University of Northern Iowa

Austria-Hungary and Serbia Author(s): George Macaulay Trevelyan Reviewed work(s): Source: The North American Review, Vol. 201, No. 715 (Jun., 1915), pp. 860-868 Published by: University of Northern Iowa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25108481 . Accessed: 25/02/2012 17:09
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AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND SERBIA

BY GEORGE MACAULAY TREVELYAN

to the outbreak Prior of war little was known singularly or America in England the Serbians and their quarrel about from with Austria-Hungary, and that little was chiefly derived sources. and Hungarian for the British Austrian Fortunately on to the just side circumstances threw them blindfold people, as a consequence in Southeastern of the quarrel of Europe,

their deliberate choice of the just side of the quarrel in North

even now the world Yet does not sufficiently Europe. that the war against is a war of liber Austria-Hungary to free South Slavs quite ation, (Croat and Serb) from tyranny as bad as any Finns in from which and Poles have suffered in Prussia. Russia and the Russian Govern that there is to say against Everything to say against for years past there is much it?has ment?and But the wrongs of the and America. been told to England were unheard. The fact that of Austria-Hungary nationalities races were branches of the these suffering family prevented Sla\ a fair hearing them from getting before the world. The preju a remarkable was dice against Slav peoples obsession which one to remove. of the war have the events served Because western realize a bad the Russian Government?was government?namely, or than the Hungarian in fact no worse government (though in its treatment the German of subject therefore all races), were as barbarians. It seemed Slav peoples regarded quite seven million that "barbarous" South Slavs should natural to the rule of "cultured" Germans be subjected from Vienna if the from Buda-Pesth. and "chivalrous" And Magyars over to liberate the border Serbians showed their any desire none of Bosnia brothers and Croatia, obtained of the they Slav

sympathy which
before, Austria

the Piedmontese

had obtained

sixty years
obnoxious to

when they made on behalf of their

themselves equally Italians. brother

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND SERBIA

861

was in its origin a "punitive world-war The present expedi for having the impudence to sym the Serbians, tion" against in Austria-Hungary. their brother Serbs and Croats pathize with was to have been made in August, The expedition 1913, as Signor to the world, to Italy's but owing revealed Giolitti recently in a war of aggression it was postponed to join Austria refusal of the Archduke the murder for a year, until sub by Austrian

jects seemed a fitting opportunity

to wipe Serbia off the diplo

The in August matic map. expedition" "punitive began two or three last by the "chivalrous" Hungarians murdering of the "barbarous" and children thousand Slavs men, women, a large number near Shabatz of burned and Losnitza. They women the "barbarian" out the and children alive and gouged The Serbians have not taken any reprisals, eyes of others.1 and although Austrian 60,000 captured they have prisoners, to make those prisoners when have no complaints questioned on an are treated The Austrian of their treatment. wounded

absolute
In this

equality with
war

the Serbian

in the Serbian hospitals.

Slav up very well against German The case for keep "culture" and Magyar "chivalry." and Slavonia Slavs of Bosnia, ing the South Croatia, Dalmatia, on the ground to Austrians of inferior and Magyars subject broken civilization down. has completely races of Austria-Hungary Until the various obtain political for their and cultural and self-government liberty languages in Europe. there will never be peace There will always schools, be assassinations, and finally wars. If a peace is patched revolts, of Austria-Hungary the boundaries intact and with up leaving no provision for a radical in the condition made of change and those boun Rumanians, Croats, Slovaks, Serbs, within a fresh war will only be a question even if every of years, daries, were other European All solved. the satisfactorily problem inside Austria-Hungary movements nationalist have been grow es the last half-dozen years, great ing with rapidity during the movement pecially who the same speak the Croats toward drawing and are divided from language the Serbs, them only

"barbarism"

shows

xSee Dr. Reiss's in the Revue de Paris, article April, 1915, and the Serbian official Memorandum and Report. The in the Memorandum was evidence taken on the spot, within a few days of the commission of the atrocities, by Dr. Arius von Tienhoven, of The Hague, and M. Jules Swiss Holland, Schmidt, engineer. Dr. Reiss, of Lausanne also took first-hand and has been University, evidence, on the atrocities, in London with and Lausanne. I gave lecturing photographs, some 1915, account having of been these atrocities over the scene. in an article in the Contemporary Review, March,

