200 YEARS OF THE LOUISIANA ROAD

Motif: Traffic route of the Louisiana road from Karlovac to Rijeka When speaking about the building of traffic roads through Gorski Kotar, the high-mountain region of western Croatia that connects its interior part with the Rijeka littoral – what is essential to be pointed out is that the first traffic routes in the course of the Middle Ages were the ones set in the form of so called caravan routes. Caravan routes were actually paved paths where pedestrians with the help of draft animals carried different goods, first for their personal needs and in time also in transit between the Pannonian region and the ports of Kvarner. The traffic importance of such routes particularly increased in the course of the 16th and 17th centuries and the establishment of the numerous estates of the Croatian feudal noblemen of the Zrinski and Frankopan families. The important turning point in the traffic evaluation of Gorski Kotar set in at the beginning of the 18th century due to the development of maritime trade and an increased interest for the ports of Kvarner, which in terms of time coincided with the end of the wars between Austria and Turkey, i.e. the re-establishment of trade relations. However, the existing traffic roads were unsatisfactorily adjusted to adequate transport of goods. In the context of revival of the state economy, in the year 1717 the Austrian Emperor Charles VI issued a patent on free navigation on the Adriatic Sea; two years later Rijeka and Trsat were proclaimed free ports. The existent ports in Kraljevica and Bakar, insufficiently equipped for the admission of large ships, were reorganized into merchant ports while Kraljevica was to become a shipyard for the navy. Charles VI was in Vienna at that time and founded the Imperial Privileged Company whose task it was, among other things, to get involved in the reparation of roads – connecting links of the Adriatic ports with the interior of the Austrian countries: the shortest way was the one leading through Gorski Kotar. On account of specific geographic forms of this part of upland Croatia this space caused a lot of problems for the constructors; the greatest obstacles were the mountain notches Kapela, Delnice Straits and Gornje Jelenje, therefore the construction using hard stone for macadam were a veritable construction masterpieces. As the result of the “battle” with the geographic relief three most important macadam connecting links have emerged from Karlovac in the direction of Kvarner. The oldest among them is the Caroline road 106 km long (built from 1726 to1732) to be followed by the Josephine road (1765 – 1779) and finally the Louisiana road (1803 – 1811). The Louisiana Road was built as the most northern road between the Croatian littoral and the interior of the country. In contrast to the Carolina and Josephine roads, it was the first road that satisfied all requirements and needs of that time. It is said that by its perfect technique at the beginning of the 19th century it opened a new era of the construction of modern mountain roads on the area of the Croatian karst. At the time when the road was built, Croatia was exposed to historical turmoil and its territories frequently changed “owners”. By the Treaty of Pressburg (1805), concluded after the French defeated the Austrians in the Battle of Austerlitz, the Habsburgs lost the majority of eastern Adriatic areas. The French took over the western parts of Istria, the islands of the Kvarner Gulf and Dalmatia with Boka Kotorska [Gulf of Kotor]. Napoleon attached the eastern Adriatic coast to the Kingdom of Italy, and in the rest of the demesne dual administration was organized: Marshal Auguste Marmont was military commander and the Venetian Vicenzo Dandolo was civil governor. It was in this historical context that the construction of the Louisiana Road started. Previously to this the Royal Hungarian Privileged Canal and Naval Society was established that as its task had to build the waterway navigable lines that would ease traffic from the interior of Hungary to the Croatian littoral. The conception was that for this purpose the inland waterway of the river Kupa from Sisak via Karlovac all up to Brod na Kupi should be utilized and that from Delnice to Rijeka a trading road should be built. However, after a number of interventions, this proposition proved to be too great an expense so that the Society approached the already recognized builder of roads, the sub-marshal in the army of the Austrian Archduke Charles, Filip Vukasović. Vukasović concluded that the route from Karlovac to Rijeka could be built as a modern mountain road and so he was entrusted with the management and construction of the Louisiana road. The work began in the year 1803, starting from the Rijeka waterfront where a plane tree alley was planted in honour of this event which is still there. The project was financed by the Royal Hungarian Privileged Canal and Naval Society whose members were, without exception, noblemen, among them bishop Maksimilian Vrhovac and also Vukasović himself. Though the project of the road was faultless, from the very beginning Vukasović was facing numerous difficulties. Except for the permanent danger of war with Napoleon, he also had to fight with the workers who kept deserting him owing to too low wages; he also had to put up with the lack of professional staff and the terrain and climate were also problematic. He actually had to build on karst and, additionally, the forests of Gorski Kotar were almost impassable. And yet, in 1804 he had the section to Gornje Jelenje built according to plans, in 1805 the section to Zalesine, in 1806 to Skrad , in 1807 to Vrbovsko, in 1808 to Severin na Kupi and in 1809 to Mala Jelsa, only four kilometres before reaching Karlovac. However, in that year he was severely wounded in the Battle of Wagram and died a month after the battle, aged 54. In the same year Emperor Francis I signed the peace treaty with the French in Vienna by which he ceded the region south of the river Kupa to Napoleon and the French army entered Karlovac a month after the treaty was signed. The Royal Hungarian Privileged Canal and Naval Society then approached the French government with the query about the destiny of the unfinished Louisiana road. General Gullimer replied that the Society could continue with the work undisturbed and that the French were not going to interfere in that matter, so that the Louisiana road was finally built to Karlovac in the year 1911. In the year 1813, after the termination of the French occupation, its extensions Gornje Jelenje – Meja – Bakar, Sopač – Sunger and the connection to the Caroline road were also built. In recent times more significant changes of the route emerged after the building of the Omladinsko jezero [Youth Lake] in the settlement Lokve in the year 1954. The earlier route was exchanged for a new and shorter one that was paved with asphalt in the year 1957, and for the whole of the time the road carried the traffic between Zagreb and Rijeka, it made the development of many settlements of Gorski Kotar possible as well as the development of the Rijeka port; it actually completely fulfilled its primarily conceived function. There are dual data about the name of the Louisiana road. On the one hand we come across assertions that its name came from Napoleon’s wife Marie-Louise, the Habsburg princess, due to the fact that the last part of the road was finished at the time of the Illyrian provinces; on the other hand proofs are submitted that the Habsburg Emperor Francis I personally demanded that the road should be called by the name of his wife, Maria Ludovika, i.e. that the road be named Via Ludovicea. However, as has already been pointed out, Croatia was at the beginning of the 19th century the region of historical turmoil and many civilizations influenced its later formation. Thus the doubt concerning the name of the Louisiana is going to be left for some other discussion. In any case Louisiana, particularly in the context of the 19th century, was one of the most modern roads of the Habsburg Monarchy; its importance for traffic was diminished only a few years ago when the majority of traffic was taken over by the newly-built motorway Rijeka-Zagreb.