Dr. Jörg. The Austrian Ultramontanes have, of course, no desire to fall under the rule of Prince Bismarck; and a bitter newspaper war was carried on between the ecclesiastics of the two empires, by which the Austrian Papists gained a slight insight into what would be the consequences to their Fatherland of any partition of Turkey. Since then their hatred of the Turks has cooled down, and their fiery enthusiasm for the rayahs, who are mostly Greek Catholics, has abated.

Among the liberal German Austrians, who form the ruling constitutional party, a great diversity of opinion prevailed till last winter. Although the defence of Vienna twice against the Turks forms its chief renown, although for more than a century and a half the capital served as the bulwark of Christendom, and there an equestrian statue was erected to Prince Eugene of Savoy, whose brilliant victories fill the pages of Austrian history, yet the remembrance of those times has no power to move the hearts of the present generation. As I have already mentioned, numbers of Poles make a pilgrimage yearly to the chapel erected to commemorate the deliverance of the town, but very few Viennese ever visit the spot. In 1683, in the little town of Hainburg, near Vienna, by command of the stadtholder of Aleppo, all the inhabitants, 8,428 in number, were driven into a street and massacred, except five, who managed to conceal themselves; but even there little trace of hatred to the Turks is to be found. It is the same in the other German-Austrian provinces, only two of which, Carniola and Styria, were devastated by the Turks.

The chief cause of this striking indifference is to be found in the system of education pursued by the Jesuits, who either entirely exclude all instruction in history, or give it in such a way that their pupils re

ceive only imperfect pictures of the past. A sixth of the space in their history books is filled with Greek and Roman myths, two-sixths with the history of the Church, and, at the most, a sixth remains for a distorted history of the states. As the Jesuits for centuries had the education of Austrian children in their hands, the taste for history has died out among the people. Austria has produced no historian of celebrity; and down to the present day there is no history of Austria which can awaken enthusiasm

or arouse patriotism. The great historians of Germany were Protestants and 'Little Germans,' i.e. adherents of the union of Germany under Prussia to the exclusion of Austria; thus, in other words, pioneers of Prince Bismarck's policy, their whole aim being to disparage Austria and exalt Prussia. As their books were forbidden in Austria, they were read with all the more avidity, and the melancholy fashion gained ground among educated Austrians of despising their own country. The great deeds of the past were forgotten, only the late defeats remembered; and thus the remembrance of former wars with the Turks does not exercise the slightest influence on the feeling of the German Austrians.

But many thousands remember that in Jellachich's corps, Servians, Morlachs, and Montenegrins took part in the storming of Vienna in 1848, and that these savages robbed every inhabitant they could of watch, money, and all valuables; that even the officers robbed and plundered, some of them carrying off money and valuables to the value of 100,000 guldens; and that these Junacks-heroes; every South Sclave, when he carries arms, calls himself a hero-shot women for their pleasure to witness their agonies. In 1869, when in the Austrian district of Crivoscie, on the frontiers of Montenegro and

the Herzegovina, an insurrection broke out, which, although the district only contains a few hundred men, 30,000 Austrian soldiers could not put down, the inhabitants of the present revolutionary districts in the Herzegovina, and numbers of Montenegrins, took part in the struggle, and hundreds of Austrian soldiers had their noses and ears cut off and were otherwise mutilated.

These remembrances of late times are sufficient to make the German Austrians take part against the insurgents, and, in addition, political considerations weigh down the balance. The transformation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina into a semi-independent State would create a new Russian outpost in Austria's flank. Like Moldavia and Wallachia, the South Sclavic States would unite and exercise an irresistible power of attraction on the Hungarian South Sclaves. Dalmatia, Croatia, and the Banat would be lost, and Russia, like a boa constrictor, wind itself round AustroHungary. The annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina would also require a large sum of money to construct roads, railways, and public buildings, and to establish an administration and courts of justice, and Austria does not possess it. Even then the new province would be, like Galicia, Dalmatia, and the Tyrol, financially passive, that is, unable to defray the expenses of its own administration. Almost the whole burden of taxation already rests on the German Austrians: Lower Austria, chiefly Vienna, pays a fifth of all the taxes of the Empire, so that an increase to these burdens by the annexation of Bosnia would lead to common ruin. The addition of so many Sclaves to the monarchy would turn it into a Sclavic Empire. In Hungary the hegemony of the Magyars could no longer be upheld; the dualism would be replaced by a trialism, and that would pave the way for federalism and the dis

solution of Austria, or else to absolutism. The new electors, too, without any education, rude, idle, and most of them robbers, would be incapable of using their freedom aright. Austria-so runs the refrain of all discussions in the journals and among the deputies and people on the subject-is too poor and weak to annex decayed provinces; she requires an accession of education and prosperity, not of idleness and savagery.

