CHAPTER IX

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND HER SOUTH SLAVS

It has often been predicted in recent years that the union between Austria and Hungary would be broken by internal troubles. Hungary has been credited with desiring to cut loose from Austria. The frequent and serious quarrels between the members of the Dual Monarchy have caused many a wiseacre to shake his head and say, "The union will not outlive Franz Josef!" But the Austro-Hungarian Empire has been founded upon sound political and economic principles, which far transcend a single life or a dynasty. Austrians and Hungarians may be unwilling yoke-fellows. But they know that if they do not pull together, they cannot pull at all. They have too many Slavs around them.

The principle upon which Austrians and Hungarians have founded a Dual Monarchy is the old Latin proverb, _divide et impera_. In the Empire, Austrians and Hungarians are in the minority. In each kingdom, by dividing the Slavs cleverly between them, they hold the upper hand. The German race is, {143} therefore, the dominant race in Austria, and the Hungarian race is the dominant race in Hungary.

If one looks at the map, and studies the division of the Empire, he will readily see that it is much more durably constructed than he would have reason to believe from statistics of the population. _The Slavic question in the Dual Monarchy is not how many Slavs of kindred races are to be found in Austria-Hungary, but how they are placed in relationship to each other and to neighbouring states_. It is a question of geography rather than of census. The student needs a map instead of columns of figures.

In only one place is the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy very weak, and that is in the south. The sole port for the thirty millions of Austria is Trieste. To reach Trieste one passes through a belt of Slavic territory, and Trieste itself is more Italian than German. The sole port of Hungary is Fiume. To reach Fiume one passes through a belt of Slavic territory, and there are hardly any Hungarians in Fiume itself. The Slavs which cut off Fiume from Hungary and the Slavs of the Dalmatian coast and of all Bosnia and Herzegovina belong to the same family. They speak practically the same language as the Servians and Montenegrins.

The Hungarians, then, have exactly the same interest as the Austrians in every move that has been made since the proclamation of the constitution of Turkey to prevent the foundation of a strong independent Servian State on the confines of the {144} Austro-Hungarian Empire, and to prevent the Slavs from reaching the Adriatic Sea.

Austria has not been necessarily influenced in her attitude towards the Balkan problem by Germany. Although her _Drang nach Osten_ is frequently interpreted as a part of the Pan-Germanic movement, the Germans of Austria have needed no German sentiment and no German prompting to arrive at their point of view in regard to the Balkan nationalities. It must be clearly kept in mind that the Convention of Reichstadt in 1876, which was the beginning of Austria's consistent policy towards the Balkan peninsula, was signed before the alliance with Germany; that it was the conception of a _Hungarian_ statesman, and that _the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina had nothing whatever to do with Pan-Germanism_. It was a measure of self-protection to prevent these remote provinces of Turkey from forming a political union with Servia, should the Russian arms, intervening on behalf of the south Slavs against Turkey, prove successful. The extension of sovereignty over Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 was to prevent the constitutional _régime_ from trying to weaken the hold of Austria-Hungary upon these provinces. Austria-Hungary certainly would have preferred the more comfortable status of an occupation to the legal adoption of a _Reichsland_. But she could take no chances with the Young Turks. Her military occupation of the _Sandjak_ of Novi Bazar was inspired as much by the necessity of preventing the union of Montenegro and Servia as by the desire to provide for a future railway extension to Salonika.

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Hungary has had to grapple with two Balkan problems, the rise of Rumania and the rise of Servia. She has had within her kingdom several million Rumanian subjects and several million South Slavic subjects. Most of her Rumanians, however, have been separated from Rumania from the natural barrier of the Carpathian mountains, and have not found their union with Hungary to their disadvantage. For the Rumanians of Hungary enjoy through Buda-Pesth and Fiume a better outlet to the markets of the world, and a cheaper haul, than they would find through Rumania. They have benefited greatly by their economic union with Hungary. It is not the same with the Croatians. They are situated between Buda-Pesth and the Adriatic. They have a natural river outlet to the Danube. They are not separated by physical barriers from their brothers of race and language in Servia, Bosnia, and Dalmatia. Were they to separate from Hungary, they would not find their economic position in any way jeopardized.

Many South Slavs have advocated a trialism to replace the present dualism. They have claimed that the most critical problems of the Austro-Hungarian Empire could be solved in this way. Added to Hungary and Austria, there could be a Servian kingdom, perhaps enlarged by the inclusion of independent Servia and Montenegro, whose crown could be worn by the Hapsburg ruler.

