Sarajevo
Page 9
him repeatedly impressing upon Count Beust that the
one sure way of allaying Serbian suspicions of the Dual
Monarchy is to prove that it has no design of occupying
the Slav provinces of Turkey.1 On the other hand, he
makes it clear that " Bosnia is the centre round which
all the wishes and hopes of Serbian statesmen turn/' and
that " the idea of its possession is the fundamental
principle of all Serbian aims." And "as the Serbs
count upon the future possession of Bosnia, and this is a
fact which cannot be altered," Kállay suggests that much
the most advantageous plan would be if they came to
" hope its realisation " from Austria-Hungary.
Within a short space of years, however, Kállay him-
self was contributing very materially towards Austria-
Hungary's adoption of an entirely different policy to-
wards Serbia and Bosnia; and it is notorious that as
Joint Finance Minister from 1882 to 1903 he became her
most
noted
instrument
in
holding
down
the
latter
province.
If, then, we are to understand the events of 1914, we
must realise, not only the resentment aroused throughout
the native population by Austria's Balkan policy since
the 'seventies, but also the fact that, especially in Bosnia,
revolutionary feeling was no novelty, but had simmered
for years. The insurrection of 1875, which preluded the
Russo-Turkish War and the long Eastern Crisis, was only
the last and most successful of a series of risings which
Turkish
misrule
had
provoked
during
the
previous
hundred years. In two districts in particular the revolu-
tionary tradition lingered — in Southern Herzegovina,
1 See, e.g., autograph letter of Kállay to Beust, 22 June, 1868, and his official
Reports, No. 64 of 5 October, 1868, No. 68 of 29October, i868,No. 60of 17March,
1870, No. 3 of 25 January, 1871. Vienna Staatsarchiv, Belgrade (1868-75).
65
and in the Krajna, or north-western portion of Bosnia,
sometimes
loosely
described
as
"
Turkish
Croatia."
The former cherished the memory of two abortive risings
against Austria in the KrivoSije, just across the Dalmatian
border, in 1868 and 1881; while in the latter a curious
legend grew up around the person of " Petar Mrkonjic/'
the
name
assumed
by
Prince
Peter
Karagjorgjevió,1
when he fought in the ranks of the Bosnian insurgents
in 1875.
It is obvious, however, that during the generation
following the occupation of Bosnia nothing occurred to
kindle these memories into flame. Under King Milan,
Serbia's prestige had sunk to zero, Croatia vegetated under
the corrupting rule of Khuen, while in Bosnia itself
Kállay did all in his power to maintain the confessional
lines of cleavage, and so keep Orthodox, Catholic, and
Moslem
in
disunion
and
political
impotence.
There
was as yet no political life, no Diet, very few schools, and
virtually no newspapers. Isolated, backward, and in-
experienced, the leaders could not see beyond the petty
concessions of Church autonomy which Kállay offered
piecemeal to them.
But with the year 1903 there came a sudden change.
Fresh breezes seemed to spring up on all sides — in Croatia,
in Dalmatia, in Serbia — and soon began to scatter the
mists of isolation which had so long hung over Bosnia.
In Croatia especially a new generation of Croats and
Serbs, educated in Prague, Vienna, and Graz, impatiently
rejected alike the opportunism of the old Magyarophil
Unionist Party and the unpractical super-patriotism of
Ante Starcevic and his Pan-Croats. The framers of the
Resolution of Fiume proved that the co-operation of Serb
f-nd Croat was a highly practical political ideal, and,
uideed, the sole line of advance which offered serious
Prospects of success.
The advantages of unity after almost a generation of
1 The future King Peter.
66
discord were soon obvious even to the narrowest intelli-
gence, and were demonstrated to the masses by the
strenuous and
short-sighted efforts of Budapest and
Vienna to force Croat and Serb apart once more. Here,
as in most cases, ill-will and persecution produced the
. contrary effect, and the Croato-Serb Coalition survived
all the rude shocks of the Rauch regime, the Annexation
crisis, the Zagreb and Friedjung trials, and even the
Cuvaj dictatorship. But in the course of time oppor-
tunist tendencies grew stronger within its ranks. It had
come to realise on what precarious foundations the
national cause rested, so long as the administrative and
judicial system of Croatia, its franchise and Press laws,
were controlled by the nominees of Budapest. The
" Realist " doctrine, which many of its leaders had
imbibed in Prague from Masaryk and Drtina, also pointed
in the direction of " small work," on slow and unsensa-
tional lines, as a preparation for that final trial of strength
for which the times were not yet ripe. Thus a wise
resolve not to imperil by rash action the gains of recent
years, combined with a noticeable slackening of national
endurance — in other words, a blend of statesmanship
and personal caution or indolence — was steadily urging
the Coalition leaders towards a compromise with Buda-
pest, at the very period when the stirring events of the
two Balkan Wars seemed to be vindicating Serbia's right
to pose as the Southern Slav Piedmont, and when the
official policy of Vienna and Budapest showed itself
increasingly hostile towards her.
