Serbia Montenegro And The Serbo-croats In Austria-hungary 1903-8


It was inevitable that, after the sensation which such an event could not

fail to cause in twentieth-century Europe, it should take the country

where it occurred some time to live down the results. Other powers,

especially those of western Europe, looked coldly on Serbia and were in no

hurry to resume diplomatic intercourse, still less to offer diplomatic

support. The question of the punishment and exile of the conspirators was
>
almost impossible of solution, and only time was able to obliterate the

resentment caused by the whole affair. In Serbia itself a great change

took place. The new sovereign, though he laboured under the greatest

possible disadvantages, by his irreproachable behaviour, modesty, tact,

and strictly constitutional rule, was able to withdraw the court of

Belgrade from the trying limelight to which it had become used. The public

finances began to be reorganized, commerce began to improve in spite of

endless tariff wars with Austria-Hungary, and attention was again diverted

from home to foreign politics. With the gradual spread of education and

increase of communication, and the growth of national self-consciousness

amongst the Serbs and Croats of Austria-Hungary and the two independent

Serb states, a new movement for the closer intercourse amongst the various

branches of the Serb race for south Slav unity, as it was called,

gradually began to take shape. At the same time a more definitely

political agitation started in Serbia, largely inspired by the humiliating

position of economic bondage in which the country was held by

Austria-Hungary, and was roughly justified by the indisputable argument:

'Serbia must expand or die.' Expansion at the cost of Turkey seemed

hopeless, because even the acquisition of Macedonia would give Serbia a

large alien population and no maritime outlet. It was towards the Adriatic

that the gaze of the Serbs was directed, to the coast which was ethnically

Serbian and could legitimately be considered a heritage of the Serb race.



Macedonia was also taken into account, schools and armed bands began their

educative activity amongst those inhabitants of the unhappy province who

were Serb, or who lived in places where Serbs had lived, or who with

sufficient persuasion could be induced to call themselves Serb; but the

principal stream of propaganda was directed westwards into Bosnia and

Hercegovina. The antagonism between Christian and Mohammedan, Serb and

Turk, was never so bitter as between Christian and Christian, Serb and

German or Magyar, and the Serbs were clever enough to see that Bosnia and

Hercegovina, from every point of view, was to them worth ten Macedonias,

though it would he ten times more difficult to obtain. Bosnia and

Hercegovina, though containing three confessions, were ethnically

homogeneous, and it was realised that these two provinces were as

important to Serbia and Montenegro as the rest of Italy had been to

Piedmont.



It must at this time be recalled in what an extraordinary way the Serb

race had fortuitously been broken up into a number of quite arbitrary

political divisions. Dalmatia (three per cent. of the population of which

is Italian and all the rest Serb or Croat, preponderatingly Serb and

Orthodox in the south and preponderating Croat or Roman Catholic in the

north) was a province of Austria and sent deputies to the Reichsrath at

Vienna; at the same time it was territorially isolated from Austria and

had no direct railway connexion with any country except a narrow-gauge

line into Bosnia. Croatia and Slavonia, preponderatingly Roman Catholic,

were lands of the Hungarian crown, and though they had a provincial

pseudo-autonomous diet at Agram, the capital of Croatia, they sent

deputies to the Hungarian parliament at Budapest. Thus what had in the

Middle Ages been known as the triune kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and

Dalmatia, with a total Serbo-Croat population of three millions, was

divided between Austria and Hungary.



Further, there were about 700,000 Serbs and Croats in the south of Hungary

proper, cast and north of the Danube, known as the Banat and Ba[)c]ka, a

district which during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was

the hearth and home of Serb literature and education, but which later

waned in importance in that respect as independent Serbia grew. These

Serbs were directly dependent on Budapest, the only autonomy they

possessed being ecclesiastical. Bosnia and Hercegovina, still nominally

Turkish provinces, with a Slav population of nearly two million (850,000

Orthodox Serbs, 650,000 Mohammedan Serbs, and the rest Roman Catholics),

were to all intents and purposes already imperial lands of

Austria-Hungary, with a purely military and police administration; the

shadow of Turkish sovereignty provided sufficient excuse to the de facto

owners of these provinces not to grant the inhabitants parliamentary

government or even genuine provincial autonomy. The Serbs in Serbia

numbered nearly three millions, those in Montenegro about a quarter of a

million; while in Turkey, in what was known as Old Serbia (the sandjak

of Novi-Pasar between Serbia and Montenegro and the vilayet of Korovo),

and in parts of northern and central Macedonia, there were scattered

another half million. These last, of course, had no voice at all in the

management of their own affairs. Those in Montenegro lived under the

patriarchal autocracy of Prince Nicholas, who had succeeded his uncle,

Prince Danilo, in 1860, at the age of nineteen. Though no other form of

government could have turned the barren rocks of Montenegro into fertile

pastures, many of the people grew restless with the restricted

possibilities of a career which the mountain principality offered them,

and in latter years migrated in large numbers to North and South America,

whither emigration from Dalmatia and Croatia too had already readied

serious proportions. The Serbs in Serbia were the only ones who could

claim to be free, but even this was a freedom entirely dependent on the

economic malevolence of Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Cut up in this way by