But this solution has never found favour, simple and attractive though it sounds on first sight, with {146} either Hungarians or Austrians. For it would mean the cutting off of both kingdoms from the sea. The Hungarians would be altogether land-locked, and surrounded on all sides by alien races. Austria would be forced into hopeless economic dependence upon Germany. The Germans of Austria and the Hungarians of Hungary have felt that their national existence depended upon keeping in political subjection the South Slavs, and upon repressing mercilessly any evidences of Italian irredentism upon the littoral of the Adriatic. Italian irredentism is treated in another place. The repression of national aspirations among the South Slavs, which interests us here, has been the corner-stone of Austro-Hungarian policy in the Balkans. For Hungary it has also been an internal question in her relationship with Croatia.

The Serbo-Croatian movement in southern Hungary has been repressed by Hungary with the same bitterness and lack of success that have attended the attempts to stifle national aspirations elsewhere in Europe. No weapon has been left unused in fighting nationalism in Croatia. Official corruption, bribery, manipulation of judges, imprisonment without trial, military despotism, gerrymandering, electoral intimidation,--this has been for years and is still, the daily record in Croatia. If there were a Slavic Silvio Pellico, the world would know that the ministers of the aged Franz Josef are not very different from the ministers of the young Franz Josef, who crushed the Milanese and tracked Garibaldi like a beast. Radetzkys and Gorzkowskis are still wearing {147} Austrian livery. To Austria and Hungary, Salonika and Macedonia may have been the dream. But Trieste, Fiume, and Dalmatia have always been the realities. If Hungary took her heel off the neck of the Croatians, Buda-Pesth might become another Belgrade and Hungary another Servia, land-locked with no other outlet than the Danube. This does not excuse, but it explains. In this world the battle is to the strong. The survival of the fittest is a historical as well as a biological fact.

In spite of their juxtaposition, the Serbo-Croats have never been able to unite. There have been more reasons for this than their political separation. They are divided in religion. The Servians are Orthodox, and the Croatians and Dalmatians Catholic. In Bosnia and Macedonia, the race adhered to both confessions, though in majority Orthodox, and has also a strong Mohammedan element. The Orthodox Servians of Servia use the Cyrillic alphabet, and the Catholic Croatians and Dalmatians of Austria-Hungary the Latin alphabet.

Until the recent Balkan Wars, the Croatians and Dalmatians considered themselves a much superior branch of the race to the Servians. They have certainly enjoyed a superior education and demonstrated a superior civilization. The probable reason for this is that they did not have the misfortune to be for centuries under the Ottoman yoke. The Croatians have never been willing to play the understudy to the Servians. Agram has considered itself the centre of the Serbo-Croat movement rather than Belgrade. {148} It is a far more beautiful and modern city than Belgrade. Few cities of all Europe of its size can equal Agram for architecture, for municipal works, and for keen, stimulating intellectual life. Its university is the _foyer_ of Serbo-Croat nationalism and of _risorgimento_ literature. It was here that the one Roman bishop of the world, who dared to speak openly in the Vatican Council of 1870 against the doctrine of papal infallibility and remain within the Church, gave to his people the prophetic message that nationality transcended creeds. Here also another Catholic priest taught the oneness of Servians and Croatians in language and history, and proved by scholarly research which is universally admired, that Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia formed a triune kingdom, whose juridic union with the Austro-Hungarian Empire was wholly personal connection with the Hapsburg Crown, and had never been subjection to the Magyar. The Hungarians, during the past few years of bitterest persecution at Agram, have not been able to drive away the ghosts of Strossmayer and Racki. In Croatia, the pen has proved mightier than the sword.

Until recently, Austria-Hungary has not felt uneasy about the relationship between the Croatians and the Servians of the independent kingdom. But there has never been a minute since the annexation of 1908 that the statesmen of the Ballplatz have not been nervous about the Servian propaganda in Bosnia and Herzegovina. To keep Catholic Croatians and Orthodox Servians in {149} antagonism with each other and with the Moslems, to prevent the education and economic emancipation of the Orthodox peasants, and to introduce German colonists and German industrial enterprises everywhere, has been the Austro-Hungarian program.

Vienna has used the Catholic Church and the propaganda of Catholic missions for dividing the Orthodox Servians in Bosnia from their Croatian brothers of the Catholic rite. Missionaries give every encouragement to Servians to desert the Orthodox Church. In the greater part of Bosnia, the Government has made it absolutely impossible for a child to receive an education elsewhere than in the Catholic schools. There are only two hundred and sixty-eight schools supported by the Government, of which one-tenth are placed in such a way that they serve exclusively other populations. The Bosnian budget provides four times as much money for the maintenance of the _gendarmerie_ as for public schools.