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THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

in religion. The reign of terror that has existed in these prov it utterly has made inces ever since the war began impossible rule can continue in the Slav and that the Austro-Hungarian as the rule of the sword. Rumanian except provinces, if the subject races of Austria-Hungary Some people ask why, from the Government, thus alienated they do not now rise answer men all the young The is because in insurrection. are taken into the army of military by the modern system or exile. If that had and all the leaders are in prison slavery, in March, in Italy done and been 1848, throughout Europe The modern have been no year of revolutions. there would for it is revolutions makes militarist organization impossible; are now men who all the young men rise in revolt?and young over one the races keep watch into the army, where drafted are renders mutiny the most hazard and military another discipline ous and desperate act. even Yet weakness in this war so, Austria's great military and the secret dis of her subject is the hatred populations, slaves. of her army soldier of her Large portions loyalty or garrisoning are guarding dis disaffected other portions, the the unwilling take tricts. When field, they conscripts can do no less unless for a while?they they are fight well to sur to be shot?but they take the first opportunity ready the Serbians is why That render. to-day have 60,000 prisoners, so far as I could judge by their words and con most of whom, not to be caught by the Austrians and duct, were only anxious to fight again. made she is not a nation that Austria-Hungary is so It is because she has failed to defend herself, and since in war. weak Already 1915 she has been practically of the year the opening occupied It was the North Germans Kaiser Wilhelm's troops. by came and saved Hungary, the great after who and Bavarians in Serbia otherwise and prob last December; Hungary too, would have been torn to pieces by an invasion ably Austria, over the Carpathian of Russians and Rumanians coming led to an Italian have invasion which would passes, probably a vassal as well. has become State, Hungary protected by defeat
Germany.

to think of Austria and Hungary, is a mistake either or together, as a "nation" in the sense in which Russia, singly are nations. If we think and England so, Germany, France, we fail to understand one of the root causes of the present war. of the state of things the restoration And when suggest people It

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
before the war

AND

SERBIA

?63

as the basis for a permanent peace, they forget of Vienna and Buda-Pesth is The Empire Austria-Hungary. arms. now upon the Prussian an anachronism, It dependent the Austrian-Germans and the of two races, is the domination over half a dozen other races. Magyars, war as much out of the the present arises quite Indeed, as its subject and nationalities of Austria-Hungary question to dominate ambition it does out of the German Even Europe. not alone have would to sufficed love of domination German on fire had not German Culture in world been set the whole a force equally of the rights of others, with alliance regardless to "Magyarize" of Hungary the determination of the Magyars who and Croats dwelt within the the Rumanians, Slovaks, In theory the law of 1868 gives of their State. borders cul

tural liberty to the Slavs in Hungary,

but in practice this law

is used The whole letter. is a dead government machinery to remain a Slav or a Rumanian, to oppress any man who wishes or to bring up his children as such. The policy of the Hungarian on the to oppress" this "will Count Tisza, represents Premier, The Magyars number of the Magyars. part only forty-five And of Hungary. Count Tisza's per cent, of the population of the Magyar but of the is not even the policy nation, policy even their own race of all polit who deprive Magyar oligarchy has for years past been the ical power. This Magyar oligarchy in the Austro-Hungarian dominant force Buda partnership. it wanted, has been able to dictate well what Pesth, knowing of Vienna, to the vacillating which has had statesmanship a more treatment of the after liberal occasional hankerings the old Emperor Francis wanted When subject peoples. Joseph to introduce his wide universal suffrage throughout dominions, saw in it the he was prevented who by the Magyar politicians, doom of their race ascendancy. Their treatment of the subject races of Hungary worse of recent years. In 1912 has become

they abolished
funds and

the Constitution
of the Orthodox

of Croatia
Serb

and seized

the

in Hungary. Church an aggressive This has involved internal tyranny foreign in the Balkans For and toward Russia. the tyranny policy over in Hungary exercised the Croatian South Slavs in has as a corollary of the Serbian volved the repression South Slavs

charters

in Bosnia (the province abutting on Serbia, which is ruled by Austria and Hungary jointly). And the repression in Bosnia
has Hungary a hostile on the part of Austria in turn necessitated attitude are in reality For Serbia and Bosnia toward Serbia.

864
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THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

in half?a divided free half to the east, and an country to the west of the Drina half River. Since enslaved oppres in Bosnia the order of the day and Dalmatia, sion was across to the Drina looked the oppressed naturally peoples

their brothers of free Serbia, especially after Serbia had showed

in war against the Turks redoubtable and the Bulgars herself more it became For than ever the same reason in 1912-13. to the Austrians to prevent the further essential dovelopment over the Turks, after her victory lest she should be of Serbia, come the liberator of the South the fatal policy Slavs. Hence in making if Serbia it a casus belli for all Europe of Austria on the Adriatic. decree the By Austrian port got a single were to remain for ever a bucolic, inland condemned Serbians no seaport, coast half the eastern Adriatic though people, with the South Slavs. is inhabited Austria has by their co-nationals, Serbia up in a sack," as the Serbs say. "tied the bane of from the sea has been artificial seclusion This cut her off from civilization have and The Austrians Serbia. from her uncivilized. She has been then called prevented and intellectual with commercial the communication enjoying of her enemy, Austria. except world, by way great European one visited no one in on all sides. No shut She was Serbia, no one knew what manner her resources, her to develop helped It was that assumed her land. of men inhabited they were of pigs, as their idle keepers enemies all "regicides," dirty, as so often happens, it is only the Viennese And, reported. success in war which has at length caused the their recent which the qualities to remark world they have always displayed visited who have As one of the few Englishmen in peace.