the hand of fate into such a number of helpless fragments, it was

inevitable that the Serb race, if it possessed any vitality, should

attempt, at any cost, to piece some if not all of them together and form

an ethnical whole which, economically and politically, should be master of

its own destinies. It was equally inevitable that the policy of

Austria-Hungary should be to anticipate or definitively render any such

attempt impossible, because obviously the formation of a large south Slav

state, by cutting off Austria from the Adriatic and eliminating from the

dual monarchy all the valuable territory between the Dalmatian coast and

the river Drave, would seriously jeopardize its position as a great power;

it must be remembered, also, that Austria-Hungary, far from decomposing,

as it was commonly assumed was happening, had been enormously increasing

in vitality ever since 1878.



The means adopted by the governments of Vienna and Budapest to nullify the

plans of Serbian expansion were generally to maintain the political

emiettement of the Serb race, the isolation of one group from another,

the virtually enforced emigration of Slavs on a large scale and their

substitution by German colonists, and the encouragement of rivalry and

discord between Roman Catholic Croat and Orthodox Serb. No railways were

allowed to be built in Dalmatia, communication between Agram and any other

parts of the monarchy except Fiume or Budapest was rendered almost

impossible; Bosnia and Hercegovina were shut off into a watertight

compartment and endowed with a national flag composed of the inspiring

colours of brown and buff; it was made impossible for Serbs to visit

Montenegro or for Montenegrins to visit Serbia except via Fiume, entailing

the bestowal of several pounds on the Hungarian state steamers and

railways. As for the sandjak of Novi-Pazar, it was turned into a

veritable Tibet, and a legend was spread abroad that if any foreigner

ventured there he would be surely murdered by Turkish brigands; meanwhile

it was full of Viennese ladies giving picnics and dances and tennis

parties to the wasp-waisted officers of the Austrian garrison. Bosnia and

Hercegovina, on the other hand, became the model touring provinces of

Austria-Hungary, and no one can deny that their great natural beauties

were made more enjoyable by the construction of railways, roads, and

hotels. At the same time this was not a work of pure philanthropy, and the

emigration statistics are a good indication of the joy with which the

Bosnian peasants paid for an annual influx of admiring tourists. In spite

of all these disadvantages, however, the Serbo-Croat provinces of

Austria-Hungary could not be deprived of all the benefits of living within

a large and prosperous customs union, while being made to pay for all the

expenses of the elaborate imperial administration and services; and the

spread of education, even under the Hapsburg regime, began to tell in

time. Simultaneously with the agitation which emanated from Serbia and was

directed towards the advancement, by means of schools and religious and

literary propaganda, of Serbian influence in Bosnia and Hercegovina, a

movement started in Dalmatia and Croatia for the closer union of those two

provinces. About 1906 the two movements found expression in the formation

of the Serbo-Croat or Croato-Serb coalition party, composed of those

elements in Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia which favoured closer union

between the various groups of the Serb race scattered throughout those

provinces, as well as in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Hercegovina, and

Turkey. Owing to the circumstances already described, it was impossible

for the representatives of the Serb race to voice their aspirations

unanimously in any one parliament, and the work of the coalition, except

in the provincial diet at Agram, consisted mostly of conducting press

campaigns and spreading propaganda throughout those provinces. The most

important thing about the coalition was that it buried religious

antagonism and put unity of race above difference of belief. In this way

it came into conflict with the ultramontane Croat party at Agram, which

wished to incorporate Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Dalmatia with Croatia and

