In the days when the change was effected, the Servians were a despised people; and the Austrians and Hungarians believed the Turks, who declared that, in their many battles with the Servians, they had only seen their backs. They took that view alike of the Servians within the Empire—the Servians of Illyria, Dalmatia, Croatia, and other regions—and of the Servians of the independent kingdom of Servia. The former, it seemed to them, were naturally their slaves; the latter were a feeble folk, incapable, and never likely to be capable, of delivering those slaves from servitude. But now they are not so sure. Their Bosnian war established the unexpected truth that men of Servian race not only hated Austrian domination, but could make a good fight for their independence. The recent Balkan war has renewed the warning; and it remains to be seen what will happen now that there is a strong Servia—at least as strong as the old kingdom of Sardinia—to which the unredeemed Servians can look for their redemption. The situation, in short, reproduces in almost every particular the conditions which led to the formation of the kingdom of United Italy. It is a situation in which there is one incalculable factor: the internal dissensions of the Balkan peoples. Those enmities are undeniably acute; and Austria is clearly determined to foment them, in order to postpone, if not to frustrate, the welding together of a formidable Balkan Confederation. That is the obvious inwardness of her recent support of Bulgaria and Albania. The plan may answer for the moment; but it can hardly avail in the long run, for two reasons. Albania is too disorganised to count; Bulgaria is too weak to have any future except as a member of a Balkan Confederation; and there is also Roumania to be reckoned with—Roumania, which may prove to be at once a consolidating influence in the Balkans, and an influence hostile to Austria. The fact that there is a Roumania Irredenta as well as a Servia Irredenta may be expected to draw the Servians and the Roumanians together; and their ultimate purpose in drawing together would obviously be to raise the questions of the two unredeemed territories simultaneously. If that should happen, the history of United Italy can hardly fail to repeat itself in the Danubian States. That it would so repeat itself there was one of Mazzini’s political predictions; and he exhorted his countrymen, when the day came, to go over to Macedonia and help the Slavs. If they should ever do so, they will certainly want to help themselves to the Trentino at the same time; and they might alternatively—Triple Alliance or no Triple Alliance—demand the Trentino as the price of their neutrality.