Moslem law provides that all conquered land belongs to the Khalif. He farms it out in annual, life, or hereditary grants. In the Ottoman conquest of the Balkan Peninsula, the territories acquired were granted to successful soldiers on a basis which provided for a feudal army. The feudal proprietors, or _beys_, left the land to the peasants who occupied it, in consideration of an annual rental of a third of the yield of the land. The peasants had in addition to pay their tenth to the tax collectors of the Sultan. In territories that were on the borders of the Ottoman {150} Empire, like Bosnia and Albania, the lands were largely retained by their former proprietors, who became Moslems. So the landed aristocracy remained indigenous.

The lot of the peasants in Bosnia, who were largely Orthodox Servians was not intolerable under Turkish rule, except when Moslem fanaticism was aroused by Christian separatist propaganda. Austria-Hungary claimed, however, that her occupation of the province was a measure dictated by humanity to ameliorate the lot of the enslaved Christians. But the Austrian administration has accomplished just the opposite. The new government from the beginning supported its authority upon the Moslem landowners, upon whose good-will they were dependent to prevent the awakening of national feeling among the peasants. Vienna was more complacent in overlooking abuses of the _beys_ than had been Constantinople. For the Turks held their _beys_ in check when exactions grew too bad. The Sublime Porte was afraid of giving an excuse for Christian intervention. But the Austrians encouraged the exactions of the _beys_ in order to keep in abject subjection the Servian peasant population.

From the first moment of the Austro-Hungarian occupation, the peasants found that they would no longer enjoy undisturbed possession of their lands. The exodus of Mohammedan Bosnians, who, as we have seen elsewhere, were urged to follow the Ottoman flag, gave the Germans the opportunity of settling colonists on the vacated lands. This process {151} of colonization was afterwards pursued to the detriment of the indigenous Christian population. Ernest Haeckel, the great philosopher, once said in a lecture at Jena that "the work of the German people to assure and develop civilization gives it the right to occupy the Balkans, Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia, and to exclude from these countries the races actually occupying them which are powerless and incapable." This statement, publicly made before a body of distinguished German thinkers, reveals the real ulterior ideal of the _Drang nach Osten_. Professor Wirth, dealing specifically with present possibilities, stated that the policy of Austria-Hungary in Bosnia must be to keep the peasantry in slavery and, as much as possible, to encourage them by oppression to emigrate. The reason given for this was: "_To render powerful the Bosnian peasant is to render powerful the Servian people, which would be the suicide of Germany._" Can we not see from this how public sentiment in Germany has stood behind the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Servia?

From 1890 to 1914, the theory of Haeckel and the advice of Wirth have been followed by the Austrian functionaries in Bosnia. No stone has been left unturned to drive the peasants from their lands. Right of inheritance has been suppressed, a tax collector has been introduced between the bey and his peasants, the taxes have been raised in many cases arbitrarily to the point where the peasants have been compelled to abandon their land. To German immigrants have been given {152} communal lands which were necessary to the peasants for pasturage and the forests where their swine fed on acorns.

The population of Bosnia hardly surpasses thirty-five inhabitants to the kilometre. The total population is about two millions, of whom eight hundred thousand are Orthodox, six hundred thousand Moslem, and five hundred thousand Catholic. But practically all of this population--except one hundred thousand who are Jews, Protestants, and other German immigrants--is Servian or Servian-speaking. There are thirty-five thousand Germans, as opposed to one million eight hundred thousand Slavs. And yet German is the language of the administration, and the only language of the railways and posts and telegraphs, which in Bosnia have not ceased to be under the control of the military government. Many functionaries after thirty years of service in Bosnia do not know the language of the country. Two German newspapers are supported at the expense of the public budget to attack indigenous elements. In German schools, pupils are taught the history of Germany, but in Slavic schools the history of the south Slavs is excluded from the curriculum. There are fourteen schools for ten thousand Germans, and one school for every six thousand Slavs.

In the administration of Bosnia, only thirty-one out of three hundred and twenty-two functionaries are Servians, only twelve out of one hundred and twenty-five professors of lyceums, only thirty-one out of two hundred and thirty-seven judges and {153} magistrates. And yet the Orthodox Servians form forty-four per cent. of the population. The young Bosnians who have graduated from the Austro-Hungarian universities find themselves excluded from public life. Turning to commercial life, they find eighty per cent. of the large industries controlled by German capital and managed exclusively by Germans. Turning to agriculture, they find economic misery and hopeless ignorance among the peasants of their race, and every effort made by the Government to prevent the bettering of their lot. Turning to journalism and public speaking to work for their race, they find an unreasoning censorship and a law against assemblies. As one of them expressed it to me, "We must either cease to be Slavs or become revolutionaries."