create a third purely Roman Catholic Slav state in the empire, on a level

with Austria and Hungary; also to a lesser extent with the intransigent

Serbs of Belgrade, who affected to ignore Croatia and Roman Catholicism,

and only dreamed of bringing Bosnia, Hercegovina, and as much of Dalmatia

as they could under their own rule; and finally it had to overcome the

hostility of the Mohammedan Serbs of Bosnia, who disliked all Christians

equally, could only with the greatest difficulty be persuaded that they

were really Serbs and not Turks, and honestly cared for nothing but Islam

and Turkish coffee, thus considerably facilitating the germanization of

the two provinces. The coalition was wisely inclined to postpone the

programme of final political settlement, and aimed immediately at the

removal of the material and moral barriers placed between the Serbs of the

various provinces of Austria-Hungary, including Bosnia and Hercegovina. If

they had been sure of adequate guarantees they would probably have agreed

to the inclusion of all Serbs and Croats within the monarchy, because

the constitution of all Serbs and Croats in an independent state (not

necessarily a kingdom) without it implied the then problematic

contingencies of a European war and the disruption of Austria-Hungary.

Considering the manifold handicaps under which Serbia and its cause

suffered, the considerable success which its propaganda met with in Bosnia

and Hercegovina and other parts of Austria-Hungary, from 1903 till 1908,

is a proof, not only of the energy and earnestness of its promoters and of

the vitality of the Serbian people, but also, if any were needed, of the

extreme unpopularity of the Hapsburg regime in the southern Slav provinces

of the dual monarchy. Serbia had no help from outside. Russia was

entangled in the Far East and then in the revolution, and though the new

dynasty was approved in St. Petersburg Russian sympathy with Serbia was at

that time only lukewarm. Relations with Austria-Hungary were of course

always strained; only one single line of railway connected the two

countries, and as Austria-Hungary was the only profitable market, for

geographical reasons, for Serbian products, Serbia could be brought to its

knees at any moment by the commercial closing of the frontier. It was a

symbol of the economic vassalage of Serbia and Montenegro that the postage

between both of these countries and any part of Austria-Hungary was ten

centimes, that for letters between Serbia and Montenegro, which had to

make the long detour through Austrian territory, was twenty-five. But

though this opened the Serbian markets to Austria, it also incidentally

opened Bosnia, when the censor could be circumvented to propaganda by

pamphlet and correspondence. Intercourse with western Europe was

restricted by distance, and, owing to dynastic reasons, diplomatic

relations were altogether suspended for several years between this country

and Serbia. The Balkan States Exhibition held in London during the summer

of 1907, to encourage trade between Great Britain and the Balkans, was

hardly a success. Italy and Serbia had nothing in common. With Montenegro

even, despite the fact that King Peter was Prince Nicholas's son-in-law,

relations were bad. It was felt in Serbia that Prince Nicholas's

autocratic rule acted as a brake on the legitimate development of the

national consciousness, and Montenegrin students who visited Belgrade

returned to their homes full of wild and unsuitable ideas. However, the

revolutionary tendencies, which some of them undoubtedly developed, had no

fatal results to the reigning dynasty, which continued as before to enjoy

the special favour as well as the financial support of the Russian court,

and which, looked on throughout Europe as a picturesque and harmless

institution, it would have been dangerous, as it was quite unnecessary, to

touch.



Serbia was thus left entirely to its own resources in the great

propagandist activity which filled the years 1903 to 1908. The financial

means at its disposal were exiguous in the extreme, especially when

compared with the enormous sums lavished annually by the Austrian and

German governments on their secret political services, so that the efforts

of its agents cannot be ascribed to cupidity. Also it must be admitted

that the kingdom of Serbia, with its capital Belgrade, thanks to the

internal chaos and dynastic scandals of the previous forty years,

resulting in superficial dilapidation, intellectual stagnation, and

general poverty, lacked the material as well as the moral glamour which a

successful Piedmont should possess. Nobody could deny, for instance, that,

with all its natural advantages, Belgrade was at first sight not nearly

such an attractive centre as Agram or Sarajevo, or that the qualities

which the Serbs of Serbia had displayed since their emancipation were

hardly such as to command the unstinted confidence and admiration of their

as yet unredeemed compatriots. Nevertheless the Serbian propaganda in

favour of what was really a Pan-Serb movement met with great success,

especially in Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Old Serbia (northern Macedonia).