Serbia both before and during the present war, I should like
are really like. of a the limitations and virtues cent, of the population per Eighty-six democracy. peasant their to the class of peasant cultivating proprietors, belong rents. There own farms. is no class of landlords There taking mer no squirearchy, and as yet no important is no feudalism, or "working or industrial class" classes?no "middle cantile The are yeomen, contrast else. and nothing There men." as compared where the to neighboring is strange, Hungary, one of the most sacri feudal of all European races, Magyars, to the of the cultivating and happiness fice the wealth peasant so carries off everything who landlord politically, patrician, to record what the Serbians the have Serbians The cially, and economically. Serbia, on the other hand, is demo

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
cratic land.

AND

SERBIA

865

so than either America or Eng far more and equalitarian, are no class questions, because there is practically There is the sole political Patriotism of the only one class. feeling is no "social there because and average Serbian, problem" can be no politics there except consequently foreign politics. of the free yeomen, manliness It is due to the independent and of all class division, to the absence that the Serbian army has won in the field over the larger redoubtable victories forces on their sent into Serbia of that Austria-Hungary errand If ever a pure there was and destruction. murder, pillage, over slaves who had been sent by the tyrant of freemen victory it was the Serbian to destroy last December. them, victory A few talks with the poor Austrian prisoners, only too rejoiced

to be out of the fighting and absolutely

uninterested

in the

to show why issues of the war, were enough they had been soldiers of Serbia, in one beaten united by the sturdy peasant of heroism and devotion. mood as well as merits defects in this very There are, however, There is no adequate to class of men pure form of democracy. The lead the people. and army administrators, politicians, are all peasants at one or two removes officers from the soil. The There is an improvisation. is no inherited leading group as in the class of of leadership tradition and administration or merchants in the countries we are with which gentlemen familiar. It has followed while the peasants have been that, lives on their farms, the improvised and happy living excellent as their political whom stewards have they elected politicians a terrible mess of Serbian often made The politics. regicide an intolerable state of things, was of 1903, a vile way of ending of this mismanagement. Since then culminating point have since 1908, when the rapidly, improved especially things of Bosnia to a sense of aroused Austrian annexation Serbians a real moral and caused and national revival. We reality, have now in Serbia the rule of the excellent M. Passich, who is the

about as likely as President Wilson

to have had a hand in the

of the Archduke Ferdinand. murder administration is up to the standard Of course not all Serbian of civil administration standard of M. Passich. The in Serbia as I have there is no class with is still very said, low, because, administrative traditions. times in Serbia, because are peasant community the Serbians
vol. cci.?no.

This matters the administrative

have
715

to
55

comparatively a administer

less in ordinary of a simple needs now small. But that of Macedonia, large part

the

866
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THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

and kept from the Bulgar from the Turk in. recent wars, is more of administrative serious. In the want experience to govern not have Macedonia but only they fellow-Serbs, races and religions, of different Albanian, Turk, people Bulgar, It is here in ad Slav. that their deficiency and Macedonian comes out. If instead of ruling Mace ministrative experience to their own co-nationals, united the Serbs donia they were of Bosnia, and Slavonia, and Croats Illyria, Croatia, they would not be a question It would better. of governing the do much as a superior new provinces side by side race, but of living brothers. their liberated with of the Serbians weakness the administrative is much But in the army in the civil service. than The best less marked the improvised leaders go into the army. It elements among service now from the army that supplied the is a very different

regicides of 1903, and that suffered such easy defeat at the hands of the Bulgarians in 1885. The Turks in 1912, the Bul
in 1914, each in turn failed in 1913, and the Austrians garians it was too late how far army reform had recently to realize until in Serbia. gone the chief have been educated in the of whom These officers, one as men of superior strike Paris military schools, quality, but modest is There and kindly. at their profession, good in their relations officer about them of the Prussian nothing are brothers in arms, and to the men They they command. cases The officer is in most men of one and the same class. to command other The a peasant educated peasants. only clerks?is civilian small doctors, group?lawyers, professional in time of war. in the ranks of the officers also found in field artillery, is particularly Serbian army strong Creusot excellent excellent guns, but having only having manner in which scientific officers. The and artillery gunners between trenches they had dug out their lines of dry, covered I saw it; it was worthy amazed me when and Losnitza Shabatz marvels of the Aisne and of what we read of the engineering field huts of branches the soldiers' and Also trenches. Ypres even turfs are cleverly made, dry inside both above and below, in the dangerous moment weather. in the wettest Except ran short at of gun ammunition the supply when last autumn in a and food always ammunition the base, gets to the front The not way somewhat Balkan ordinary Serbian army, to those surprising civil organization in fact, not merely who know the slackness of The and railway service. some of the finest contains