It is in this period of violent ferment that an entirely
new movement makes itself felt among the rising genera-
tion, no longer confined to the small intellectual class
of Croatia and Southern Hungary, in whose hands
political
leadership
had
hitherto
been
mainly
con-
centrated, but recruited more and more from the masses
in every Jugoslav province. This process had been
hastened by the foundation of secondary schools, with
67
Serbo-Croat as the language of instruction, and by the
consequent growth of what was virtually an intellectual
proletariat, especially in Dalmatia and Bosnia.
So
kaleidoscopic
and
uncertain
was
the
political
situation throughout the Southern Slav
provinces that
the young men were inevitably tempted to dabble in
coffee-house politics and street demonstrations at an
age when they should have been absorbed in their
studies and their sport. One of the first consequences
of the conflict between Zagreb and Budapest in 1907
was that the great majority of the Croat and Serb youth
at Zagreb University migrated to Prague, already the
most flourishing of West Slavonic Universities. Here
they founded an organ of their own, Hrvatski Djak
(The Croat Student), and extended still further that
intellectual contact between Jugoslav and Czech which
an earlier generation had established, and which has
grown even more intimate since the war. Most of the
emigrants returned in the following year, but the number
of Croats and Serbs normally studying in Prague, Graz,
and Vienna grew steadily. Among them the Bosnian
annexation caused keen excitement, and the interven-
tion of Masaryk in the Zagreb treason affair and his
exposure of the Friedjung forgeries won him the lively
sympathy of the academic youth.
In 1910 the Croats and Serbs at Vienna University
decided to publish an organ of their own, and henceforth
tended to go more and more their own ways, regarding
the Hrvatski Djak as too colourless, and the political
leaders, with but few exceptions, as mere timid tacticians.
It is highly significant that Ζ or a (Dawn) — which was
published in both alphabets in order to emphasise the
absolute equality of Croat and Serb — fell almost from
the first under the influence of a group of Bosnian
students,
who
already
favoured
much
more
radical
Methods than those advocated by their kinsmen else-
where. The Bosnian Press was still in its infancy, but
68
two groups of youthful fanatics had already founded
the Otatbina in Banjaluka and the Narod in Mostar,
and their respective editors, Petar Kocic and Risto
Radulovic,
both
gifted
with
considerable
journalistic
and literary talent, preached nationalist doctrine in a
new and purer form. The aim which in one sense or
another all these groups had set before them was the
political and cultural unity of all Jugoslavs in a single
nation.
How this was actually to be attained was much less
clearly understood, and a whole series of alternative
methods was advocated by this or that group. But
there was a growing feeling that the Habsburg Monarchy
was an obstacle rather than an aid, and that far the
best hope lay in those European complications which
most Jugoslavs, with their lively imagination, regarded
as sooner or later inevitable, and for which they were
therefore resolved to prepare themselves, as offering
them a supreme opportunity such as might never recur.
In a word, every nuance from " evolution " to " revolu-
tion " was represented in their ranks.
It is, however, specially important to remember that
all these groups, virtually without exception, took their
stand on a strongly Jugoslav basis, insisting on the
absolute equality, or indeed identity, of Serb and Croat,
and, as time went on, of Slovene also, and firmly reject-
ing all idea either of Serb or of Croat predominance,
such as was desired by official Belgrade on the one hand
or by the Croat clericals on the other. As we shall see,
this idea was, and, indeed, still is, unsympathetic to the
dominant Radical clique in Serbia, and is one proof
among many that these youthful revolutionaries never
possessed the backing of official circles.