And then, continue these reasoners, Russia would demand compensation, and this could only consist in the annexation of Roumania, perhaps Bulgaria. Roumania is the glacis of the mountain fortress of Transylvania, which would soon be lost if the glacis fell into the hands of an aggressive power. The Russian ring round Hungary would then be complete, and the mouths of the Danube lost to Austria. Roumania is the most important market for Austrian manufactures; but if it were to become Russian it would be closed by high duties, Cossacks would guard the frontier from Orsova to Suczava, and Austria would be ruined. There is only one territory-Roumania-in the south-east whose annexation would be advisable for Austria. By the incorporation of this principality Russia would be cut off from the Danube; the Roumanian people, capable of culture, would add to the strength of the Austrian Empire, and it would gradually absorb the whole of the Balkan Peninsula; but to gain Roumania, Austria must first conquer Russia, and that is not possible as long as the RussoGerman alliance is firmer than the Austro-German. Ergo Austria must use her utmost efforts to uphold Turkey.

Such are the opinions in the leading Vienna papers and among the majority of the German Austrians. But before these conclusions were arrived at, much wavering

was perceptible. The general distress, which began with the catastrophe on the Exchange in May 1873, has produced an unwholesome perturbation of ideas among the public. To many even a war would be welcome. Austria cannot raise the money for a war by a loan, as Hungary will not join her in it, and Cis-Leithania alone cannot take the burden upon herself; thus in case of a war, at least half a milliard of State notes would be issued. The emission of 400 million notes during the war of 1866 had the most intoxicating effect on all Exchange speculators; the cheap money led to reckless undertakings, and brought about the swindling which in 1873 found such a miserable end. To bring back the swindling period, the Exchanges, which in Austria are largely supported by the least respectable members of the community, desire another emission of paper money. The greater the sums in paper money put into circulation, the higher will be the exchange on silver, and this has the same effect as protective duties; the Protectionist party, therefore, which last summer began an active agitation, trifled a little with the idea of war. The defeats Austria sustained in 1859 and 1866 led to greater freedom for the people; the Radical and Prussophil party, cynical enough to look upon fresh defeats of the Austrians as certain, would not be disinclined to a war which would deliver Austro-Hungary into the hands of the Radicals, and make it ripe for the partition between Russia and Germany. On the other hand, the Centralists, the supporters of the best Austrian traditions, desire the annexation of Sclavic districts, because that would put an end to the dualism; and the Absolutists are in favour of the annexation of Bosnia, in hopes of destroying constitutionalism by the help of a second Jellachich.

All these elements working together sufficed to render public opinion perplexed and unstable for some months; but common sense at last triumphed, and now the Germans, like the Magyars, demand almost unanimously the maintenance of peace, and the status quo on the Balkan Peninsula if possible; but if not, then war with Russia. Only the Magyars spare their countryman Andrassy and direct their rage against Servians and Russians, whereas the Germans blame the Count unmercifully, considering him the dupe of Prince Gortschakoff and Prince Bismarck, and criticise his policy more severely than that of any former Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In sharp contrast to the ruling races in both halves of the Empire, the sympathies of the South Sclaves, except, of course, the Slovenians, are in favour of the insurgents. The four South Sclavic languages Slovenian, Croatian, Servian, and Dalmatian-are only dialects, which differ little from one another; while the North Sclaves, except the Slovacks, can only converse among themselves by the help of German. But in religion and descent the South Sclavic races are very dissimilar. The Slovenians, Croatians, and a minority of the Bosnians, Morlachs, and Herzegovinians, are Roman Catholics; the majority of the Bosnians and Herzegovinians, and all the Montenegrins and Servians, are Greek Catholics. Slovenians and Croatians are genuine Sclaves, and even in the Northern districts of Bosnia, especially in Turkish Croatia, Sclavic blood predominates; but among the other South Sclavic races the wild Thracian blood prevails. This difference of religion and descent, as I have already shown by the Slovenians, has not been without influence in the attitude of the Sclaves to the insurrection in Turkey. The Hungarian Servians,

6

I, 120,000 in number, and the Croatians 1,500,000, vie with each other in their hatred to the Turks and in plans of annexation, but the ideas of both parties on the future form of the South Sclavic Empire differ widely from each other. Croatia and Sclavonia, which before their conquest by the Turks were occasionally Hungarian vassal states, were ceded to Austria by the Peace of Karlowitz in 1699. By the Peace of Passarovitz, 1718, Austria received the Banat, Little Wallachia west of the river Aluta, a part of Servia and Bosnia (Turkish Croatia). This last acquisition was lost in 1739 by the Peace of Belgrade, and the Peace of Szistowa brought a very small accession of territory. The attacks of the Sultan Mourad on Servia caused numbers of Servian subjects to take refuge in Hungary, and on the island of Czepel,near Pesth, they were allowed to settle. Under Albert II. the Servian despot' (head of a district) George Brankovich, after leaving his capital of Semendria, came to Hungary, and later fresh fugitives, who founded the town of Janopol, in the comitat of Arad. Under King Matthias Corvinus several bands of Servians came with Stephan, the son of George Brankovich, to Syrmia (eastern extremity of present Croatia), and soon afterwards 50,000 Servian families emigrated there and to the Banat. Under the Emperor Ferdinand I. the emigration of Servian families to Hungary continued, and many Croatians, who had fled from the Turks, joined them. Bosnian and Servian Uskoks (outlaws) were employed by the Archduke Charles in his war with the Turks. From Zengg, their chief seat on the Adriatic Sea, they carried on their piratical expeditions, and did not even spare Christian vessels, so that in 1617 they were transferred into the district of Sichelburg (between Laibach and Carlstadt),

