the German-Austrians had come, under the auspices of the Südmark Verein (a colonization society) or the Deutsche Schulverein (an educational body), to propagate Germanism. One of these colonists, a doctor, who had lived a dozen years in Maribor, could only say "Good morning" in Slovene; and German women in the market-place (themselves unable to speak proper German) used to insist on the Slovene peasants speaking a language of which they knew scarcely a word. Lajnšić and Maister took no steps against the Bishop of Maribor who, three months after the Austrian collapse, celebrated a Mass in honour of the ex-Emperor. This Bishop, the son of Slovene peasants, had been educated near Vienna, had been a confessor of the House of Habsburg, and he found it difficult to regard himself as a Slovene. Gradually the voice of his own people spoke in him and then, after very long and honourable mental conflict, he developed into an excellent Yugoslav. He and Maister are, both of them, poets. Most of the General's pieces--which are all in Slovene--treat of love and nature. But he wrote at least one set of other verses, which the Austrians suppressed during the War. This is the nearest translation I can make of them: Have pity, Christ, on Thy poor folk, For now the fields are desolate And misery and famine wait On all, the chimneys give no smoke-- Our men have marched away from us. Soon will the village bells have gone From their dark places up on high, And we who watch will never tie Gay blossoms round them, and upon Their path no laughter will resound. Beloved bells, when thunder rolled And lightning threatened us you swayed, Our music-censers, and you prayed That God Almighty would behold The danger and be merciful. O bells that sang of love and joy, A foul destruction you will spread. Once you moaned sweetly for the dead And now 'tis you that will destroy, And on their course the bullets moan. But once again, O bells, we pray, Let the tremendous music roll. Sing us the secrets of your soul, And then your last song of dismay And wrath and sacrilegious death. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 80: Cf. "Le Progrès politique et économique sous le Régne de Pierre I.," by A. Mousset, in _Yugoslavia_, December 15, 1921.] [Footnote 81: In all, 7130 boys and girls were removed from Bosnia-Herzegovina. And a year or two after the end of the war a good many of them were still with their foster-parents in other parts of Yugoslavia. They preferred to remain there, because of the lack of food in their own homes; the parents of many--especially in Herzegovina--had been hanged, and others had been for so long away from their parents that they had no keen desire to return to them.] [Footnote 82: Quoted in the _Times_ of September 24, 1919.]