 1860 and 1900, attendance at school being often a hardship in the poor and widely scattered hamlets of the interior. In 1890 more than 80% of the population could neither read nor write, although schools are maintained by every commune. In 1893 the country possessed 5 intermediate and 337 elementary schools, 6 theological seminaries, 6 gymnasia, and about 40 continuation and technical schools.
Antiquities.—To the foreign visitor Dalmatia is chiefly interesting as a treasury of art and antiquities. The grave-mounds of Curzola, Lesina and Sabbioncello have yielded a few relics of prehistoric man, and the memory of the early Celtic conquerors and Greek settlers is preserved only in a few place-names; but the monuments left by the Romans are numerous and precious. They are chiefly confined to the cities; for the civilization of the country was always urban, just as its history is a record of isolated city-states rather than of a united nation. Beyond the walls of its larger towns, little was spared by the barbarian Goths, Avars and Slavs; and the battered fragments of Roman work which mark the sites of Salona, near Spalato, and of many other ancient cities, are of slight antiquarian interest and slighter artistic value. Among the monuments of the Roman period, by far the most noteworthy in Dalmatia, and, indeed, in the whole Balkan Peninsula, is the Palace of Diocletian at Spalato (q.v.). Dalmatian architecture was Byzantine in its general character from the 6th century until the close of the 10th. The oldest memorials of this period are the vestiges of three basilicas, excavated in Salona, and dating from the first half of the 7th century at latest. Byzantine art, in the latter half of this period and the two succeeding centuries, continued to flourish in those cities which, like Zara, gave their allegiance to Venice; just as, in the architecture of Traù and other cities dominated by Hungary, there are distinct traces of German influence. The belfry of S. Maria, at Zara, erected in 1105, is first in a long list of Romanesque buildings. At Arbe there is a beautiful Romanesque campanile which also belongs to the 12th century; but the finest example in this style is the cathedral of Traù. The 14th century Dominican and Franciscan convents in Ragusa are also noteworthy. Romanesque lingered on in Dalmatia until it was displaced by Venetian Gothic in the early years of the 15th century. The influence of Venice was then at its height. Even in the hostile republic of Ragusa the Romanesque of the custom-house and Rectors’ palace is combined with Venetian Gothic, while the graceful balconies and ogee windows of the Prijeki closely follow their Venetian models. Gothic, however, which had been adopted very late, was abandoned very early; for in 1441 Giorgio Orsini of Zara, summoned from Venice to design the cathedral of Sebenico, brought with him the influence of the Italian Renaissance. The new forms which he introduced were eagerly imitated and developed by other architects, until the period of decadence—which virtually concludes the history of Dalmatian art—set in during the latter half of the 17th century. Special mention must be made of the carved woodwork, embroideries and plate preserved in many churches. The silver statuette and the reliquary of St Biagio at Ragusa, and the silver ark of St Simeon at Zara, are fine specimens of Byzantine and Italian jewellers’ work, ranging in date from the 11th or 12th to the 17th century.
History
Dalmatia under Roman Rule, A.D. 9-1102.—The history of Dalmatia may be said to begin with the year 180 B.C., when the tribe from which the country derives its name declared itself independent of Gentius, the Illyrian king, and established a republic. Its capital was Delminium3; its territory stretched northwards from the Narenta to the Cetina, and later to the Kerka, where it met the confines of Liburnia. In 156 B.C. the Dalmatians were for the first time attacked by a Roman army and compelled to pay tribute; but only in the time of Augustus (31 B.C.-A.D. 14) was their land finally annexed, after the last of many formidable revolts had been crushed by Tiberius in A.D. 9. This event was followed by total submission and a ready acceptance of the Latin civilization which overspread Illyria (q.v.). The downfall of the Western Empire left this region subject to Gothic rulers, Odoacer and Theodoric, from 476 to 535, when it was added by Justinian to the Eastern Empire. The great Slavonic migration into Illyria, which wrought a complete change in the fortunes of Dalmatia, took place in the first half of the 7th century. In other parts of the Balkan Peninsula these invaders—Serbs, Croats or Bulgars—found little difficulty in expelling or absorbing the native population. But here they were baffled when confronted by the powerful maritime city-states, highly civilized, and able to rely on the moral if not the material support of their kinsfolk in Italy. Consequently, while the country districts were settled by the Slavs, the Latin or Italian population flocked for safety to Ragusa, Zara and other large towns, and the whole country was thus divided between two frequently hostile communities. This opposition was intensified by the schism between Eastern and Western Christianity (1054), the Slavs as a rule preferring the Orthodox or sometimes the Bogomil creed, while the Italians were firmly attached to the Papacy. Not until the 15th century did the rival races contribute to a common civilization in the literature of Ragusa. To such a division of population may be attributed the two dominant characteristics of local history—the total absence of national as distinguished from civic life, and the remarkable development of art, science and