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  Grey's apprehensions and struggle for peace.

  BERCHTOLD

  AND

  ROME:

  Alarm

  of

  San

  Giuliano

  and

  Flotow

  Berlin's

  advice

  to

  Vienna-Italy's

  right

  to

  compensation-

  Berchtold's failure to notify Rome.

  The attitude of Bucarest-King Charles's warnings and

  offer of mediation………………………………………………………….. 202

  202

  CHAPTER IX. THE ULTIMATUM TO SERBIA

  The Austro-Hungarian Note to Serbia — Giesl's instructions —

  Jagow

  and

  "Central

  European

  time"

  — The impression in

  Europe — The German Government's reception of the Note —

  The Serbian answer — William Il's comments — " Ultimatum "

  and "Invasion" — An Austrian legal opinion — Grey's efforts at

  mediation — Sazonov's overtures to Vienna — Berchtold deceives

  Francis Joseph — Austria-Hungary declares war — A last attempt

  in Rome — The Tsar's appeal — Conrad and Moltke ……………………. 244

  CHAPTER X. CONCLUSION

  286

  SERBO-CR OAT ORTH

  OGRAPHY.

  c =ts in the English

  " lots "

  nj =gn in the Italian

  " degno "

  c=ch

  „

  "church"

  s = sh in the English

  "show"

  c =t

  „

  " tune "

  vj =

  zvi

  „

  " view "

  gj =j

  ,,

  " June "

  z = j in the French

  " jour "

  j =y

  „

  " yet "

  dz = j in the English

  "

  jungle "

  lj = gl in the Italian

  " meglio "

  [All other letters as in

  Engl ish.]

  ABBREVIATIONS.

  D.D. = Die Deutschen Dokumente (German post-war collection of diplomatic

  documents, 4 vols., Berlin 1920).

  D.A. = Diplomatische Aktenstücke (Austrian post-war ditto, 3 vols. Vitnan

  1919).

  SARAJEV

  O

  CHAPTER I

  THE AUSTRO-SERBIAN CONFLICT

  THE murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his

  wife at Sarajevo was merely the spark that fired the

  powder magazine of Europe. But the Southern Slav

  Question, of which it was a symptom, was one of the most

  burning of pre-war problems, and may take rank with

  Franco-German,

  Anglo-German,

  and

  Austro-Russian

  rivalry as a fundamental cause of the Great War. Though

  overlooked by Western opinion till very recently, it was

  far from being a new problem. Indeed, its origin and

  explanation are to be sought a s far back as the Turkish

  conquest of Serbia and Hungary, which arrested the

  political development and the

  culture of the Southern

  Slavs, and was followed by the long struggle of Habs-

  burg Imperialism to eject the infidel invaders from its

  dominions, to win back South-East ern Europe for Christen-

  dom, and at the same time to establish German Habsburg

  hegemony over the Balkan Peninsula.

  In the nineteenth century the rivalry of Austria and

  Russia came to play an almost dominant part in the

  foreign relations of the Southern Slavs. But it must be

  remembered that in the preceding century and a half

  Austria had had an easy lead, and mig

  ht, but for wasted

  opportunities, have solved the problem in her own favour

  before Russia beca m e a re

  a lly serious rival.

  The creation of the " Military Frontiers " in the late

  si

  xte

  e nth century

  —

  territory organised on a special

  military tenure along the old river frontier against Turkey

  —

  gave rise to a race of hereditary fighters of Serb and

  C

  roat race, trained in a tradition of dynastic loyalty,

  16

  pinning their faith to Vienna as the predestined liberator

  of their kinsmen under Turkish yoke, and, indeed, often

  forming the spearhead of the Austrian fighting machine.

  Then, again, at the close of the seventeenth century (1690)

  we find the Serbian Patriarch, with many thousands of

  Serbian families, withdrawing into Habsburg territory,

  and forming at Karlovci and Novi Sad, on the middle

  Danube north of Belgrade, what were for over a century

  the only real centres of Serbian culture. The Serbian

  element in Syrmia and South Hungary was still further

  strengthened in the early eighteenth century as part of the

  scheme of colonisation which followed the final ejection

  of the Turks.

  The victories of Prince Eugene represent the high-water

  mark of Austrian prestige in the Balkans, and from 1718

  to 1739 the northern portion of the modern Serbia

  (including the Sumadija, afterwards the real kernel of

  national resistance to the Turks) was in Austrian posses-

  sion. But the disastrous war of 1737-9 ended in its

  restoration to Turkey, and fifty years later the war of

  1787-92, undertaken jointly with Russia, and crowned

  for a time with Laudon's conquest of Belgrade, again

  ended in failure and an unexpected rally of Turkish

  power. On each of these two occasions Austria had been

  valiantly supported by the native Serbs, who found

  themselves exposed to Turkish vengeance when their

  protectors

  withdrew.

