Whatever one may think about the Balkan peoples it is a fact that the essential Serb, the Serb from Šumadia, is a pacific person, rather lazy perhaps, but certainly more devoted to dancing than to battle. And some of the wiser Serbs were dubious in 1919 and 1920 as to whether the most sagacious methods were being employed in Croatia. Radić was in prison, but they were told that this impetuous demagogue was insisting on a republic, and the Croat _intelligentsia_ were far from happy. It is true that in the elections of November 1920 the National party, as the Starčevists now called themselves, had no great success; but the Radić party had more than half the seats. Surely this had not been brought about merely by the chief's imprisonment? There seemed to be in that province some wider, some growing dissatisfaction. And in the spring of 1921 most of the Catholic Croats, those within and those without the Radić party, were nourishing a score of grievances. No doubt a large proportion of these were unavoidable (in view of the state of Central Europe) or were rather trivial (the mayor of an important town told me that he, who was under the Minister of the Interior, had received an order from the Belgrade Minister of War, with respect to the detention of deserters--conditions, said he, were not so primitive in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy) and sometimes the grievances were against the Habsburgs (for not having made them more fit to assume these new responsibilities), and sometimes they were against the Serbs for being less civilized--though they might be more moral--than themselves, and sometimes the grievances were personal: now and then after the Austrian collapse a Serbian officer or his men, uncertain of the feelings of the population, had acted with unwise, or rather with inexpedient, vigour--instead of shooting those who in the general anarchy were laying waste and plundering, they merely flogged them, and this was for a long time remembered against them, although the Croat _intelligentsia_ who had taken service in the police flogged in a far more wholesale fashion. But down at the bottom of all the grievances there is the fundamental fact that the Southern Slavs yearn to be comrades, to shake off the differences which in the course of ages have grown up between them. These fraternal sentiments may be crudely expressed--it has happened that a Slav from Bosnia (whose ancestors adopted Islam some centuries ago) finds himself in a Serbian village. He strikes up acquaintance with some native. "What is your name?" asks the latter. "Muhammed." The Serb has never heard of such a name; he is puzzled. "Well, never mind," says he, and takes his new friend back to dinner. They sit down to the sucking pig. Muhammed refuses to partake of it, and informs the Serb that Allah would be angry. "Don't be afraid," says the Serb; "I'll tell him that it's my fault," and after a time he overcomes the Bosniak's scruples....