literature. Bosnia, Servia and Bulgaria had each its period of national greatness, but remained intellectually backward; Dalmatia failed ever to attain political or racial unity, but the Dalmatian city-states, isolated and compelled to look to Italy for support, shared perforce in the march of Italian civilization. Their geographical position suffices to explain the relatively small influence exercised by Byzantine culture throughout the six centuries (535-1102) during which Dalmatia was part of the Eastern empire. Towards the close of this period Byzantine rule tended more and more to become merely nominal. In 806 Dalmatia was added to the Holy Roman empire, but was soon restored; in 829 the coast was ravaged by Saracens. A strange republic of Servian pirates arose at the mouth of the Narenta. In the 10th century description of Dalmatia by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (De Administrando Imperio, 29-37), this region is calledPagania, from the fact that its inhabitants had only accepted Christianity about 890, or 250 years later than the other Slavs. ThesePagani, orArentani(Narentines), utterly defeated a Venetian fleet despatched against them in 887, and for more than a century exacted tribute from Venice itself. In 998 they were finally crushed by the doge Pietro Orseolo II., who assumed the title duke of Dalmatia, though without prejudice to Byzantine suzerainty. Meanwhile the Croatian kings had extended their rule over northern and central Dalmatia, exacting tribute from the Italian cities, Traù, Zara and others, and consolidating their own power in the purely Slavonic towns, such as Nona or Belgrad (Zaravecchia). The Church was involved in the general confusion; for the synod of Spalato, in 1059, had forbidden the use of any but Greek or Latin liturgies, and so had accentuated the differences between Latin and Slav. A raid of Norman corsairs in 1073 was hardly defeated with the help of a Venetian fleet.
Rivalry of Venice and Hungary in Dalmatia, 1102-1420.—Unable amid such dissensions to stand alone, unprotected by the Eastern empire and hindered by their internal dissensions from uniting in a defensive league, the city-states turned to Venice and Hungary for support. The Venetians, to whom they were already bound by race, language and culture, could afford to concede liberal terms because their own principal aims was not the territorial aggrandizement sought by Hungary, but only such a supremacy as might prevent the development of any dangerous political or commercial competitor on the eastern Adriatic. Hungary had also its partisans; for in the Dalmatian city-states, like those of Greece and Italy, there were almost invariably two jealous political factions, each ready to oppose any measure advocated by its antagonist. The origin of this division seems here to have been economic. The farmers and the merchants who traded in the interior naturally favoured Hungary, their most powerful neighbour on land; while the seafaring community looked to Venice as mistress of the Adriatic. In return for protection, the cities often furnished a contingent to the army or navy of their suzerain, and sometimes paid tribute either in money or in kind. Arbe, for example, annually paid ten pounds of silk or five pounds of gold to Venice. The citizens clung to their municipal privileges, which were reaffirmed after the conquest of Dalmatia in 1102-1105 by Coloman of Hungary. Subject to the royal assent they might elect their own chief magistrate, bishop and judges. Their Roman law remained valid. They were even permitted to conclude separate alliances. No alien, not even a Hungarian, could reside in a city where he was unwelcome; and the man who disliked Hungarian dominion could emigrate with all his household and property. In lieu of tribute, the revenue from customs was in some cases shared equally by the king, chief magistrate, bishop and municipality. These rights and the analogous privileges granted by Venice were, however, too frequently infringed, Hungarian garrisons being quartered on unwilling towns, while Venice interfered with trade, with the appointment of bishops, or with the tenure of communal domains. Consequently the Dalmatians remained loyal only while it suited their interests, and insurrections frequently occurred. Even in Zara four outbreaks are recorded between 1180 and 1345, although Zara was treated with special consideration by its Venetian masters, who regarded its possession as essential to their maritime ascendancy. The doubtful allegiance of the Dalmatians tended to protract the struggle between Venice and Hungary, which was further complicated by internal discord due largely to the spread of the Bogomil heresy; and by many outside influences, such as the vague suzerainty still enjoyed by the Eastern emperors during the 12th century; the assistance rendered to Venice by the armies of the Fourth Crusade in 1202; and the Tartar invasion of Dalmatia forty years later (see Traù). The Slavs were no longer regarded as a hostile race, but the power of certain Croatian magnates, notably the counts of Bribir, was from time to time supreme in the northern districts (seeCroatia-Slavonia); and Stephen Tvrtko, the founder of the Bosnian kingdom, was able in 1389 to annex the whole Adriatic littoral between Cattaro and Fiume, except Venetian Zara and his own independent ally, Ragusa (seeBosnia and Herzegovina). Finally, the rapid decline of Bosnia, and of Hungary itself when assailed by the Turks, rendered easy the success of Venice; and in 1420 the whole of Dalmatia, except Almissa, which yielded in 1444, and Ragusa, which preserved its freedom, either submitted or was conquered. Many cities welcomed the change with its promise of tranquillity.
