By the late fifteenth century the Ottoman Empire had become the rising power in southeastern Europe, defeating Hungary at the Battle of Mohács in 1526. Croatia accepted the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs in an attempt to guarantee their safety against Ottoman assaults.

Life under the Habsburg turned the Croats into the defenders of Central Europe against the enduring Ottoman threat, but also connected them with the wider Central European economy, bringing architectural and cultural influences in its wake.

Both the Venetian republic and the city-state of Dubrovnik were extinguished during the Napoleonic wars, and in 1815 both territories were added to the Habsburg domains.

Austria-Hungary

When the Habsburg Empire was divided into Austrian and Hungarian halves in 1867, inland Croatia found itself in Hungary while most of the coast remained in Austria. The unification of all Croatian lands into one unit with increased autonomy was one of the key aims of patriotic Croatian activists in the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century also saw an upsurge in Croatian language and culture, with a boom in the number of newspapers, cultural societies and nationally-oriented political parties.