The New Course Policy () was a political strategy developed in the early 1900s by Frano Supilo and Ante Trumbić of the Dalmatian Party of Rights organisation. The objectives of the strategy were variously perceived. At the minimum, the New Course Policy was meant to achieve the unification of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia – two realms of Austria-Hungary administered, respectively, under the Hungarian and Austrian realms of the Empire as determined by the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. At the most, it was hoped that the strategy would lead to greater autonomy of unified Croatian lands within Austria-Hungary or to the political independence of Croatia.
Implementation of the New Course Policy required a departure from the provisions of the Compromise. In 1903, Supilo and Trumbić saw an opportunity to challenge the existing constitution and achieve an objective of their political strategy in an emerging dispute between Austria and Hungary regarding the Hungarian opposition's demands for greater autonomy. To that end, Supilo proposed the Croatian opposition should give support to Hungary's anti-dualist Party of Independence and '48 in return for Hungarian support for the addition of Dalmatia to Croatia-Slavonia. In October 1905, most Croatian parliamentary parties accepted the strategy while Croatian Serb parliamentary parties gave their support through the and , respectively. The New Course Policy also served as a plaform for establishment of the Croat-Serb Coalition that ousted the pro-Hungarian People's Party from power in Croatia-Slavonia in the 1906 election.
Shortly before the election, the Sándor Wekerle-led coalition government was established in Hungary, ending the Austro-Hungarian constitutional dispute and eliminating the motivation for Hungarian support for the objectives of the New Course Policy. Any possibility of cooperation between the Croat-Serb Coalition and the Hungarian government disappeared after adoption of the contentious in 1907, thus ending the New Course Policy.
Background
Political landscape Austria–Hungary Kingdoms and countries of Austria–Hungary:Cisleithania (Empire of Austria): 1. Bohemia, 2. Bukovina, 3. Carinthia, 4. Carniola, 5. Dalmatia, 6. Galicia, 7. Küstenland, 8. Lower Austria, 9. Moravia, 10. Salzburg, 11. Silesia, 12. Styria, 13. Tyrol, 14. Upper Austria, 15. Vorarlberg; Transleithania (Kingdom of Hungary): 16. Hungary proper 17. Croatia-Slavonia; Austro-Hungarian condominium: 18. Bosnia and Herzegovina
In the late 19th century, the politics of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, a realm of Austria-Hungary at the time, were dominated by the outcomes of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement of 1868. The former divided the Croatian lands between the Austrian- and Hungarian-ruled halves of the empire. Dalmatia and Istria were ruled from Vienna, while Croatia-Slavonia was a part of the Arch-Kingdom of Hungary. The Croatian–Hungarian Settlement upheld, but also curbed, Croatian political autonomy, restricting it to governing its internal affairs. In Hungary, regardless of the guarantees regarding Croatian autonomy, the Settlement was viewed as a step towards full integration of Croatia into the Hungarian state, and the Hungarian government's policies threatened Croatian autonomy. As the Hungarian position became better known, the Croats increasingly opposed the Settlement. The Party of Rights became a leading critic of the constitutional arrangement. The unicameral Sabor was authorised to legislate the matters within the scope of Croatia's autonomy. The Sabor was elected, but the electoral laws limited suffrage by means of property qualification to about 2% of the population. The Ban of Croatia, as the head of the executive, was appointed by the Emperor, in consultation with the Prime Minister of Hungary. The appointment guaranteed Hungarian control over Croatia's nominal autonomy. The People's Party () allied itself with the Hungarian government, while the Party of Rights and the Independent People's Party (, NNS) formed the opposition, relying on a middle-class that was a minority of the population.
Croat–Serb relations In the same period, Hungary's gradually infringing on Croatia's autonomy was resented, leading to . In response, the Hungarian government imposed martial law in Croatia-Slavonia and shortly afterwards appointed Károly Khuen-Héderváry as Ban of Croatia. Seeking to weaken the opposition, Khuen-Héderváry applied a divide and rule policy by fostering conflict between Croats and Croatian Serbs through a series of concessions to the latter. In the process, the policy relied on the Serbs' fear of the Croatian nationalism championed by the Party of Rights. Khuen-Héderváry's policy strengthened both anti-Serb Croatian and anti-Croat Serbian nationalisms. The low point of Croat–Serb relations was reached after the Serb Independent Party (, SSS) organ published an inflammatory article. The conflict escalated into in September 1902. The riots resulted in a change to the SSS leadership where Svetozar Pribićević took control.
