Pansclavism should first have entered the head of a SlovackJan Kollár, pastor of the German Sclavonian Lutheran congregation at Pesth. Kollár, who was no mean poet, sang of the solidarity of all Sclaves in lyric poems and a long epos, and the idea was propagated in Russia, especially by the late Michail Pogódin, and among the Czecks, till it now exercises a power greater than the idea of Italian or German unity. But among the Slovacks themselves Pansclavism has made little progress, because except a small circle of educated Lutherans at the head of which is Pastor Hurban, who in 1848 was leader of a band of volunteers against the Magyars, this people is too deeply sunk in wretchedness and ignorance to be able to follow any political idea. Excepting a few articles in their papers, filled with hatred to the Turks and demanding liberty for the rayahs, no manifestation of opinion has come from Slovack sources.

Among the 3,200,000 Ruthenians (Little Russians) living mostly in East Galicia, but partly in North-east Hungary and the Bukowina, two feelings are powerful enough to overpower every other sentiment-hatred of the Polish nobles and attachment to Austria. An independent opinion on questions of foreign policy is not to be found among them; they oppose what the Poles support, and defend whatever the German constitutional party in Austria demand. When no difference happens to exist in the aims of the Poles and the liberal German Austrians, the Ruthenians lose the sign-post which guides them to their opinions, and become disunited among themselves. As the serfs of the Poles, they suffered greatly from the Turco-Polish wars: Roxalana, who, without a fault of hers, has become the heroine of obscene French novels, was in

all probability the daughter of a Ruthenian pope (Greek Catholic priest) carried off by Turkish soldiers, and sold as a slave; but the oppression of the Turks in their invasions was passing, that of the Poles enduring. The sympathy of all Austrian Sclaves in the North for the South Sclaves is very Platonic. The Ruthenians have not furnished a single volunteer, nor contributed a single penny for the insurgents; they content themselves with protesting against the Polish desire for the success of Turkey, and with expressing good wishes, which cost them nothing, for the deliverance of the rayahs.

In contradistinction to the Slovacks and Ruthenians, the Czecks, 5,200,000 in number, desired at any price to play a part in Oriental affairs. This people, having lived for a thousand years among Germans, and during most of the time under German rule, are the best educated and most industrious of all the Sclavic races, and at the same time excellent soldiers. Almost all the Austrian artillerists are Czecks, and from the days of the Archduke Charles, the conqueror at Aspern, down to 1867, the Austrian artillery was the best in the world. But the lands of the Czecks are enclosed by German districts, so they are compelled to geographical isolation, and can never exercise a decisive influence on the fate of the empire. Devoted principally to agriculture, thoroughly democratic and communistic, the Czecks, like all Sclaves, except some hundred thousand Slovacks, the Herzegovinians, Dalmatians, and Montenegrins, live in the plains; while the Germans, as manufacturers, occupy the mountains which enclose Bohemia and Moravia as in a frame. The knowledge and over-estimation of their intellectual importance in contrast to their political impotency has aroused the most boundless ambi

tion and vanity among the Czecks, which, beguiling them into playing the part of heroes, always ends in their making themselves ridiculous; and in the present case, with regard to the insurrection in the Herzegovina, no better fate has attended them.

After the battle of the White Mountain, near Prague, the Jesuits had entirely destroyed the intellectual life of the Czeck nation, obliterated even the remembrance of their past history, and contrived to make them fanatical Roman Catholics. But about forty years ago the national consciousness was awakened, although among the masses it only showed itself in hatred to the educated and wealthy Germans. They began to cultivate their mother tongue, compiled a Czeck grammar, and created a Czeck literature; not entirely without value, though principally consisting of translations. Several savants of the first order then came to shed lustre on their nation; the historian Palacky, just deceased, the philologists Dobrowsky and Shafarik, the naturalist Purkynji, the great physiologist Rokytanski, and the physician Skoda, who, though they were educated at German schools and wrote in German,