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

AND

SERBIA

867

in Europe, but is organized and led so as to material fighting soldiers a chance. But by Western the valor of the private give it is of course miserably clothed and equipped. standards Above are deficient, even so they its hospital arrangements though all, as those of the Austrian were not nearly as deficient of army invasion. There is a great difference between Serbia and the proper she has recently Macedonian which down acquired provinces contains south. Serbian Macedonia many races, European all the vices of a country and Asiatic, and is still rotten with The rule. but from Turkish inhabitants dwell just released or ten of five in gigantic thousand people villages each, to till the distant whence fields. they ride out every morning that of many of the Sicilians resembles In this their custom the bare limestone mountains and South Italians. and Indeed, are curiously of Macedonia backward like some civilization

parts of South Italy or Sicily.

But

the change from South

than the change from Serbian Italy to North Italy is not greater to Northern In Northern Macedonia Serbia. which Serbia, for a hundred free of the Turks and where has been the years a landscape is Serbian, entire population of gentle, have you

undulating,
English England ranean.

fertile hills, cut up into fields by hedges after the

or New like Devonshire or Mediter of the Balkans are scattered farm-houses for there is no need for about this pleasant widely countryside, the inhabitants at nightfall. to draw for safety It together is this country, the richest in Serbia, that the Austrian troops so ruthlessly sacked their invasion. during are an emotional The Serbians and mercurial The people. from the Russian in many South Slav differs He Slav. respects is less stolid, having been crossed with Greek and Italian blood,

more It is much pattern. than like the typical scenery The white-walled, red-roofed

and modified
Ages.

by Italian influence in the course of the Middle

of the Turk, Before the coming the Serbian Empire works of Italian art of high rank. produced The is not, Serbian like the Russian de peasant peasant, He attends church very voutly religious. little, and he has not much of what we call "personal He is neither clerical religion." nor anti-clerical, to his clergy. indifferent but On the other and his national songs about hand, he is profoundly poetical, are the food on which his youth Kossovo and Marco Kralyevitch

is fed. The background of his mind

and legend of his country, as handed

is occupied by the history

down in this poetical and

868

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

and modern literature have

are also found still more of Dalmatia, the Croats of the same race among strongly as the Serbians, and language but of a different religion, being is Orthodox. while the Serb of Roman The Croats Catholic, a sea-going have had more to do with Dalmatia, being people, ever had, than the Serbians the Italians and the outside world their Slav modified and display characteristics by centuries are subject of such contact. to the The Dalmatian Croats not to the Magyars. But the system of military ter Austrians, from Croatia into Dalmatia. rorism has now spread and Bosnia In all the South Slav provinces of Austria-Hungary this during war are the order of and executions arbitrary imprisonment the wholesale of the inhabi the day, and in Bosnia deportation states tants of suspected It is useless districts. for European men to hope for permanent if these races, peace fully aroused are left to to national consciousness the last few years, during of Austrian and Magyar. the the tender mercies So, too, with and Transylvania. Rumanians of Eastern Hungary They are a Latin of fine sensibility and intellect, yet treated people, as if they were to masters unfit barbarians, by their Magyar in government, not even permitted and have any share the free dom of racial self-expression in education and literature. Con across the Carpathian to border they are looking sequently a battle of free Rumania. If ever there was their brothers there is such a battle now going on in Southeastern for freedom, and Magyar. If this war ends in the Europe against Austrian an immense of the Magyar overthrow tyranny, step forward marked racial liberty and European will have been taken toward peace. we are fighting to prevent from being civilization Elsewhere of in the Southeast conquest; military put back by German we are fighting for a positive of the human improvement Europe lot. George Macaulay Trevelyan.

musical form. The modern press not reached him. are The Serbs less patient in of more but fierce attack capable morale after all is apparently lost. in December, the Austrians when turned round and attacked retreat, broke him to pieces, is one of the and is also highly illustrative war, of Serbian heroism. These national characteristics

retreat than the Russians, and of sudden of recovery retour offensif against Their their hasty stopped they the pursuing and enemy most in feats extraordinary of the mercurial character