the

where some of their race were already settled and organised on a military footing. The Archduke Charles, in 1580, gave land in Austria to several Morlach families, and his son Ferdinand allowed Servian and Bosnian fugitives to settle in the strip of land between the Kulpa and the Unna. All these emigrants, when they lived in the frontier districts, were freed from all taxes on condition that they defended the frontier. The whole male population were bound to life-long military service, and the South Sclavic custom of house communities, which still exists in Bulgaria, Bosnia, and the Herzegovina, was retained. The families of the sons lived under the roof of the father, who was at the same time military head and exercised a despotic power. From 1575 to 1702 the Croatian and Sclavonian, and under Maria Theresa Transylvanian and Banat Military Frontiers, were constituted, and they were governed from Vienna by the Minister of War; but from 1869 to 1873 they were incorporated into Hungary and Croatia. The Grenzers (frontier men, from the German word grenze) kept watch on the banks of the Unna, Save, and Danube in palankas (groups of houses enclosed by palisades) and tschardaks (high wooden towers on scaffolding, furnished with a little platform from which an extensive view is possible), to guard at first against Turkish invasions, and later against smugglers and the transmission of the plague. The military organisation proved the only successful means of civilising the wild South Sclaves; but at the same time it explains the inextinguishable hatred of the Gren zers and other Hungarian Servians to the Turks, and their inex tinguishable love of war.

The Morlachs, or Dalmatian South Sclaves, 400,000 in number, quite contrary to the Grenzers, were

kept by the Venetian Government from all contact with civilisation, and subjected to treatment which reduced them almost to the level of animals. Only since 1868 has the Austrian Government endeavoured to introduce the rudiments of culture into this neglected land; and in return it earns little but ingratitude. The Morlachs formed the flower of the Venetian soldiers and sailors, and being partly fugitives from Bosnia, and engaged in perpetual war for centuries with the Turks, they have remained true to their hatred of them.

But till a few decenniums ago this hatred was international and social, without any political tendency; no idea of a new kingdom was dreamed of by the South Sclaves, and the inhabitants of the different countries, provinces, and districts had no idea of their being related, or of the South Sclavic solidarity. The South Sclavic idea, which threatens to become so fatal to Austria, was first brought to light by Gaj, a professor in Agram, and protected by the greatest enemy of all ideas, Prince Metternich. The poems of the Slovack Kollár, who first proclaimed the Pansclavic idea, and personal intercourse with the author, had a powerful effect on Gaj, who issued a very small weekly paper, in which, partly in bad verses, partly in historical essays, he advocated the claims of the lyre shaped' Illyrian Empire, which was to embrace South Styria, Carinthia, Goricia, Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia, Montenegro, a part of Albania, the Herzegovina, Rascia (old Servia, now the pashalik of Novibazar), the Principality of Servia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, the Military Frontier, Sclavonia, Croatia, Syrmia, the Banat, and some other Hungarian comitats. A number of young enthusiasts gathered round Gaj, who, from some hidden motive, or, perhaps, because he wanted to show that he

too could be liberal, was protected by Prince Metternich from the persecutions of the Hungarian authorities. In 1848 a small Illyrian party was formed in the Croatian Diet,

but it was powerless in face of the Croatian party; the Dalmatian deputies came into the Vienna Reichsrath, not into the Agram Diet, and the Servians of the Military Frontier began the civil war only from hatred to the Magyars, not because they dreamed of the union of all South Sclaves.

But the case was very different when, after Haynau's victories, the Austrian Government founded schools, opened increased means of communication, and raised the South Sclaves both intellectually and politically in Hungary. About the same time the famous epos of the 'Death of Smail Czengitch Aga,' by Ivan Mazuranich, the present Ban of Croatia, became widely known, and fell like fire on the inflammable passions of the South Sclaves, in whom the imagination is developed to an extraordinary degree, so that, with few exceptions, they are half visionaries. Mazuranich's epos, the 'Song of Hate,' as with reason it is called, which is learned in all the South Sclavic schools and declaimed on all great occasions, has inflamed the hatred to the Turks to a fanatical pitch, and propagated the idea of the South Sclavic solidarity. The Omladina ( Band of Youth,' in imitation of Giovine Italia), a pretended literary society, which has its seat at Neusatz, in South Hungary (opposite Peterwardein on the Danube), has laboured successfully with the same object in view, and now counts among its members all the most important Servians of Hungary and Servia, among them the present Servian Ministers, a number of Montenegrins, and a few Bosnians. It is supported by Russia, which spends considerable sums in educating young