The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—TurkeyHogarth, D. G. (David George)
History
The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey
Hogarth, D. G. (David George)
Balkan Peninsula -- History; Eastern question (Balkan)
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 régime, 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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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