The Slav Danger

The Slav danger, whether in Poland or in the south of Austria-Hungary, is not a mere bogy.

Continuing Austria-Hungary Annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina,
with a selection from Crisis in the Near East by Emil Reich published in around 1908. This selection is presented in 5.5 easy 5-minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Austria-Hungary Annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Time: 1908
Place: Bosnia-Herzegovina

If, then, the Serbian secret propaganda of the Slovenski Jug, or the “Slav South,” as their association is called, should be allowed to advance on the lines hitherto trodden by it, there can be no doubt that Austria-Hungary would soon be confronted with a revolt of nations who are still in the epic stage of heroic traditions and have at all times been desperate fighters. As compared with such a danger, the Polish peril in Eastern Germany is a mere child’s play; and it has hitherto not yet been noticed that the benevolent attitude of the German Emperor to Austria-Hungary is, in the present case, not quite uninfluenced by the fact that the troubles obviated by the act of the 7th of October refer to another Slav center of disturbance. The Slav danger, whether in Poland or in the south of Austria-Hungary, is not a mere bogy.

This will perhaps suffice to show the importance of Slav agitations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a general way. The impression is indefinitely intensified by a closer study, first of the Press of the agitators, then of their deeds. As to the Press it is probably not out of place to remark that in those parts of the world political journals may be said to wield considerably more influence than they do in western countries. Of literature proper there is very little among the South Slavs. The average South Slav will read hundreds of newspapers before he will read one book proper. The passion for political discussion, unremittingly going on in all the numberless cafés, inns, and restaurants of Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, is kept up almost exclusively by the local Press. It is under these circumstances impossible to minimize the influence of a political organ which reaches the inhabitants of the smallest village and has practically free scope for the spread of its propaganda.

The Serbian Press in Bosnia and Herzegovina has published innumerable inflammatory articles, the declared purpose of which is to oust Austria-Hungary from Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was said in that Press, day after day, that the occupation of the two provinces was only a provisional measure, that the Sultan was their true ruler, whereas Emperor-King Francis Joseph I. was only their Upravitelj, or pacificator. The Sultan is called naš uzviseni šuverain, our genuine sovereign. The ordinances and decrees of the Austro-Hungarian Government for the two provinces have, that Press says, no legal power, in that Austria-Hungary act only samovljno, or arbitrarily, illegally. Of the people it is said that it is “sweated.” The Austro-Hungarian officials are mere gladnice, or beggarly loafers. In the newspaper called “Otadžbina ” published at Banjaluka, there appeared, on the 14th (27th) of September, 1907, an article under the title “Pošljednje vrijem,” or the End of Times, giving a most lugubrious and totally untrue picture of the alleged misery of the people in the two provinces. In the same paper, No. 8, the 29th of February (the 12th of March), 1908, there appeared a leader which in expression and tendency could not possibly be more inflammatory. It is there said as the upshot of the situation in the Balkans: “Bratu brat, Svabi rat!” i.e., “To our brethren we shall be brothers, to the Svab (Austrian) we will be enemies.” Racial war is openly threatened. Articles of a similar tendency appear not only in papers published at the capital of Bosnia, in Sarajevo, more particularly in the “Srpska Riječ,” but also in Croato-Serbian papers published in Dalmatia, such as the “Dubrovnik” of Ragusa. As early as the 21st of April (4th of May), 1907, the “Narod” of Mostar openly declared that the Austro-Hungarian occupation in the two provinces must incontinently cease, or that otherwise the ensuing revolution will destroy Austria as a dynamite bomb does a house. The “Musavat” of Mostar frequently had articles to the same effect. The Christmas numbers of these papers are full of poems imploring the people in the most passionate manner to free themselves from the yoke of the foreigner. “Now is the time to die for the holy cause of Liberty,” says Skrgo, one of the best-known local poets, in one of his Christmas carols. In the “Musavat” of Mostar, No. 13, of the 16th of April, 1907, a “jurist” discusses the Article XXV. of the Berlin Treaty and tries to show in guarded but distinctly provocative language that no mayor of a town in Bosnia can legally be held to swear fealty to anyone else than to the Sultan of Turkey. Since, as a matter of fact, all Bosnian mayors take the oath to the Emperor-King, it is easy to see in what intention this article was written. So seditious were the articles in the “Srpska Riječ” of Sarajevo that that paper has, before the end of September last, been confiscated not less than seventy-five times. This paper, as well as the “Otadžbina” of Banjaluka, is really the property of the Serbian Government represented by a certain Gligorije Jeftanovich, who was handed the sum of 30,000 Austrian crowns, with which sum he bought shares in the printing concern of the paper. The editors of the “Srpska Riječ,” although the paper is published in the capital of Bosnia, at Sarajevo, have always been Serbians. In fact, the whole Pan-Serbian Press in the two provinces is directed from the so-called “Cultus – Section” at Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, where one Spalaykovich is entrusted with the propaganda. In addition to newspapers, the Serbian and Croatian agitators have at times flooded the country with pamphlets of all sizes, one more incendiary in tone and spirit than the other. And lest the cool outsider underrate the force and momentum of all these agitations by means of the written or spoken word, it is sufficient to adduce the following facts: As a result of all the seditious articles, pamphlets, addresses, the Bosnian inhabitants of a large number of places in Bosnia have as late as September last tried to organize meetings and to draw up memorials, the avowed and unavowed objects of which were disloyalty to the Austro-Hungarian authorities.

Emil Reich begins here. Major Archibald Colquhoun begins here.

More information here and here, and below.