While, then, the Prague group was mainly abstract
and literary in its aims, and Zora, in Vienna, proceeded
to expound more radical doctrine, the movement assumed
its most advanced forms in Sarajevo and Zagreb. In
69
the summer of 1910 the annexation of Bosnia was con-
summated by the proclamation of the new Constitution
and the solemn opening of the Diet by General Varesanin
in the name of the Emperor. A young disciple of Kocic,
Bogdan Zerajic, a Serb from Nevesinje, in Southern
Herzegovina, resolved to mar the ceremony, and to
voice before Europe the dissatisfaction of his compatriots
by an attempt to assassinate the Governor on one of
the bridges of Sarajevo. Varesanin escaped uninjured
and Zerajic committed suicide before he could be seized.
No accomplices were discovered, and, indeed, it seems
certain that his was the spontaneous act of an over-
wrought fanatic, brooding over the wrongs of his nation,
as interpreted in the extremist Press. But his example
struck the imagination of the Bosnian and Croatian
youth, and was a rallying-point for " Mlada Bosna " —
" Young Bosnia " — which was never an actual organisa-
tion, but something far more than that, since it soon
comprised the vast majority of youths born in the two
provinces since the late 'eighties.
A practical proof of how the poison was working, but
one which remained virtually unknown till after the
catastrophe
was
over,
was
an
anonymous
pamphlet
entitled The Death of a Hero (Smrt Jednog Heroja), and
-devoted to the glorification of Zerajic.1 This was the
work of another disciple of Kocic, Vladimir Gacinovic,
born in 1890 as the son of a Herzogovinian Orthodox
priest, and himself at first intended for the priesthood.
During the Annexation crisis he had fled to Serbia, with
the intention of serving as a volunteer against Austria-
Hungary if it should come to war. He thus naturally
enough came into contact with Komit adj is and others
who favoured "direct action," and when, in 1912, he
Went from Belgrade to Vienna University, he was already
infected with the ideas of Herzen and Krapotkin, and
1
It was Vienna to Belgrade, and there printed by the extremist
newsaper Pijemont.
70
left the greatest extremists of the Zora 'group far behind.
It was in Vienna that he wrote his pamphlet on Zerajic,
which, by its strange perverted idealism and high-faluting .
style, gives a clear insight into the revolutionary move-
ment which is now commencing) He complains that
Serbian public opinion does not pay due attention to
" those who are coming " (" oni koji dolaze "). " Their
aim/' he tells us, " is in the first place to kindle revolution
in the minds and thoughts of young Serbs, so that they
may be saved from the disastrous influence of anti-
national ideas and prepare for the breaking of bonds and
for the laying of healthy foundations for the shining
national life that is to come." x
After q
uoting the example of Orsini* and the Russian
Terrorists, he gives a brief sketch of 2erajic, whom he
describes as " foreordained for a high national conception
and prepared as a national offering," amid the " resigna-
tion and apathy " of his age. " In such moments of
calm, after a great national failure " (he means Austria-
Hungary's
successful annexation of
Bosnia),
" there
comes upon the stage a man of action, of strength, of
life and virtue, a type such as opens an epoch, proclaims
ideas, and enlivens suffering and spellbound hearts."*
" The Serb revolutionary, if he wants to win, must be
an artist and a conspirator, must have talent for strength
and suffering, must be a martyr and a plotter, a man of
Western manners and a hajduk, who will shout and wage
war for the unfortunate and downtrodden. Revolution
never comes from despair, as is mistakenly thought, but
out of revolutionary thought, which grows in national
enthusiasm."4
He
quotes
Zerajic's
own
phrase,
"I
leave it to Serbdom to avenge me," and he concludes
the pamphlet with the appeal: " Young Serbs, you who
1 Spomenica Vladimira Gacinovica (Sarajevo, 1921), p. 41. On pp. 41-51
is printed the greater part of the original pamphlet, under the heading „ Bogdan
Zerajic.”
2 Author of the bomb outrage on Napoleon III.
3 ibid., p. 48.
4 ibid., p. 47.
71
are rising from the ruins and foulness of to-day, will you
produce such men? It seems as though this sums up
the
whole
Serbian
problem,
political,
moral,
and
cultural."1
This pamphlet hardly circulated outside student circles,
but it was just among them that its influence was so
profound and decisive.· Besides, events were a daily
incentive in the same direction. The Croatian elections
of December 1911 and the high-handed methods of Cuvaj,
first as Ban, then as Dictator, caused high tension
throughout the Jugoslav provinces, and led to street
demonstrations, in which the students took an active
part. Early in 1912 there was bloodshed in front of the
University at Zagreb, and on 21 February the first joint
demonstration of students of all three faiths — Orthodox,
Catholic, and Moslem — in Sarajevo ended by the police