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- Title
ÎNCEPUTURILE METALURGIEI LA REȘIȚA - O NOUĂ ABORDARE.
- Authors
Feneșan, Costin
- Abstract
As the old archives of the Iron Works of Reșița were totally destroyed during the Revolution of 1848-1949 and the largest part of the old archives of the Banat Mining Direction were "revaluated" totally irresponsible in the 20s of the 20th century for waste sheet, Münz- und Bergwesen fund in Hofkammerarchiv Vienna remains the almost exclusive source to allow the reconstitution of the ferrous metallurgy beginning in Reșița. The literature in the field up today is of no more use, due to the disparate data it offers that make difficult both a correct restoring of the chronology of events and a comprehension of the context they developed. The beginning of ferrous metallurgy in Reșița deserves a new approach to, the more so as it represents one of the final projects in the spirit of mercantilism in the Banat. After the Austrian-Turkish war of 1738-1739 and the revolt of the Romanians in the Banat in 1738, the Iron Works Bocșa and the subsidiary plant of Luncani that had supplied together the Banat with the needed ferrous products were ruined. Once rebuilt under the direction of mine superior foreman Bartholomäus von Hehengarten (Luncani plant was abandoned in 1749 due to the local unfavorable conditions), the production in Bocșa considerably increased due to the commands for ammunition of the Aulic War Council (Hofkriegrat). Wishing to recuperate the consistent amounts they had invested in Bocșa Plant reconstruction, the Aulic Chamber for Mint and Mine (Hofkammer in Münz- und Bergwesen) leased it in 1752 to Johann Mihael von Brandenburg, a future councilor of the imperial Banat and to mine superior foreman Johann Peckh, for ten years. In 1761 Brandenburg extended Bocșa Works at his own expense, so it was composed from Floriani Plan (a blast furnace, a mould, two forges for iron bars, and a forge for horseshoes) and Nepomuceni Plant (a blast furnace, a mould, a forge for iron bars, two forges for iron for tools, and a furnace with mantel). In Fabric suburb of Timișoara a forge and ironmongery for horseshoes and nails got raw material from Bocșa. The constant commands for ammunition of the Aulic War Council in the benefit of the fortresses of Timișoara, Arad, Petrovardin, Brod, Essek (Osijek) and Gradiška offered Bocșa Works a safe commodity marked for their main products. For that, the Aulic Chamber for Mint and Mine - that had prolonged in 1763 the contract with Brandenburg up to 1769, March, 31 - thought to take under state supervision the exploiting of Bocșa Works and extend them, or to build a new plant in Reșița if the prospecting for iron ore had had the expected result. It seems that the reticence of Bartholomäus von Hehengarten, a mine councilor and vice-count of Schemnitz Mine Chamber (Banská Štiavnica), who knew as no one else the Banat mining and metallurgy, were ignored at that time. In fact, Brandenburg took care to stimulate in Vienna the wish of gaining easy and rapidly. Mine councilors Franz Xaver Wöginger and Christoph Traugott Delius asserted themselves, within the Banat Mining Direction, as categorical sustainers of the new plant building in Reșița. According to their report from April 1769, two blast furnaces were to be built in Reșița, concomitantly with Bocșa Works corresponding extending; their project found Empress Maria Theresa' credence and sanction. After heated debates on the works cost, they decided that two blast furnaces, a finishing forge, two forges for iron bars, and two forges for iron tools would be built in Reșița; they renounced to build the third blast furnace there. Following the Empress' order, mine councilor Franz Xavier Schöner (April-Mai 1969) and Bartholomäus von Hehengarten (August-September 1770) were send at Reșița and Bocșa to evaluate as more correct as possible the local situation. According to the points of view the two ones had formulated, they finally decided to build in Reșița two blast furnaces, a forge for iron bars and a finishing forge. The building works began on the 1st of November 1769, directed by Wöginger, Delius and Joseph Desiderius Redange, the mine foreman at Dognecea. When nothing seemed to cross the builders' track there, it dropped from the sky, on the 1st of January 1770, the written statement of the manager of Bocșa forge, Adam Johann Rösch, and of Johann Matsch, the surgeon there. They offered themselves to build in Bocșa, at their own expenses, the third blast furnace instead of that they had renounced in Reșița, and to took it on lease for eight years, together with the former two ones that had to be also modernized. Wöginger and Delius' extremely pertinent technical notes, but especially the crushing report of mine councilor Schöner unmasked Rösch and Matsch as gross profiteers who looked after their own interests and the technical solution they had proposed was an absurdity. Meantime, the works with the blast furnaces in Reșița had much progressed and they even hoped to inaugurate them in late summer or fall of 1770. But the breaking down of the water basin protective wall and especially more workers falling ill with fever delayed all for the next year. In the end, the two blast furnaces, Josephus and Franciscus, were set in work on the 3rd of July 1771. The first metallurgical engineers came from Bocșa Works and other came from Bohemia (Zbirow) at the mine fiscus expense. 2,443 centenars 60 pounds of iron and cast iron, and 165 centenars 35 pounds for iron tools were produced in the first functioning year of the Iron Works Reșița, with a net profit of 4,721 forints and 34 kreutzers. An autonomous Iron Office was set in Reșița in 1776, the Works there having been before subordinate to the Iron Office in Bocșa. Both Reșița Works and Bocșa Works registered up to 1775 a constant progress. Following the ammunition commands reducing, a slow but as same constant decline was after registered till 1782, which came to a head in 1785. Reșița Iron Works would know a new advance only after the moment Franz Joseph Müller von Reichenstein got modern smelting procedures, in 1798-1800.
- Publication
Banatica, 2017, Vol 27, Issue 1, p485
- ISSN
1222-0612
- Publication type
Article