Simultaneously the work of the Serbo-Croat coalition in Dalmatia, Croatia,

and Slavonia made considerable progress in spite of clerical opposition

and desperate conflicts with the government at Budapest. Both the one

movement and the other naturally evoked great alarm and emotion in the

Austrian and Hungarian capitals, as they were seen to be genuinely popular

and also potentially, if not actually, separatist in character. In October

1906 Baron Achrenthal succeeded Count Goluchowski as Minister for Foreign

Affairs at Vienna, and very soon initiated a more vigorous and

incidentally anti-Slav foreign policy than his predecessor. What was now

looked on as the Serbian danger had in the eyes of Vienna assumed such

proportions that the time for decisive action was considered to have

arrived. In January 1908 Baron Achrenthal announced his scheme for a

continuation of the Bosnian railway system through the sandjak of

Novi-Pazar to link up with the Turkish railways in Macedonia. This plan

was particularly foolish in conception, because, the Bosnian railways

being narrow and the Turkish normal gauge, the line would have been

useless for international commerce, while the engineering difficulties

were such that the cost of construction would have been prohibitive. But

the possibilities which this move indicated, the palpable evidence it

contained of the notorious Drang nach Osten of the Germanic powers

towards Salonika and Constantinople, were quite sufficient to fill the

ministries of Europe, and especially those of Russia, with extreme

uneasiness. The immediate result of this was that concerted action between

Russia and Austria-Hungary in the Balkans was thenceforward impossible,

and the Muerzsteg programme, after a short and precarious existence, came

to an untimely end (cf. chap. 12). Serbia and Montenegro, face to face

with this new danger which threatened permanently to separate their

territories, were beside themselves, and immediately parried with the

project, hardly more practicable in view of their international credit, of

a Danube-Adriatic railway. In July 1908 the nerves of Europe were still

further tried by the Young Turk revolution in Constantinople. The

imminence of this movement was known to Austro-German diplomacy, and

doubtless this knowledge, as well as the fear of the Pan-Serb movement,

prompted the Austrian foreign minister to take steps towards the

definitive regularization of his country's position in Bosnia and

Hercegovina--provinces whose suzerain was still the Sultan of Turkey. The

effect of the Young Turk coup in the Balkan States was as any one who

visited them at that time can testify, both pathetic and intensely

humorous. The permanent chaos of the Turkish empire, and the process of

watching for years its gradual but inevitable decomposition, had created

amongst the neighbouring states an atmosphere of excited anticipation,

which was really the breath of their nostrils; it had stimulated them

during the endless Macedonian insurrections to commit the most awful

outrages against each other's nationals and then lay the blame at the door

of the unfortunate Turk; and if the Turk should really regenerate himself,

not only would their occupation be gone, but the heavily-discounted

legacies would assuredly elude their grasp. At the same time, since the

whole policy of exhibiting and exploiting the horrors of Macedonia, and of

organizing guerilla bands and provoking intervention, was based on the

refusal of the Turks to grant reforms, as soon as the ultra-liberal

constitution of Midhat Pasha, which, had been withdrawn after a brief and

unsuccessful run in 1876, was restored by the Young Turks, there was

nothing left for the Balkan States to do but to applaud with as much

enthusiasm as they could simulate. The emotions experienced by the Balkan

peoples during that summer, beneath the smiles which they had to assume,

were exhausting even for southern temperaments. Bulgaria, with its

characteristic matter-of-factness, was the first to adjust itself to the

new and trying situation in which the only certainty was that something

decisive had got to be done with all possible celerity. On October 5,

1908, Prince Ferdinand sprang on an astonished continent the news that he

renounced the Turkish suzerainty (ever since 1878 the Bulgarian

principality had been a tributary and vassal state of the Ottoman Empire,

and therefore, with all its astonishingly rapid progress and material

prosperity, a subject for commiseration in the kingdoms of Serbia and

Greece) and proclaimed the independence of Bulgaria, with himself, as Tsar

of the Bulgars, at its head. Europe had not recovered from this shock,

still less Belgrade and Athens, when, two days later. Baron Aehrenthal

announced the formal annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by the Emperor

Francis Joseph. Whereas most people had virtually forgotten the Treaty of

Berlin and had come to look on Austria as just as permanently settled in

these two provinces as was Great Britain in Egypt and Cyprus, yet the

formal breach of the stipulations of that treaty on Austria's part, by

annexing the provinces without notice to or consultation with the other

parties concerned, gave the excuse for a somewhat ridiculous hue and cry

on the part of the other powers, and especially on that of Russia. The

effect of these blows from right and left on Serbia was literally

paralysing. When Belgrade recovered the use of its organs, it started to

scream for war and revenue, and initiated an international crisis from

which Europe did not recover till the following year. Meanwhile, almost

unobserved by the peoples of Serbia and Montenegro, Austria had, in order

to reconcile the Turks with the loss of their provinces, good-naturedly,

but from the Austrian point of view short-sightedly, withdrawn its

garrisons from the sandjak of Novi-Pazar, thus evacuating the

long-coveted corridor which was the one thing above all else necessary to

Serbia and Montenegro for the realization of their plans.



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