FROM THE PREPARATORY MATERIALS K. Marx. Venice
Karl Marx
VENICE585
Venice and Genoa. (Trieste was linked with their Mediterranean trade...) Genoa. Latter half of the 13th century: Very substantial privileges accorded the Genoese in consequence of their support of the Greeks against the Catholic monarchs (privileges in Constantinople — Galata and Pera).[586] Superior to the Venetians here; (in Constantinople and the Black Sea(1)) Venetians favoured by the Catholic monarchs, commercial supremacy in Dalmatia, the Morea,(2) Asia Minor, Cyprus, Syria, etc.
Causes of decline. Since the beginning of the 15th century, conquest of the Greek empire by the Turks; notably Constantinople in 1453. Italians lost their privileges there and their settlements in Constantinople, Syria, Armenia, on the Black Sea, etc. Accorded privileges by the sultans of Egypt, etc.
From the end of the 15th century the Portuguese sailing round the Cape of Good Hope. Market for Indian goods shifted to Lisbon. Very marked decline from mid-16th century. Moreover the discovery of America was of less use to them than to other states, etc. Venice severely handicapped since Constantinople no longer centre for trade and goods traffic from Asia.
Towards the end of the 18th century under French rule; war with England; trade declined in all Italian maritime towns.
Treaty of 1815 restored only small proportion of trade enjoyed even before the French Revolution; most of it went to Trieste, much favoured by the Austrian government. Trieste's volume of trade was three times greater than that of Venice. Trieste especially favoured by the growing prosperity of the Russian ports, particularly Odessa, on the Black Sea. Captured the grain trade which had still been conducted by Venice as recently as the final decades of the 18th century.
Trieste. (1838) 1,700 houses, 52,000 inhabitants; on the Gulf of Trieste; also hemmed in by steep Karst Hills; 1,000 merchants; 700 brdkers; English, French, German, Greek, Armenian, Jewish business houses.
Prior to the treaty of Campoformio of 17 October 1797 Napoleon had already dissolved the Venetian Republic in favour of the Cisalpine Republic consisting of Milan, Mantua, etc., the Valtellina, Romagna, etc. The greater part of the Venetian Free State as far as the Adige was annexed to Austria.
Treaty of Lunevïlle 9 February 1801[5]*[7]: The Adige thalweg became the boundary between Austria and the Cisalpine Republic; she acquired Venice with the greater part of the former Venetian Free State as far as the Adige thalweg, together with Istria, Venetian Dalmatia, the islands belonging thereto, and the Bocche
dî Catîaro-, 1805. 26 September: Treaty of PressburgJ'[88] Austria loses her share of Venice to Italy.
1807. 10 October. Austria compelled to cede the county of Monfalcone to Italy,[589] the result being that the Isonzo thalweg became her boundary.
14 October 1809 Treaty of Vienna[590]: Napoleon created the so-called Illyrian Provinces out of the Villach District in Carinthia, the duchy of Carniola, the Trieste district, the county of Gorizia, Friuli, that part of Croatia on the right bank of the Sava including Fiume, as well as the Hungarian littoral and Austrian Istria, and annexed them to Istria, Dalmatia and Ragusa; he reserved these for himself and handed them over to a special governor-general.
Convention Money[591] About 1844 Trieste's Volume of Trade Austria's Mercantile Marine
1 Jan. 1840 Vessels
1,590
Austrian
Tonnage
176,696
Commerce (Figures in millions)
1838 1841 1842
Imp. Exp. Imp. Exp. limp. Exp.
Via Fiume 0.2 1.7 0.2 1.6 0.2 1.7 Trieste 32.2 14.4 22.3 11.2 24.9 11.9 Venice 9.0 5.3 8.5 3.1 11.5 3.4 Other Maritime Towns 8.0 2.0 5.3 1.9 5.1 2.6
49.4 23.4 36.3 17.8 41.7 19.6
1839 Commerce of Trieste and Venice.
Imports into Venice: into Trieste = 1:2.84 Exports =1:3.8
Commerce of Trieste (Value in fl. C. M.)
1832 1836 1840
Imp. Exp. Imp. Exp. Imp. Exp.
57,000,000 44,000,000 77,000,000 54,000,000 49,000,000 37,000,000
Shipping Traffic of Trieste 1839
ireign vessels entering
Trieste Venice 1,217 271 Number of vessels
Austrian entering Venice:
10,375 3,147 Number entering Trieste =1:4
combined 11,592 3,418
Tonnage of foreign vessels Austrian
133,343 330,404
463,747
20,254 196,135
216,389
Value in Turkish Piastres Smyrna: Imp. and Exp. 1835-9
At the forefront
Then Then
Imports
England. 126,313,146 ( Malta. 2,979,040) Trieste. 93,500,456 America, etc. 57,329,165
Exports
England. 44,618,032 (Malta. 3,361,185) Trieste. 52,477,765 America. 46,608,320
Egypt: Imports and Exports (1837) fcs.
1) Austria (Trieste) 2) Turkey 3) France
Imp. Exp. 13,858,000 14,532,000 12,661,000 12,150,000 10,702,000 11,463,000 4) England and Malta 15,158,000 5,404,000 SUPPLEMENT
Endnotes
[586] The Genoese obtained privileges under the Nimpha Treaty of 1261 with the Byzantine emperor Mikhail VIII Palaeolog.
[5] The Holy Alliance — an association of European monarchs founded in September 1815 on the initiative of the Russian Tsar Alexander I and the Austrian Chancellor Metternich to suppress revolutionary movements and preserve feudal monarchies in the European countries.
[7] On December 2, 1851 Louis Bonaparte accomplished a coup d'état by dissolving the Legislative Assembly.
[88] The Treaty of Westphalia, signed in 1648, ended the Thirty Years' War. Sweden gained a considerable part of East Pomerania and also the Isle of Rügen, the port of Wismar and the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, and became a member of the Holy Roman Empire (see Note 67). The Peace Treaty of Roskilde ended the 1657-58 war between Denmark and Sweden. Denmark ceded her possessions in the South of the Scandinavian peninsular, the fief of Trondheim in Norway and several islands in the Baltic Sea. Besides, Denmark pledged to open negotiations with the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp on relieving him of her suzerainty, to annul the alliances and treaties directed against Sweden and to free Sweden from payment of the Sound duties. The Copenhagen Peace Treaty ended the 1658-60 war between Denmark and Sweden. The war, provoked by differences connected with the implementation of the Treaty of Roskilde, was launched by Sweden with a view to completely abolishing Denmark's independence. Under the Copenhagen Treaty, the Isle of Bornholm and the fief of Trondheim were returned to Denmark. The Peace Treaty of Lunden ended the 1675-79 war between Denmark and Sweden. Denmark gave up her possessions in Skâne which went to Sweden.
[589] A reference to the treaty between France and Austria signed in Fontainebleau on October 10, 1807. It specified the boundaries between the Austrian Empire and the Italian Kingdom. • p. 616
[590] 59« See Note 171.
[591] Convention money (coin) was introduced in Austria in 1753. The standard of the 20-gulden, or convention, system was silver. 20 guldens contained 234 grams of pure silver. With the introduction and the growing quantity of paper money in circulation, particularly during the 1848-49 revolution, the rate of exchange of convention money for it constantly increased.