Regrouping of the opposition The Party of Rights and the NNS published a joint opposition programme in 1894. For the Party of Rights, it marked a departure from the original teachings of the party founder Ante Starčević. Namely, the original objective of the party was independence of Croatia from the Habsburg Monarchy – and the objective could not be announced as it was deemed treasonous. The 1894 programme called for unification of the Croatian lands and giving Croatia an equal constitutional position within Austria-Hungary, referred to as the trialist reform. During the negotiations with the NNS, the majority faction of the Party of Rights, led by Fran Folnegović, adopted some elements of Yugoslavist ideology as an acceptable means of political struggle. In 1895, a minority faction of the Party of Rights, known as the Frankists after its leader Josip Frank, split from the party following Frank's defeat in internal elections for control of the party's Sabor delegation and of the party's central committee. The central committee consisted of the leading party figures and coordinated the work of the Party of Rights in Croatia-Slavonia and in Dalmatia, as well as politicians outside the party membership active in other territories. In 1897, the Party of Rights and the NNS formed the United Opposition coalition ahead of the 1897 election. In 1902, the two fused into the United Opposition party. The new party was later renamed the Croatian Party of Rights (, HSP) in 1903.
In 1903, Progressive Youth, supported by a small number of individual opposition politicians, organized a series of public assemblies to rally supporters for the improvement of Croatia-Slavonia's constitutional position, in what became known as the . The movement did not lead to constitutional changes, but it reinforced the appeal of the idea of unifying Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia, and to a large extent it dispelled the perception that the House of Habsburg-Lorraine was benevolent toward Croatia's interests.
Formulation
Khuen-Héderváry's policies caused widespread radicalisation and desire to change the constitutional relationships in Croatia-Slavonia and beyond. In the early 1900s, the appointment of Ernest von Koerber as the prime minister of the Austrian part of the Empire further radicalised Croatian nationalism in Vienna-ruled Dalmatia. This was the result of his government's attempts to favour the use of the German language in Dalmatia and to favour Italian interests. In those circumstances, Ante Trumbić and Frano Supilo, as prominent figures of the Dalmatian organisaton of the HSP, saw von Koerber's policies as a part of the German expansionist Drang nach Osten threatening Croatian interests. Supilo viewed the German expansionism as the greatest threat to the existence of the South Slavs.
In response, Supilo and Trumbić developed a strategy to defend against germanisation through unification of the Croatian lands as a fully soveregin state. Their approach relied on ideas put forward by the Illyrian movement as well as drawing on Yugoslavism and neo-Slavism. Supilo did not think that creation of a common South Slavic state was feasible, but he was convinced that the Croats were more likely to achieve their political goals through joint action with fellow South Slavs. In particular, he thought cooperation with the Serbs indispensable. The approach was a departure from the traditional pro-Austrian stance of Croatian nationalism in the 19th century.
In 1903, Trumbić and Supilo saw an emerging dispute between Austria and Hungary regarding Hungarian demands for partition of the Common Army, a separate Hungarian customs area, and a Hungarian national bank, as an opportunity to challenge the dualist constitution of Austria-Hungary and achieve unification of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia. Trumbić presented his and Supilo's idea in a speech at the Diet of Dalmatia on 7 November 1903, advocating support for Hungary's anti-dualist Party of Independence and '48 (, F48P) in return for Hungarian support for the addition of Dalmatia to Croatia-Slavonia despite the dualist constitution. Trumbić and Supilo named the initiative the New Course Policy (). The policy was never elaborated in detail. It provided that Croatian political parties would cooperate with non-Croatian parties to achieve unification of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia and attain economic and political autonomy of Croatia within the Empire. The policy was devised purely as a Croatian political strategy. It was not meant as a platform for reconciliation between Croats and Serbs. Supilo and Trumbić were convinced that Vienna's lack of support for the Croatian National Movement in 1903, and the economic abandonment of Dalmatia, would be sufficient to gain the support of Croatia's political parties for their ideas; but none of the parties initially supported the New Course Policy.
Adoption
The New Course Policy was met with scepticism in Croatia-Slavonia. The first support came in 1904 from the Ivan Lorković-led Progressive Youth, a relatively minor-importance group. Lorković thought the initiative would be a platform for cooperation with Croatian Serb politicians. For this purpose the Progressive Youth developed the concept of national oneness. It was meant as an expression of the notion that the South Slavs belong to a single "race", were of "one blood", and had one shared language. Lorković offered the SSS cooperation asking for acknowledgement that Croatian Serbs' interests coincided with the Croatian interests. He further proposed that, for the sake of cooperation, the conflicting territorial claims regarding Austria-Hungary-occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina made by Croat and Serb nationalists be temporarily set aside. In December 1904, the Progressive Youth members transformed the organisation as the Croatian Progressive Party, hoping to attract more popular support for the party's programme calling for financial independence of Croatia from Hungary and political cooperation with the Croatian Serbs.