  Henceforward

  they

  relied

  more

  upon their own strength than upon foreign aid. Yet,

  none the less, Kara George, the first hero of Serbian inde-

  pendence, began with an appeal to Vienna — though

  Francis was too absorbed in the European struggle against

  Napoleon to give much heed to an obscure handful of

  illiterate Balkan peasants.

  From Austria the Serbs turned to Russia, with whom,

  remote as she was, they were bound by the two powerful

  ties of Slav kinship and Orthodox religion. Throughout

  the nineteenth century the movements of Panslav

  17

  solidarity gained in strength, on the one hand serving to

  stimulate Russian opinion in favour of the oppressed

  Balkan Slavs, and on the other hand providing a basis for

  Imperialistic aims, and only too often exploited by those

  whose real objective was Constantinople and the Straits.

  Meanwhile the growth of national feeling in Europe

  transforms the relations between Austria and the Southern

  Slavs, a majority of whom are actually living on Habs-

  burg territory even before the occupation of Bosnia.

  Serbia starts from very modest beginnings as a vassal

  peasant state, but with each new generation tends more

  and
more to become a centre of national culture, and also

  a point of attraction for her kinsmen under alien rule.

  And thus it is not really surprising to find Serbs from the

  Banat, and also from Bosnia and Dalmatia and Monte-

  negro, playing quite a notable part in the political and

  intellectual life of the new principality, while, on the

  other hand, Serbs from the principality intervened very

  actively in the racial war of 1848 on behalf of the Croats

  and Serbs of Croatia and the Banat against Hungary.

  One of the main factors in Jugoslav history has been

  the rival influence of Byzantium and Rome, of Orthodoxy

  and Catholicism, in the formation of the national charac-

  ter. In each case political influence has been super-

  imposed, thanks on the one hand to the alliance of

  Habsburg and ultramontanism, and on the other hand to

  the privileged position of Hellenism in the Eastern

  Church under Turkish rule. The religious issue which

  thus arose has long since died — for certain ecclesiastical

  jealousies of to-day cannot properly be described as a

  religious issue — but it has perpetuated a very profound

  difference in outlook and mentality that is only too fertile

  in misunderstanding. For a whole century past it is

  possible to observe a swing of the pendulum between two

  poles — close and cordial co-operation between Orthodoxy

  and Catholicism, as exemplified by the attitude of the

  famous Ban Jelacic and the Patriarch Rajacic in 1848,

  18

  or still more by the figure of the great Catholic Bishop

  Strossmayer, the protagonist of unity and concord among

  all branches of the Jugoslavs; and, again, fierce mutual

  recrimination on a basis of clerical and anti-clerical

  feeling, skillfully fanned by Magyar national and Habsburg

  ultramontane interests.

  While, then, Serbian independence grew, the Illyrian

  idea, first kindled by Napoleon's brief experiment in

  state-building, took root in Croatia, and was restated

  after the revolution of 1848 in its more modern Jugoslav

  form. And amid political disunion and stagnation the

  reforms of Vuk Karadzic and other brilliant scholars laid

  well and soundly the foundations of that absolute linguis-

  tic unity between Serb and Croat which was the natural

  forerunner to political unity some generations later.

  In 1848 Jelacic, though a devoted supporter of the

  House of Habsburg against Magyar national expansion,

  had corresponded with Peter II, the poet-prince of

  Montenegro,

  and

  ardently

  promoted

  Serbo-Croat

  co-

  operation;

  but,

  thanks

  to

  imperial

  ingratitude,

  his

  career ended in disillusionment and eclipse. In the

  'sixties the idea of political unity awakened an echo in the

  ambitious mind of Prince Michael of Serbia, who even in

  1859 nad already discussed with emissaries of Kossuth and

  Alexander Cuza plans for a Danubian Confederation. In

  1866 he concluded an alliance with Prince Nicholas of

  Montenegro by which the latter undertook to abdicate if

  Michael should succeed in uniting all the Southern Slav

  lands, and in 1867 he reached an agreement with the

  Bulgarian

  revolutionary

  committee

  at

  Bucarest,

  pro-

  claiming the Serbs and Bulgars to be kindred peoples,

  called by Providence to live together under one direction

  and one flag, and adopting for future use the alternate

  names of Serbo-Bulgars and Bulgaro-Serbs. There was

  to be a single Prince, a single legislature, cabinet, and

  coinage, and an independent Patriarchate for the two.

