That the change was much regretted even by the Catholic population of the country may be doubted. The history of the Hungarian Banat of Jaycze is indeed less stained with religious persecutions than that of the earlier kingdom, but much of that feudal tyranny which had contributed in no unimportant manner to the conquest of Mahomet was still at work to alienate the wretched Bosnian peasants. We have the convincing testimony of an eyewitness, and a Doctor of the Roman Catholic University of Bologna, that the rule of the Moslem was at this time looked upon as less oppressive than that of the petty Christian Bans and Barons. ‘The Bosniacs,’ says Montalbano, ‘are not so badly treated by the Turks, but that those subject to Christian rule are not worse oppressed by their own lords. And I myself have often seen no small multitude of country people, having burnt their own houses in their despair, flee with their wives and children and cattle and all that they possessed, to the country under Turkish rule, for as much as the Turk extorteth little, save the tithe. And therefore has it happened oftentimes that our armies in the last Hungarian wars, when they have crossed the Ottoman border, find not the Christian countrymen who, as they supposed, would be their friends and helpers; or if so be they found them, they were hid in nooks, or intent upon their flight; for no sufficient prohibition against outrages and robberies is possible with the army. They think themselves well off if haply their property and the honour of their women be left them uninjured; whereas with the Turks, by reason of their great obedience, these securities can be readily obtained.’[133] Several desultory attempts have since been made on the part of the Hapsburgs to recover it: by the Markgrave Ludwig of Baden, in 1688; by Prince Eugene, in 1697, who pushed on as far as Bosna Serai itself, but gained nothing by his hasty dash; and again in 1736 by the imperial troops under the Prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen, which ended in the utter rout of the Austrian army, amounting, it is said, to 80,000 men, and such complete discomfiture, that Ali Pashà could boast that ‘not a hoof of them was left behind.’[134] In 1790 Marshal Laudon took a few places in Bosnia, but the French Revolution put a stop to these operations, and all the towns captured in Bosnia were restored by the peace of Sistov.[135] These later efforts may show that though the Emperor-King had resigned his claim over Bosnia by the peace of Passarovitz in 1718, Austria, in the last century at all events, had not resigned all hopes of recovering the old fief of the Hungarian Crown.