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the pride of all Sclaves. Whenever an intellectual folly is begun, German professors are certain to be foremost in it; a rivalry arose between them and the Czecks to discover traces of Sclaves everywhere, all nations, Chinese and Redskins not excepted; and the great men of the world, Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon, Shakespeare, Guttenberg, Humboldt, Goethe, Beethoven, &c., were suddenly discovered to be descended from Sclaves. The Czeck philologist Hanka even declared that the gospel of Rheims was written by Saint Procopius in Bohemia. As the Germans possess an epos from the Middle Ages, the

Czecks, of course, desired an equally incontrovertible proof of ancient culture. A philo-Czeck German in Prague, named Jangmann, 'discovered (that is, manufactured) the manuscript of Königinnhof,' said to be a thousand years old, which gave rise to numerous discussions among the savants of Europe, the creation of quite a library on the subject, and the free use of insults, as is the wont of German professors. To leave nothing wanting, the tailor Hasslwandler invented a national Czeck costume. The grande nation was complete. When the revolution broke out in 1848, the Czecks, by their ultraradicalism, sought to take a leading part in Austria; and as neither their numbers nor their political importance gave them any real influence worth mentioning, they left the Reichsrath and became the devoted servants of absolutism. The same tactics were repeated at the restoration of constitutionalism in 1861. Since then, the Czecks imitate the passive opposition by which the Magyars have been victorious; they clect deputies every year to the Reichsrath, who do not take their seats, and demand the restoration of the ancient kingdom of Bohemia-Bohemia, Moravia, Austrian and Prussian Silesia, parts of Brandenburg, and the kingdom of Saxony.

Since 1871 they have also remained away from the Prague Diet. The consequence is that the Germans obtain the majority in almost all elections, and the Czecks have fallen into complete insignificance. No one troubles himself about them, and they cannot manage to attract the attention of foreign countries. It may easily be imagined how greatly their vanity suffers under this, all the more, too, because among the masses Austrian patriotism begins gradually to awaken. To give themselves an appearance of importance, their leaders have

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course to desperate measures. In 1868, at the Moscow Ethnographical Exhibition, the rendezvous of all Pansclavists, they preached the incorporation of Bohemia with Russia; in 1869, Dr. Rieger, the President of the National Club, addressed a memorandum to Napoleon III., offering him the Czeck alliance for a war against Germany; and after the Council at the Vatican, the Czecks entered the service of Ultramontanism, and even the historian Palacky, although a Protestant, took part in all Roman Catholic processions. But all efforts seemed in vain, till at last the insurrection appeared to offer the wished-for opportunity to make the Czecks the leading nation in Austria.

Of all the European journals, the Czeck papers occupy themselves the most with the insurrection. With considerable skill they collect from all the books treating of Turkey complaints of the Porte and prophecies of its fall, thus establishing and filling an arsenal from which the enemies of Turkey take their literary weapons. At first they sent special correspondents to the Herzegovina, and afterwards they organised the bureaux in which the lies of battles and victories which never take place, tales of atrocities on the part of the Turks, prophecies of an approaching war between Russia and the Porte, are manufactured. They tried to incite all Austrian Sclaves to wild hatred against the Turks, to drive by turns the Austrian and Russian Government to take an active part, and were the first to propose collections in aid of the insurgents, and the formation of volunteer corps. But as usual, the tragedy ended in comedy. As the Czecks do not appear in the Reichsrath or Diet, they could give no authority to their words. As they are known to be hostile to the Empire, their exhortations were re

ceived with distrust; and as other Sclavic nations were equally desirous of being at the head of the movement, even their zeal was unacceptable to many South Sclaves. It was a further disappointment, that the lower orders did not show the slightest inclination to embrace the cause of the rayahs. Not ten volunteers offered themselves, and although the Romish episcopate, for the sake of its alliance with the Czecks, was obliged to take part in the subscriptions, bishops with a yearly income of 20,000l. put their names down for ten shillings, and since the outbreak of the Turkish insurrection in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, not above thirty pounds have been collected, although some Jews, from fear of the mob, also contributed.