  A little later the revolutionary delegates favoured the

  19

  idea of calling the new state " the Southern Slav

  Empire." This was followed by an alliance with Greece,

  and negotiations were also being carried on with Rou-

  mania when the assassination of Michael removed the

  soul of the whole movement. His calculation had followed

  very daring lines; for he believed that the whole

  peninsula would rise at his signal, that Serbia was stronger

  and Turkey weaker than was generally supposed, that

  Russia by her diplomatic action would prevent the inter-

  vention of any of the Powers, and that it would be

  possible to checkmate Austria by encouraging Hungary,

  with whom Michael had many personal ties. At his death

  the whole design collapsed, Serb and Bulgár fell rapidly

  apart, and the skilful and deliberate tactics of the Porte

  in creating a separate Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870,

  widened the breach, and ranged the Balkan Slavs more

  and more in two rival camps.

  Meanwhile the Jugoslav idea met with a no less serious

  set-back in Habsburg territory. Prussia's victory forced

  Austria to come to terms with the Magyars, and the

  bargain was sealed by the Ausgleich, or Dual System, at

  the expense of the lesser nationalities. Within certain

  limits Croatia's autonomy was respected, but, so far

  from Zagreb being consulted, the terms of the new settle-

  ment were, in effect, dictated from Budapest, and only

  submitted pro forma to a carefully " packed " Croatian

  Diet, after the bargain between Budapest and Vienna

  had already made of them an accomplished fact.

  During

  the

  'seventies

  Austro-Hungarian

  policy

  was

  increasingly successful in checking intercourse between

  the Jugoslavs of the Monarchy and those outside its

  bounds.

  Meanwhile

  the

  newly

  constituted

  " Party

  of

  Right," resting upon a narrow Catholic clerical basis,

  aimed at the reunion of Dalmatia with Croatia-Slavonia

  in the so-called Triune Kingdom, within whose bounds it

  attected to deny the very existence of Serbia. This Pan-

  Croat ideal was favoured in Vienna as a convenient rival

  20

  to Pan-Serbism, with its centre in Belgrade; but its

  natural effect was to drive the Serbs of Slavonia and

  South Hungary into the arms of Budapest.

  It was not, however, till the great Eastern crisis

  of

  1875-8

  that

  Austria-Hungary

  became

  irrevocably

  involved in a real conflict of principle with Serbia. The

  insurrection of the two purely. Jugoslav provinces of

  Bosnia-Herzegovina

  against

  Turkish

  misrule

  was

  naturally greeted with enthusiasm by their kinsmen in

  the free principalities of Serbia and Montenegro, who

  became involved in war with Turkey in their defence.

  Beaten in 1876, and forced to accept an armistice, they

  resumed hostilities once more after the intervention of

/>   Russia, and spent their blood and treasure freely for the

  cause of union, to which the insurgent leaders stood

  equally pledged. But, though Serbia and Montenegro

  received

  certain

  extensions

  of

  territory,

  they

  were

  thwarted in their main aim, and had to look on in impo-

  tent fury, while the diplomatists of Europe, assembled at

  the Congress of Berlin in 1878, gave to Austria-Hungary

  a mandate for the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

  It is important to bear in mind that Russia at an

  early stage in the Eastern crisis lost faith in the Serbs,

  and transferred her patronage to the Bulgarians, thus

  arousing in the minds of the latter, by the stillborn

  settlement

  of

  San

  Stefano,

  exaggerated

  hopes

  and

  ambitions which have warped the whole subsequent

  development of the Balkans. In order to retain the

  friendship of Austria-Hungary, and, at a later stage, in

  order to secure her neutrality during the Russo-Turkish

  conflict, Tsar Alexander II — first at his meeting with

  Francis Joseph at Reichstadt in July 1876, and then by

  a military convention at Budapest in January 1877 —

  definitely

  sanctioned

  an

  Austro-Hungarian

  occupation

  of Bosnia.

  As the tide of Panslav feeling rose in the war, and,

  above all, when the Russian armies crossed the Balkans

  21

  and dictated the Peace of San Stefano at the very gates

  of

  Constantinople,

  the

  Tsar's

  Government

  repented

  their concessions, and in April. 1878, sent General

  Ignatiev to Vienna with a secret offer of Bosnia to Austria-

  Hungary in return for an endorsement of the remainder

  of the San Stefano settlement. But Andrássy, with the

  two previous pledges in his pocket, and with Britain

  threatening Russia with war, was not in the least

  disposed to yield; and at the Congress of Berlin Russia

  had to give way to a combination of Austria-Hungary and

  Britain, with Bismarck posing as " honest broker," but

  really affording Andrássy a support which was to smooth

  the path for the future Dual Alliance.

  Russia, then, not only threw over the Serbs and

  endorsed the occupation, but secretly undertook to raise