This Church establishment mitigated in a measure
the position of the Servians and was accepted by
many as at least a temporary compromise. A certain
number of Servians stubbornly refused any terms of
submission to Turkish domination; these were the
Ouskoks and the Heyduks, who from forests and
mountain fastnesses carried on a constant guerilla
warfare against the Turks during all these centu-



566 THE SERVIAN PEOPLE

ries, so long as there remained a Turkish master
in the land.
When the Sultan occupied Herzegovina many of
the inhabitants retreated to the fortress of Kliss, in
Dalmatia, which they made a rallying-point for con-
tinual attacks on the Turks. When the Ottomans
seized Klis in 1537 those Serbs removed their head-
quarters to Senye, entering the Austrian service and
accepting the duty of protecting the Austrian border
from Turkish raids. Those men were known as
Ouskoks. Venice, which held most of Dalmatia,
arranged with the Turks in return for commerical
privileges to protect Ottoman subjects from the
Ouskoks. The Ouskoks in their exploits against
Turkey had found it convenient to cross Venetian
territory. In answer to Turkish protests on the sub-
ject, the Serene Signory, after having in vain ex-
hausted all peaceable means of persuading the Ous-
koks to take some other route, began to drive them
out of the Venetian lands. The Ouskoks answered
with reprisals, raiding parts of Dalmatia, and carrying
their attacks on to the sea, where they proved a
terror to Venetian shipping.