The fourth North Sclavic nation, the Poles-2,380,000 in numberwho, in the decision of the Oriental question, will have an important rôle assigned to them, could not agree in any opinion on the Turkish question, which, shared by the majority of their nation, might have given them an influence on the future action of the Government. Yet their fate would be decided by an Austro-Russian war. On both banks of the Pripet river, in the west of Russia, and the Ukraine, lie swamps 400 miles long and from 100 to 200 miles broad, impassable for any army, thus rendering it impossible for Austria to operate against Russian Poland and Moscow at the same time, as the two armies could only communicate with each other by the long roundabout way over Galicia. The Austrian army can therefore either invade Russian Poland, and leave the landwehr to defend the passes in the East Carpathians, which are not protected by any important fortresses, or Austria must direct her whole attacking force against Kieff, Tula, and Moscow, in the heart of Russia, where the most

insurgents in the Herzegovina and Bosnia, as well as for Servia and Montenegro. If we add to this that the only feelings of the Polish peasants, or nine-tenths of all the Poles, are hatred to the nobility and the love of brandy, it will be seen that among the Austrian Poles no public opinion on the Oriental question is possible. The weak minority who occupy themselves with political affairs is divided into fractions, which desire different objects.

The attitude observed by the Poles since the outbreak of the insurrection in the Herzegovina is worthy of the attention of politicians and strategists. It shows the decay of the national feeling, and is almost a proof that in case of a Russo-Austrian war, a Polish revolution would either not arise or would assume no considerable dimensions. But a Polish revolution is a necessary part of any Austrian scheme for attacking Russia. Without it the Austrian general-in-chief must attempt a foolhardy enterprise, or limit himself to the defensive; that is, abandon Galicia with the exception of Cracow, and defend the passes of the Carpathians.

Like the 12,200,000 North Sclaves, the Roumanians, Italians, and Slovenians have no public opinion respecting Turkish affairs, or are without influence on the Oriental policy of Austria. The Roumanians, almost 3,000,000 in number, resembling the Irish of former days in their wealth of children and their few wants, live half of them in Transylvania and the other half in the south-east of Hungary to the banks of the Theiss and Körös. Wallachia and Moldavia are still Turkish vassal states, and it is therefore conceivable that the Roumanians in the Principality and in Hungary feel the same hatred to the Porte as the Servians in Servia and Hungary, and that

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they desire nothing more ardently than a war against Turkey. many circumstances contribute to neutralise this hatred, and even at times to turn the Roumanians into lukewarm partisans of the Turkish Government. In the first place Wallachia and Moldavia, although vassal states to Turkey, have never been governed by Turks, but by native hospodars and the Phanar, a number of Greek and Macedonian families, in which all secular and ecclesiastical dignities were hereditary. The revolution which was the work of Alexander Ypsilanti was directed more against the Phanar than against the Sultan. In judging of affairs and the feeling in the Danubian Principalities, it must also be borne in mind that the leading spirits in the journals, as well as the political agitators, are not natives, but Hungarians, Roumanians, and Servians. The few years of Austrian rule over Hungary, from 1849 to 1860 and from 1861 to 1865, were of incalculable advantage to the now Magyars; the Austrian schools having raised the Hungarian Sclaves and Roumanians intellectually, and in their national economy above those who share their nationality in the Principalities, thereby giving them an extraordinary influence over the latter, whom, at the same time, they have inoculated with their own wild hatred to the Magyars. This hatred, that of serfs their seigneurs, has for the last century been the cause of repeated revolutions in Transylvania, and led to the indescribable cruelties practised in the civil war of 1848. It prevents, however, the enmity to the Turks from being fully developed, and added to this is the circumstance that the Roumanian aspirations are directed to the foundation of a Dacian Empire; their covetousness not extending to Turkish provinces, as few Roumanians live there, but to Bessarabia

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