Temes County


County of Temes was an administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is now in southwestern Romania and northeastern Serbia. The capital of the county was Temesvár, which also served as the kingdom's capital between 1315–1323.

Geography

Temes county was located in the Banat region. It shared borders with the Kingdom of Serbia and the Hungarian counties of Torontál, Arad and Krassó-Szörény. The river Danube formed its southern border, and the river Mureș its northern border. The rivers Bega, Timiș, Bârzava and Caraș flowed through the county. Its area in 1910 was.

History

Temes County was formed in the 12th century, after the establishment of Hungarian rule in the region. It was named after the local Temes river. The principal center of the county was named Temesvár, in the Hungarian language, meaning literally: Temes Castle. The territory was affected during the power struggle between Samuel Aba and king Peter Orseolo. In 1070, the Pechenegs, allying with the Byzantines, who tried to annex the territory, devastated the region, before they were routed by king Géza I. In the late 11th century, Cuman and Byzantine raids restarted, but were repelled by king Ladislaus I. By the reign of king Béla III, a substantial part of the territory was inhabited by various Slavic and Turkic groups, due to constant raids and the decrease of the Hungarian population.
The first mention of the county was in 1212. The area was taken by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, following the Siege of Temesvár, and the county was abolished. Its territory was then included into the Ottoman Temeşvar Eyalet. In 1594-1595, the entire region was affected by the anti-Ottoman Banat uprising of local Christians, mainly Serbs and Romanians.
During the Great Turkish War, much of the surrounding region was temporarily liberated, but Temesvár remained in Ottoman hands, and thus under the Treaty of Karlowitz the entire territory was returned to the Ottoman rule. Those regions, including Temesvár, were finally captured by the Habsburg monarchy during the next Austro-Turkish War. Under the Treaty of Passarowitz the region became a permanent Habsburg possession, and was included into a newly created Habsburg province, called the Banat of Temeswar.
That province was abolished in 1778, and the county of Temes was restored, with significantly different borders than in medieval times, and incorporated into Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary in 1779. By that time, the Banat Military Frontier was formed in southern regions, along Danube. The recreated Temes county was culturally diverse, both ethnically and linguistically, and also in terms of its religious composition.
Between 1849 and 1860, the area of the county was part of the Voivodeship of Serbia and Temes Banat, a separate Austrian crownland. After 1853, the county did not exist since the voivodeship was divided into districts. After the voivodeship was abolished in 1860, the area was again incorporated into the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary and the county was recreated in January 1861. In 1873, when the administrative structure of the Kingdom of Hungary was changed, the borders of Temes County were modified to include parts of the territory of the former Banat Military Frontier.
In the autumn of 1918, at the very end of the First World War, the ephemeral Banat Republic was proclaimed in Temesvár, but the attempt to create a Banatian state failed after several days. Under the Armistice of Belgrade, armed forces of Austria-Hungary were obligated to retreated from the territory of Temes county, and the region was possessed by the Allied Army of the Orient, thus allowing the French troops and the Serbian Royal Army to establish effective control south of the Baja-Szeged-Mureș line line.
By that time, the process of political dissolution of Austria-Hungary has already escalated and entered its final stages, and on 16 November the First Hungarian Republic was proclaimed in Budapest. In the same time, local Serbian and other Slavic leaders organized the Great People's Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs in Banat, Bačka and Baranja, that was held on 25 November in Novi Sad, and proclaimed the unification of those regions, into the Kingdom of Serbia. Several days later, on 1 December 1918, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was proclaimed, encompassing Serbia with Montenegro, and South Slavic provinces of the former Austria-Hungary. On the same day, representatives of Romanian people held the Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia, and proclaimed unification with the Kingdom of Romania. Thus, three countries laid claims on the Temes county, the Hungarian Republic and the newly united kingdoms, Yugoslav and Romanian.
The question was settled by the Paris Peace Conference : a majority of the county was assigned to Romania, while the south-western third was assigned to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Other questions were finalized by the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, and later border arrangements between Romania and Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslav part of the pre-1920 Temes County is part of the Serbian autonomous region of Vojvodina. The Romanian part is now part of Timiș County, except for a ~ wide strip along the Mureș River, which is in Arad County.

Demographics

CensusTotalRomanianGermanHungarianSerbianOther or unknown
1880396,045148,928 '137,239 '25,955 '55,520 '13,976 '
1890437,039161,449 '160,456 '37,976 '62,813 '14,345 '
1900476,242167,523 '171,087 '58,153 '64,902 '14,577 '
1910500,835169,030 '165,883 '79,960 '69,905 '16,057 '

CensusTotalEastern OrthodoxRoman CatholicLutheranGreek CatholicCalvinistJewishOther or unknown
1880396,045200,946 '161,536 '9,305 '11,236 '5,138 '7,630 '254 '
1890437,039213,531 '186,011 '9,888 '12,339 '6,269 '8,649 '352 '
1900476,242223,247 '209,690 '11,993 '12,360 '8,712 '9,745 '495 '
1910500,835232,057 '221,175 '13,611 '12,381 '11,135 '9,734 '742 '

Subdivisions

In the early 20th century, the subdivisions of Temes county were:
The towns of Vršac, Bela Crkva, and Kovin are now in Serbia; the other towns mentioned are now in Romania.