Did Austria-Hungary need to look to Servian propaganda, to influences _from the outside_, to find the cause of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand? Political assassinations were not new in the south Slavic provinces of the monarchy. A young Bosnian student attempted to assassinate the Governor of Bosnia at Sarajevo on June 6, 1910, at the time of the inauguration of the Bosnian _Sabor_ (Diet). Two years later the royal commissioner in Croatia was the object of an attempt at assassination by a Bosnian at Agram. In September of the same year, a Croatian student shot at the Ban of Croatia. The same Ban, Skerletz, was attacked again at Agram by another young Croatian on August 18, 1913. These assassinations preceded those of the Archduke and his wife. They {154} were all committed by students of Austro-Hungarian nationality. Only the last one had ever been in Servia.

In theory, Bosnia has had since February 20, 1910, a constitution with a deliberative assembly. But the _Sabor_ can discuss no projects of law that have not been proposed by the two masters. Once voted, a law has to pass the double veto of Vienna and Buda-Pesth. As if this were not enough, the Viennese bureaucracy has so arranged the qualification of the electorate and the electoral laws that the suffrage does not represent the country. Then, too, the constitution decides arbitrarily that the membership of the _Sabor_ must be divided according to religions, one Jew, sixteen Catholics, twenty-four Moslems, and thirty-one Orthodox. The Government has reserved for itself the right of naming twenty members! The constitution provides for individual liberty, the inviolability of one's home, liberty of the press and speech, and secrecy of letters and telegrams. This enlightened measure of the Emperor was heralded to the world. But of course there was the joker, Article 20. Vienna held the highest card! In case of menace to the public safety, all public and private rights may be suspended by a word from Vienna. Public safety always being menaced in Bosnia, the constitution is perpetually suspended. The Government even goes as far as to prosecute deputies for their speeches in Parliament. Newspapers are continually censored. Their telegraphic news from Vienna and Buda-Pesth is suppressed without reason. Particularly severe {155} fines--sometimes jail sentences--are passed upon offending journalists.

Is it necessarily because of instigation and propaganda from Belgrade that of the three Servian political parties in Bosnia two (the _Narod_ and the _Otachbina_) are closely allied to the Pan-Servian Society _Narodna Obrana_, and that these two parties openly support the separatist movement?

In Bosnia, Dalmatia, and Croatia in 1914 the bureaucracy of Vienna has been engaged in the same process of repression and police persecution as in Italy during the half century from 1815 to the liberation of Italy. The local constitutions have been suspended everywhere. Why have the Austrians, in spite of the lessons of the beginning of the present reign, dared to tempt providence in exactly the same way after the Golden Jubilee?

The victories of the Allies in the Balkans were a terrible blow to Austria-Hungary. Not only was her dream of reaching the Ægean Sea through the _sandjak_ of Novi Bazar and Macedonia shattered by the Greek occupation of Salonika, but the aggrandizement of Servia, caused by a successful war, threatened to have a serious effect upon the fortunes of the Empire. The appearance of the Servians on the Adriatic would mean really the extension of Russian influence through Bulgaria and Servia to the Austrian and Italian private lake, and would cut off Austria for ever from her economic outlet to the Ægean. But there {156} was more than this to cause alarm both in Austria and in Hungary. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Dalmatia--would they remain loyal to the Empire, if once they came under the spell of the idea of Greater Servia? Leaving Russia entirely out of the calculation, an independent, self-reliant, and enlarged Servia, extending towards the Adriatic and Ægean Seas, if not actually reaching it,--would it not be, as Professor Wirth declared, "the suicide of Germany"? The statesmen of the Hohenzollern and Hapsburg Empires determined that it should not occur.

From the very moment that the Servian armies drove the Turks before them, Austria-Hungary began to act the bully against Servia. The Austrian consuls at Prisrend and Mitrovitza were made the first cause of Austrian interference. It was pretended that Herr Prochaska had been massacred and mutilated at Prisrend, and that the life of Herr Táhy had been threatened so that he was forced to flee for safety from Mitrovitza. A formal inquest showed that the first of these consuls was safe, and that the trouble had been merely a discussion between Servian officers and Herr Prochaska over some fleeing Albanians who had taken refuge in the consulate, in the other case, there seemed to be no ground at all for complaint. But on January 15, 1913, the Servians acceded to the demand of Austria that the reparation be granted for the Prisrend incident. A company of Servian soldiers saluted the Austro-Hungarian flag as Consul Prochaska {157} solemnly raised it. This incident seems too petty to mention, but in that part of the world and at that moment we thought it very serious. For it showed how anxious Austria-Hungary was to pick a quarrel with Servia in the midst of the Balkan War.

