I have also been at pains to have the Varasdin, Carlstadt, and Croat frontier districts divided into regiments and organized regularly. And although these troops rendered excellent service in the last war, I can hope for even better results in the future now that they are better organized, and the Ban of Croatia has established new regiments. The tables and inventories are attached.
Thus 24,000 men of these peoples are constantly ready to move anywhere at a word, while in peacetime, when they are at home, they cost my exchequer little more than 400,000 a year.
All this shows how greatly I labored to organize and put on a firm footing the military force which is so indispensable for the preservation of the Monarchy and, further, to put the artillery, with the expert help of Prince von Liechtenstein, on a proper footing, the object of this military system being to ensure that the Provincial contributions come in regularly every month, so that the forces are paid punctually, while extreme care is also taken to see that no extortions or exactions are practiced on the taxpayers and not even the smallest bribes or douceurs permitted, however gladly the Provinces would pay them or however much the military demand them, for this would only throw the whole system into confusion and open the door to the old exactions, which are generally beyond the capacity of the peasant at the present level of taxation, while certainly no lord would ever open his own purse. Beneficial and easy as this appeared, and strictly as I have forbidden the military to allow such exactions, yet it is most important to insist that not even everything that appears good can be put into effect without careful consideration. Finally, a two-volume manual on military discipline, drill and regulations, for which I am indebted to the wise and industrious efforts of General Daun, has been drawn up and is appended.
In order to put all this on a firm and lasting foundation, I found myself forced to depart from the old, traditional Constitution, with the detrimental qualities which it had acquired, and to enact such new measures as could be harmonized with the new system.
And to make it more solid still, I decided that I would myself, with H.M. the Emperor, attend the weekly sessions concerned with the establishment of the system, and thus personally control and enact the orders to be sent out to the Provinces. I had the material prepared by a Committee meeting under the chairmanship of Count von Haugwitz, and including a Councillor of the Bohemian Chancellery, another of the Austrian, a Councillor of the Hofkammer and someone from the General War Commissariat. In each of the Provinces I appointed a Deputation whose sole business it should be to collect and report on all material relevant to the system, whether financial or non-technical military.
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