The growth of the organised Pan-Slavist movement has added enormously to their difficulties, and Austria in particular has had many anxious moments in the eastern portions of her Mosaic empire. The movement is the definite expression of Slav aspirations. It aims at unity, if not actual union, amongst all the Slav peoples. Russia is the natural head of the movement, and the ultimate aim is a collection of free Slavonic nations under the suzerainty or protection of the Tzar. In the meantime the immediate object is to free the Slavs who are under the rule of foreign races. Reference has already been made to Serbia’s aspirations to be once more the empire she was in the days before the Turks overran south-eastern Europe. When in 1817 she at length threw off the Turkish yoke her object was but half fulfilled. A further portion was won back as a result of the recent Balkan War. But there still remain some millions of Serbs under Hapsburg rule. In 1908 Austria, taking advantage of Russian weakness, seized the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, both of which are peopled by Serbs. For a time war seemed inevitable. But the Powers stepped in and Serbia, unable to rely on strong Russian help, was forced to acquiesce. She had formally to renounce all claims to be a more natural ruler for Serbs than mongrel Austria, to moderate the activities of the Pan-Slavist societies all of which were more or less bitterly opposed to Austria, and to profess to be perfectly satisfied with the arrangement and full of neighbourly love. It was not to be expected that such an agreement, forced on a small nation by the Great Powers, would prove anything but a farce. Serbia very naturally resented the indignities which she had suffered. The nationalist societies, instead of being suppressed, became more bitter and bolder in their activities. The chief of them, the Narodna Obrava, has an immense membership, drawn from all classes. It is to be found in every town and village. The press, the army and the government service are its most enthusiastic adherents. One evening, early in June, five members of the Narodna Obrava met in a house near the royal palace at Belgrade and hatched the plot which was destined to prove the spark that kindled the European conflagration. All the world knows how well their plans were conceived, how faithfully carried into execution. On June 28th the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne was, with his wife, murdered in the streets of Serajevo, the chief town in Bosnia.