Bárkányi Ildikó – F. Lajkó Orsolya (szerk.): A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve 2017., Új folyam 4. (Szeged, 2018)
Történettudomány
Lajos Kakucs Civilian Armed Forces in Banat from 1717 to 1919 Part II Civilian Armed Forces in Banat from 1717 to 1919 Part II Lajos Kakucs Our first news of civilian armed forces come from 1551, from Temesvár besieged by the Turkish. The reported armed civilian force of 200 people was made possible by the rights of a free royal city, which were granted to the town by King Louis the Great in 1364. During the takeover of Temesvár and the Turkish occupation of the Banat the Turkish authorities continued to allow the formation of civilian auxiliary troops from the members of the local populace. During the Austo-Turkish fights in the last decades of the Turkish Occupation the auxiliary troops, organized mainly from the South Slavic population, took up service with the Austrian army. Thus it was possible for armed units of South Slavic origin to operate - in addition to Austrian conscripts - in 1693 in Arad, Szeged and Pétervárad, and from 1702 in Tóthvárad, Sólymos, Paulis, Glogovác, Pécska, Szemlak, Nagylak, Csanád, Gyula, Jenő and Halmágy. From the same year we find references to the 227 soldiers of the Bulgarian "National Miliz”, formed on Arad. In case of Temesvár the status of the two infantry companies of Romanian and Serbian soldiers serving in the castle, whose existence was dated to the years 1590 and 1591 by M. M. Alexandrescu -Dersca- Bulgaru is unclear. Frigyes Pesty reports that in 1688, when the imperial forces led by veterans reached Lugos, the city guard of 300 consisting of Turkish and Serbian soldiers surrendered themselves after the first warning To our knowledge the first civilian Rifle Club of Historical Hungary was formed in 1510 in Késmárk. This was followed by additional clubs in Kőszeg (1575), Selmecbánya (1654) and Buda (1969). Similar clubs were founded later in Győr (1790?), Vác (1793), Sopron (1809) and in Szeged and other towns in 1741. There are mentions of a civilian shooting range in Pozsony from 1439 and in Kolozsvár from 1519. The story of the South Slavic and Illyrian armed units in the history of Banat began a new chapter after the signing of the Treaty of Passarowitz. For the sake of protecting the borders of the newly captured territory the governor of the Banat, General Mercy wanted to relocate the Serbian border guards - currently guarding the Tisza- Maros line - to the Danube line. Due to the fact that this plan was not feasible because of the resistance of the Serbian border guards, General Mercy founded a paramilitary border guard unit in 1718, consisting of 140 infantrymen and 100 pieces of cavalry to guard the border area between Pancsova -Fehértemplom and Orsova. This unit of relatively small manpower was supplemented from the German speaking, armed units of strategically important settlements founded on the Southern part of Banat after 1722. In 1726, or in 1724, according to different sources, Mercy established the first units of the Serbian-Romanian military border patrol of Temesvár, Csákóvá, Hodzsák and Mutnok consisting of 4.200 souls. The existence of such units in Temesvár is implied by a transcript of the city council made in 1735 as per the request of the Provincial Administration, which contained a list of the names of those in possession of horse, firearms and ammunition for the protection of the town. Between 1737 and 1739 the Southern Slavic border guards and other volunteer units participated in both the fights against the Turkish and in the quelling of armed uprisings of the Romanian populace of the Banat in alliance with the Turkish. In 1738 the volunteer unit consisting of 70 Serbian civilians from Temesvár participated 189
