In 1908 there fell the blow of Bosnia-Herzegovina's annexation to the Empire, thus placing definitely under foreign sway the central portion and ethnically among the purest of that Serbian people which was already divided into seven different administrations or States. Russia was still enfeebled by the Japanese War, and although she and Great Britain protested against the annexation, Count Aerenthal was able to gather this booty. It would, however, be an exaggeration to say that Russia--apart from the ultra-patriotic Press--was violently excited. As M. Nekludoff, the able diplomat, explains,[67] his country was annoyed not so much at the Bosnian annexation as because there was for it no _quid pro quo_, no free passage through the Dardanelles. Poor Serbia was advised by the Great Powers to accept the _fait accompli_. She constrained herself to do so, but both she and certain folk in Austria were under no illusions as to the inevitable--a month after the annexation a Viennese newspaper announced that a conflict with Serbia and Montenegro could not be avoided. "The longer we postpone it," said the paper, "so much the more will it cost us." One gets very weary of hearing the phrase "Divide et impera," which always occurs at least several times in the course of an exposition of Austrian policy. But we are bound to say that this principle governed her behaviour when she stage-managed in 1908 the Zagreb high-treason trial,[68] which was to drive a wedge between Serbs and Croats, in 1909 the Friedjung case, as also the Cetinje bomb affair which was to, and did in fact, alienate Nikita from his son-in-law, the Serbian King. AUSTRIA GIVES HOSTAGES TO HISTORY