Preparations by Republic of Dubrovnik and Republic of Venice before distribution in 1699.

Abstract

The Ottoman Empire on one side and Austria joined by Venice on the other got fed up with the mutual war lasting for fifteen years (1683-1699) and made efforts to make peace and establish firm borders. The Republic of Dubrovnik as well as some other European countries such as England, for example, were also interested in that peace. Each of the parties tried to come to the best terms. The Ottoman Empire wanted to retain as many occupied territories as possible, Austria to expand its borders, Venice aimed at new territories and the Republic of Dubrovnik to maintain the priority in the trade with neighbouring countries.

All of them wanted to have as safe borders as possible. Therefore, all the parties tried to have the information about the political situation in the warring countries and sent their devotees to the territories which were to be the subject of the future parleys to gather the data about the situation there, about the preferences of the population etc., and send them back to their governments. The secret agents were also recruited from the countries that had to be negotiated about. This paper deals with all that in detail on the basis of the archive
material and the respective literature.