The parliamentary activity of the Czechs soon revealed to them how vain were their hopes that a new era of democracy was dawning in Austria. They soon found out that in Austria parliamentary institutions were a mere cloak for absolutism and that all their efforts were doomed to failure. The Czechs were strongly opposed to the annexation of Bosnia. In 1909 Professor Masaryk gained a world reputation by his courageous defence of the Yugoslav leaders, who were accused of high treason at Zagreb (Agram). During the Friedjung trial it was again chiefly due to Professor Masaryk's efforts that forgeries of the Vienna Foreign Office, intended to discredit the Yugoslav movement, were exposed and the responsibility for them fixed on Count Forgach, the Austro-Hungarian minister in Belgrade. Professor Masaryk clearly saw that Austria aimed at the conquest of the Balkans and intended at all costs to crush Serbia. 10. In 1911 new elections to the Reichsrat took place with the following result for the Czechs:-- 40 Agrarians 25 Social Democrats 14 Young Czechs 13 National Socialists 7 Radicals 7 Clericals 1 Old Czech 1 Socialist (Centralist). The Radicals (four Moravian People's Party, two State Right Party, one Realist) formed a party of independent deputies with Professor Masaryk at their head. They demanded full independence for Bohemia, some of them laying greater stress on her historical rights, some on the natural right of Czecho-Slovaks to liberty. The whole group of Czech deputies stood in opposition against Vienna with the exception of Kramar, who tried to imitate the Polish positivist policy in the hope of obtaining concessions in return. But, as we have already shown in a previous chapter, Dr. Kramar abandoned this policy even before the war, when he saw how completely Austria was tied to Germany. The bulk of the Czech people were, of course, always solidly anti-Austrian. During the Balkan War the Czechs openly showed their sympathies with their brother Slavs who were struggling for liberty. The _Clerical Party_ had comparatively little influence and prestige. All their deputies (seven) were elected in country districts of Moravia, where civilisation is comparatively less developed than in Bohemia. In Bohemia and in the more developed districts of Moravia, people resist the efforts of the clergy to mix religion with politics. The three million Slovaks in Hungary, who speak a dialect of Czech and who form with the Czechs a single Czecho-Slovak nation, had only two deputies (Dr. Blaho and Father Juriga), and were without any influence in the Budapest Parliament.