Two other incidents of an even more serious character immediately followed. Servia refused the Austrian demand that Durazzo be evacuated, supporting herself upon the hope that Russia would intervene. During December and January, deluded by unofficial representatives of Russian public sentiment and by demonstrations against Austria-Hungary in Moscow and Petrograd, Servia held out. It was only when she saw that Russian support was not forthcoming that she withdrew from Durazzo. The international situation during January, 1913, was similar to that during July, 1914, and the cause of the crisis was practically the same. In both cases Servia backed down, but the second time Austria-Hungary and Germany determined to provoke the war which they believed would be the end of Servia and the destruction of Russia's power to influence the political evolution of Balkan Peninsula.

After Durazzo, it was Scutari. Servia for the third time bowed before the will of Austria.

The next move against Servia was the annexation on May 12, 1913, of the little island of Ada-Kaleh on the Danube, which had curiously enough remained Turkish property after the Treaty of Berlin. It had actually been forgotten at that time. {158} This island, situated in front of Orsova, would have given Servia a splendid strategic position at the mouth of the river. Austria-Hungary anticipated the Treaty of London.

It was to reduce Servia that secret encouragement was given to Bulgaria to provoke the second Balkan war. There is no doubt now as to the rôle of the Austro-Hungarian Minister at Sofia in allowing this crisis to be precipitated.

Had Germany been willing to stand behind her at Bukarest, Austria-Hungary would have prevented the signing of the treaty between the Balkan States by presenting an ultimatum to Servia. But Germany did not seem to be ready. The reason commonly given that Emperor William did not want to embarrass King Carol of Rumania, a prince of his own house, and his brother-in-law, the King of Greece, does not seem credible. In view of the events that have happened since, the signing of the Treaty of Bukarest is a mystery not yet cleared up.

The second Balkan war acted as a boomerang to Austria-Hungary. It increased tremendously the prestige of Servia abroad, and the confidence of the Servians in themselves. The weakness of the Turkish armies in the first Balkan war had been so great that Servia herself hardly considered it a fair test of her military strength. To have measured arms successfully with Bulgaria was worth as much to Servia as the territory that she gained.

We have seen how strained were the relationships of Austria-Hungary as separate kingdoms and {159} together as an empire in their relationship with their south Slavic subjects. The Croatians, the Dalmatians, and a major portion of the inhabitants of Bosnia-Herzegovina were Servian in language and sympathies. They had never thought of political union with Servia, the petty kingdom which had allowed its rulers to be assassinated, and which seemed to be insignificant in comparison with the powerful and brilliant country of which they would not have been unwilling, if allowed real self-government, to remain a part. But a large and glorified Servia, with an increased territory and a well-earned and brilliant military reputation--would this prove an attraction to win away the dissatisfied subjects of the Dual Monarchy?

Austria-Hungary by the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina had taken to herself more Servians in a compact mass than she could well assimilate. They were not scattered and separated geographically like her other Slavic subjects. It was a danger from the beginning. After the Balkan wars, it became an imminent peril.

The death sentence of Servia was decided by the statesmen of Austria-Hungary and Germany the moment their newspapers brought to them the story of the battle of Kumonova.

I shall never forget my presentiment when I heard on June 29, 1914, down in a little Breton village, that a Bosnian student had celebrated the anniversary of the battle of Kossova by assassinating the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The incident for which Austria was waiting had happened. There {160} came back to me the words of Hakki Pasha, "If Italy declares war on Turkey, the cannon will not cease to speak until all Europe is in conflagration."

NOTE.--As a commentary on Austrian rule in Bosnia, particularly in connection with the statistics on pages 152-153 of this chapter, consider von Kállay who, as Governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina, fought so bitterly the rise of national feeling among the Servians through the teaching in their schools. This same von Kállay, in his earlier days, wrote a scholarly history of Servia, which I have had occasion to use. It is admirably written and accurate in detail. As a research scholar, von Kállay believed that Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats were _the same race_, and supported this thesis; but, as an Austrian official, he disclaimed such dangerous teaching by placing the ban upon his own book, which he forbade to be introduced into the provinces of which he was governor!

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