Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Administration

Administration

Bosnia and Herzegovina was governed jointly by Cisleithania (Austria) and the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen (Hungary) through the joint Ministry of Finance. In the Ministry of Finance, there was the Bosnian Office which controlled Bosnia and Herzegovina over the Government based in Sarajevo. The Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina was headed by a governor, who was also a commander of military forces based in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The government was also composed of the governor's deputy and chiefs of departments. At first, the government had only three departments, administrative, financial and legislative. Later, other departments, including construction, economic, education, religion, and technical, were founded as well.

In the 1910 Constitution, the Emperor proclaimed Bosnia and Herzegovina to be unique administrative territory under responsible leadership of the joint finance minister. With the implementation of the constitution, the position of Bosnia and Herzegovina didn't changed. It remained a corpus separatum administrated by Austria and Hungary. The constitution implemented three new constitutions, the Diet of Bosnia, the National Council and the municipal councils. The Diet of Bosnia had very limited legislative powers. The main legislative power was in hands of the emperor, parliaments in Vienna and Budapest and the joint minister of finance. The Diet of Bosnia only proposed deicsions which needed to be approved by the both parliaments in Vienna and Budapest. The Diet also had no impact on the administrative-political isntitutions, the Natioanl Council and the minucipal councils and also it didn't have right to participate in every decision making; the Diet could pariticipate only in decisions that mattered Bosnia and Herzegovina exclusively, while decisions on armed forces, commercial and traffic connections, customs and similar matters, were made by the parliaments in Vienna and Budapest.

The Austrian-Hungarian authorities left the Ottoman division of Bosnia and Herzegovina untouched, they only changed the names of divisional units. Thus the Bosnia Vilayet was renamed to Reichsland, sanjaks were renamed to Kreise, kazas were renamed to Bezirke, while nahiyahs were renamed to Exposituren. There were six Kreise and 54 Bezirke. Head of the Reichsland was a Landsschef, heads of the Kreises were Kreiseleiters and heads of the Bezirke were Bezirkesleiters.