Personnel Management in a new Province: the Austrian Banat (1716-1751/53)

After the conquest of the Banat (1716), the Habsburgs moved quickly to establish a new administra- tion from a complex network of martial and civilian officials, which would last until the end of the study (1751/53). While there do exist several studies regarding the administration of the Banat, the particularities of the development of this structure, as well as the Habsburg method of personnel management re- main under-researched. The proposed research project aims to illuminate the Viennese courts hand at human resources management in the Banat for the period spanning 17161751/53. The time frame reflects a phase in which the status of civil servants can best be described as unregulated and the terms of their em- ployment as being not clearly defined. Therefore, it is necessary to question to what extent modern features of bureaucracy such as contractual relationships, employment hierarchy, the division of labor, remuneration in tendered currency, career prospects and the separation of function and per- son existed and were practiced. In connection with these aspects, four key questions arise namely: (1) Who were the officials? (2) What training and what social background did they possess and come from? (3) Which administrative duties fell under their fields of operation? (4) What difficulties did they encounter? Answering these questions should be possible with the utilization of a phase and category model. The proposed project relies mostly on unpublished archival material from Austrian, Hungarian and Romanian archives. Amongst these documents are, those concerning official procedures (e.g. reports addressed to the Emperor, the reports of commissions, instructions and protocols) and correspond- ence between the central bodies in Vienna, and the administrative bodies and their often prominent military and civilian representatives in the Banat. Additionally, individual contemporary sources such as memoirs, letters, and travel guides provide descriptions and add weight and substance to the offi- cial documentation. It is likely that the personnel management practiced in the Banat was of a highly experimental na- ture. The interdependence of martial and civilian authorities on one another had a decisive influence on personnel decisions and the administration of the province. Finally, it is key to stress the necessity and indeed reliance, of all levels of administration upon one, from top to bottom for it is the in- volvement of well-known administrators in the region which makes a biographical and personal ac- cess to this material, through a sort of back door, possible.

The aim of this research project was to investigate the question of what happens when a state acquires territory and wants to take it into its administration taking into account that previously it was in a completely different political and cultural context, which is why it was not possible to link up with any well-known infrastructures, but had to begin more or less from zero. This was the case with the Banat (today divided between Romania, Serbia and Hungary), which had belonged to the muslim-military Ottoman Empire for about 170 years and which the Habsburg troops conquered in 1716. The project focused on two main questions. One was to find out on which principles the state administration was based from 1716 onwards, i. e. which conceptual elements became decisive, to what extent there were models for personnel management, what role the contemporary background played and what changed until the 1750s, especially since the country was again exposed to war with the "Turks" (1737-1739). The second question related to the staff involved in management in terms of where the people came from, how they dealt with the reconstruction work, what changes occurred in the first decades and what fate profiles can be deduced. The extensive material from the relevant archives in Austria, Hungary and Romania allows to create a very descriptive, albeit not complete picture of the development in the first half of the 18th century, which was both critically reflected in the context of an evaluation workshop and placed on a broader thematic horizon in the context of an international conference. On the one hand, it becomes apparent that the chosen example for a new province is something special, because the local challenges for the development of the state administration and its embedment in a demanding state administration have special characteristics. On the other hand, it can be observed that the most important management processes took place analogously to those in the other provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy, i. e. strong central control, growing professionalisation, tendency towards standardisation of regulations, protective provisions in favour of the civil service, divergences between civil and military administration, etc. The results provide a series of insights into the state, personnel and administrative history of the Habsburg Monarchy in the 18th century. These have been and are being made accessible to both experts and the wider public in a series of publications in various languages