Petrović, Nikola: Hajózás és gazdálkodás a Közép-Duna-Medencében a merkantilizmus korában (Vajdasági Tudományos és Művészeti Akadémia, Novi Sad - Történelmi Intézet, Beograd, 1982)
Summary
Upon the emperor's demand, the company then set up a new management, consisting of A.Aponyi, Franz von Redl and the court agent Heimerle. They went immediately to the site, accompained by Stanislaw Heppe, and found that the designers had not followed any of the instructions of the first (Froon's) commission. Afterwards, the managers decided to suspend J. Kiss and to relieve him of the duty of chief engineer, on the grounds that the company and the canal had to be saved from an otherwise inevitable disaster. S.Heppe was then appointed chief engineer of the project at the same time retaining the post of director of the Buda Civil Engineering Office. From June 1797 until the completion of the canal the technical management remained in his hands. The works manager on the site was Franz von Redl; J.Kiss remained for a time on the site, but his powers were drastically reduced. The new management, especially F. von Redl, started a persistant compaign against the Kiss brothers, with the aim of driving them right off both sites, i.e. the Danube—Tisa and the Karlovac—Brod projekcs. This conflict continued until 20 October, 1797, when the Vienna Court Chamber confirmed the head office's decision to relieve J.Kiss of all his duties. After this, by a decision of the Hungarian Chamber, whose officer he still was formally, J. Kiss was withdrawn from the company and the construction sites. This act finally divested him of any further influence on the project which he had initiated. Along with the clashes between the constructors and the company, a severe financial crisis developed within the company itself. It turned out that the estimated cost of construction had been too low, the capital assets had already been spent and the canal would swallow a lot more, because of the corrections which would have to be made of the shortcomings the Kiss brothers had caused. An attempt is made to reveal the factors underlying the complete failure of the Kiss brothers. I reject the old, and superficial thesis of „internal frictions" within the company and intriguing by outside experts, although these certainly did exist. Up to 1796/97, the position of the canal constructors was quite sound, even with the highest authorities of the Habsburg empire. Intrigues could not have had ony effect were it not for their own failures, underestimates and errors of other sorts. These circumstances should be seen as a product of the socio-political conditions in the Habsburg empire of the time, when the features of a new, capitalist society and economy were beginning to make themselves felt within the old feudal monarchy. This was, of course, a very complex process, and in such a whirlpool of profounded changes, transformations and upheavals many of its protagonists were bound to fail. Nevertheless, the pioneering significance of the Kiss brothers' engineering and economic venture deserves full historical recognition. 502
