engleski

Echoes of Central European Battlefields on the Eastern Adriatic coast: the Thirty Years’ War Veterans serving as capi da guerra under the Banner of St. Mark in Dalmatia during the War of Crete

Europe of the first half of the 17th century was to a large extent marked by one of the biggest conflicts in early modern period – the Thirty Years’ War. Yet, although still a respectable European force at that time, the Republic of Venice managed to avoid any notable military engagement outside the Apennine peninsula. Accordingly, Venetian provinces Stato da mar, including Dalmatia, stayed completely unaffected by this clash of all European leading forces. However, despite the lack of its military interference in Central European affairs, Venice was not exempted from military activities in general. On the contrary, one of the major features of early modern history of the Republic of Venice was constant atrocity with the Ottoman Empire, which once more escalated in 1645 when the long lasting War of Crete began. Although European forces were extremely exhausted by the Thirty Years’ War, military professionals were forced to search another source of employment, and the War of Crete, whose beginnings overlap with the end of the Thirty Years’ War, presented a perfect opportunity for new enterprises. Therefore, many Thirty Years’ War veterans offered their service to the Serenissima bringing their experience from Central European battlefields to the Mediterranean space. In that respect, as being one of the theatres of military operations, the Venetian province of Dalmatia and Albania indirectly got introduced with some notions of the aforementioned European conflict. This lecture will focus on some questions concerning the complex phenomenon of early modern military activities through the case study of the presence of foreign military commanders in the Venetian service during the War of Crete situated in Dalmatia. The research itself is based on the analysis of the archival material from the collection Capi da Guerra held in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia, supported by other archival sources as well. The fact that more than half of the Capi da guerra engaged in the War of Crete were actually veterans from the Thirty Years’ War already shows the significance of their impact in Venetian army. Moreover, according to the sources, many of them at least shortly stayed in Dalmatia. Taken that into account, due to military professionals’ necessity of constant search for work, “echoes” from other European battlefields brought by them all the way to Dalmatian space will primarily serve to show some aspects of dynamism of the early modern military activity. The phenomenon of internationality of European armies of the time, the practice most strongly embraced by the Republic of Venice, certainly brought the intensive exchange of various experiences affecting the Eastern Adriatic coast too. Altogether, besides the aim to elucidate some aspects of the nature of military world within the early modern European society, the main goal of this case study would be to give some ideas and guidelines for further research of early modern Dalmatian military history.

military history ; 17th century ; Dalmatia ; capi da guerra

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