Venetian and Turkish Rule, 1420-1797.—An interval of peace ensued, but meanwhile the Turkish advance continued. Constantinople fell in 1453, Servia in 1459, Bosnia in 1463 and Herzegovina in 1483. Thus the Venetian and Ottoman frontiers met; border wars were incessant; Ragusa sought safety in friendship with the invaders. In 1508 the hostile league of Cambrai compelled Venice to withdraw its garrison for home service, and after the overthrow of Hungary at Mohács in 1526 the Turks were able easily to conquer the greater part of Dalmatia. The peace of 1540 left only the maritime cities to Venice, the interior forming a Turkish province, governed from the fortress of Clissa by aSanjakbeg, or administrator with military powers. Christian Slavs from the neighbouring lands now thronged to the towns, outnumbering the Italian population and introducing their own language, but falling under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. The pirate community of the Uskoks (q.v.) had originally been a band of these fugitives; its exploits contributed to a renewal of war between Venice and Turkey (1571-1573). An extremely curious picture of contemporary manners is presented by the Venetian agents,4whose reports on this war resemble some knightly chronicle of the middle ages, full of single combats, tournaments and other chivalrous adventures. They also show clearly that the Dalmatian levies far surpassed the Italian mercenaries in skill and courage. Many of these troops served abroad; at Lepanto, for example, in 1571, a Dalmatian squadron assisted the allied fleets of Spain, Venice, Austria and the Papal States to crush the Turkish navy. A fresh war broke out in 1645, lasting intermittently until 1699, when the peace of Carlowitz gave the whole of Dalmatia to Venice, including the coast of Herzegovina, but excluding the domains of Ragusa and the protecting band of Ottoman territory which surrounded them. After further fighting this delimitation was confirmed in 1718 by the treaty of Passarowitz; and it remains valid, though modified by the destruction of Ragusan liberty and the substitution of Austria-Hungary for Venice and Turkey.
The intellectual life of Dalmatia during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries reached a higher level than any attained by the purely Slavonic peoples of the Balkan Peninsula. Its chief monuments are described elsewhere,—the work of the Ragusan poets and historians as a part of Servian literature, the scientific achievements of R. G. Boscovich and Marcantonio de Dominis in separate biographies. Architecture and art generally have been discussed above. But this intellectual development was the work of a small and opulent minority in all the cities except Ragusa. Popular education was neglected; Zara had no printing-press until 1796; Venetian Dalmatia possessed only one public school, and that an ecclesiastical seminary; and even the sons of the rich, though free to visit the universities of Italy, France, Holland and England, ran the risk of exile or worse punishment if they brought home too liberal a culture. Poorer students learned what they could from the clergy, and the peasantry were wholly illiterate. Although the secular power of the Church was strictly limited, the country was overrun by ecclesiastics. When Fortis visited the island of Arbe in the 18th century, he found a population of 3000, mostly fishermen, contributing to the stipends of sixty priests. There were also three monasteries and three nunneries. Heavy taxes, the salt monopoly, reckless destruction of timber, and a deliberate attempt to ruin the oil and silk industries, were among the means by which Venice prevented competition with its own trade. Although justice was fairly well administered and some show of municipal autonomy conceded, the right of electing a chief magistrate had been withheld after 1420; and the Grand Council or Senate of each city, losing its original democratic character, had degenerated into a mere tool of the resident Venetian agents (provveditori), officials who held their post for thirty-two months and were subject to little effective control. Nevertheless, 150 years of war against the common Turkish enemy had drawn the Venetians and their subjects closely together, and the loyalty of the Dalmatian soldiers and sailors abroad, if not of their fellow-citizens at home, rests beyond doubt.
Dalmatia after1797.—After the fall of the Venetian republic in 1797, the treaty of Campo Formio gave Dalmatia to Austria. The republics of Ragusa and Poglizza retained their independence, and Ragusa grew rich by its neutrality during the earlier Napoleonic wars. By the peace of Pressburg in 1805 the country was handed over to France, but its occupation was ineffectually contested by a Russian force which seized the Bocche di Cattaro and induced the Montenegrins to render aid. Poglizza wasdeprived of its independence by Napoleon in 1807, Ragusa in 1808. In 1809 the French troops were withdrawn, but in the same year Dalmatia was restored to France and united to the Illyrian kingdom by the treaty of Vienna. A British naval force under Captain Hoste, after a successful engagement with a small French squadron off Lissa, occupied the islands of Curzola, Lesina and Lagosta from 1812 to 1815, and established a considerable overland trade through Dalmatia, Austria and Germany. The allied British and Austrian forces drove out the last French garrison in 1814, and in 1815 Dalmatia was finally incorporated in the Austro-Hungarian empire, with which its history has since been identified. Its subsequent tranquillity has only been disturbed by the ineffectual risings of 1869 and 1881-1882, which took place near Cattaro (q.v.). For an account of the development of Croatian nationalism among the Dalmatians, during the 19th and 20th centuries, seeCroatia-Slavonia.