It took an army of 200,000 men, with 480 guns, to pacify that little strip of land; and the occupation, and the subsequent events in the peninsula, have brought Austria up against another problem, uncommonly like the old one which disturbed the beginning of Francis Joseph’s reign. For the inhabitants of Bosnia are of Servian race; and there are many other Servians in other parts of the Austrian dominions; and there is a Kingdom of Servia, full of fiercely patriotic men, from whom the cry of Servia Irredenta is going up. Austria once despised them, as she once despised the Italians; but they have proved, like the Italians, that they can fight; and they demand, as loudly as the Italians, to be taken seriously. So that Austria, in spite of her losses and gains, retains her essential character as the Purgatory of the Unredeemed. It is not a quiet purgatory—perhaps no purgatory is ever quiet—but a purgatory in which order is only kept by the strenuousness of the police, and the frequent declaration of martial law. Consequently it is a purgatory in which startling things may happen at any time; but speculation as to what will happen there may be deferred until a later chapter. Probably nothing in particular will happen during Francis Joseph’s lifetime; but the matter needs nevertheless to be mentioned here as a part of the spectacle of trouble perpetually dogging Francis Joseph’s footsteps alike in public and in private life. People speak of him as a lover of peace; and it is likely enough that he has learnt to love peace through sheer weariness of war and rumours of war. But it is none the less true that, whenever he has sought to extend his paternal sway, he has not brought peace but a sword; and it was mainly with reference to the events of his reign that Gladstone said: “Nowhere on the map of Europe can you lay your finger and say: ‘Here Austria has done good.’” It has already been demonstrated to him, more than once, that the Servians are of Gladstone’s opinion; and the demonstration will not become less emphatic with the lapse of time. We must let that pass, however, though we shall have to return to it. The day of reckoning is not yet; and it will not come in Francis Joseph’s life-time if either he or his Ministers can help it. One’s continual impression, when reading modern Austrian history, is of a day of reckoning always imminent, yet repeatedly by some happy hazard adjourned. In public affairs, that is to say, Francis Joseph has enjoyed, and continues to enjoy, a luck like that which is said to attend the British Army and save it from the consequences of its blunders. It is only in his private life that misfortune has pursued him so closely and incessantly that, when the news of the assassination of the Empress Elizabeth was broken to him, he covered his face with his hands and broke down, exclaiming: “What! Is there no sorrow possible to man which I am to be spared?”