BOOKS.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS.*
Tim war cross out of the Southern Slav question, and it will not end until that question is solved. It is desirable, then, that English people should learn more about the Southern Slays noel their national aims, and for this purpose Mr. Taylor's interesting and well- informed book should prove most useful. The Southern Slava occupy a great tract of country extending from the Isonzo on the west almost as far as Transylvania In the east, and from the out- skirts of Szegodin in Southern Hungary as far south as the Albanian border Rind the Macedonian hills where General Sarrail's Allied army is fighting. The inhabitants of this area of some ninety thousand square miles number about twelve millions. One million of these are Albanians, Germans, Magyars, Rumanians, and Italians. The remaining eleven millions are all Southern Slays, coming of the same .stock and speaking the same language in various kindred dialect.. Like the Italians before they attained unity, these Southern Slays are sundered by political divisions. Four and a half millions • The Future ef the Soirthern Slam By A. H. E. Taylor. I.oarloo : T. Mew tiowla. 112a. ad. set.I
of them belong to the kingdom of Serbia. Half-a-million of them form the kingdom of Montenegro. The other six millions are subjects of Austria-Hungary% as they inhabit the old Austrian pro- vinces of Carinthia, Carniola, Styria, Istria, and Dalmatia, the }Bul- garian Banat of Tomesvar and Cinatia, which is dependent on the Hungarian Crown, and Bormia.Herzegovina, which is ruled by an Austrian Governor. Nearly three millions of these, living in Croatia, - Dalmatia, and Bosnia, are known as Croats. A million, living in the other old Austrian provinces, are called Slovenes. The rest, in- habiting Croatia, Dalmatia, the Banat, and Bosnia, are Serbs. To these complex political divisions ore my:redder' differences of religion. The Croats and tho Slovenes are Roman Catholics. Six million Serbs belong to the Orthodox Church. Six hundred thousand Serbs in Bosnia are Moslems, whose forefathers, chiefly of the old landowning class, forsook their faith after the Turkish conquest to save their estates.
The makers of modern Italy were not faced with this religious problem, but in other respects they had much the same difficulties to overcome. The small independent kingdom of Sardinia had, like the little Southern Slav kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, ta work for national unity in face of the jealous enmity of the Austrians, who occupied most of Northern Italy, and were leagued with the Papacy and with the alien dynasties in the other small States into which Italy woo to all appearance hopelessly divided. Napoleon had united Italy as he had united the Southern States under Austrian rule in the kingdom of IIlyria. His work was undone in both countries in 1815, and in the dreary years before 1848 the idea of Italian unity seemed almost as chimerical as that of a Southern Slav union appears to many people to-day. But the Italians, becoming conscious of their nationality through the teaching of Mazzini and other patriots, could no longer endure a foreign, and especially an Austrian, rule, and they found a powerful ally in France. We have now to see that the historic parallel holds good in the case of the Southern Slays. After ages of torpor and internecine quarrels, they have manifested their desire for national union and independence. The Serbs and the Croats, once as hostile to one another as Lombardy and Naples used to be, have made up their differences in face of Austria-Hungary, their common enemy. Austria attacked Serbia in July, 1914, in the hope of averting this danger ; as the Southern Slays within and without her territories were combining against her, she thought to save herself by subjecting independent Serbia also to her rule. When Russia intervened on behalf of Serbia, just as France had long before stepped in to prevent Piedmont from being overrun by Um Austrians, Germany made Russia's protest the excuse for the European war that she had long since planned. By wantonly invading Belgium, Germany forced us into the war and transferred its centre of gravity to the West. But Serbia was the first victim. We and our Allies were unable to. save her from enemy occupation—not so much from our faulty diplomacy, as Mr. Taylor urges, as from our lack of trained troops at that time—but we are bound to liberate Serbia and re-establish her on a broader basis than before. Mr. Taylor seems suspicious of the Allies' good faith in this matter. He attaches undue importance to the little pro- Bulger clique in this country, most of whom are of the Pacificist and pro-German persuasion. The Allied Governments and the public generally are, we believe, determined to do their duty by Serbia as well as by Belgium. Though Russia, Serbia's special champion in the past, is for the time being in the throes of a domestic revolution and unable to concentrate her attention on the war, she will recover, and, as the greatest Slav Power, will resume her work on behalf of the oppressed Southern Slays. The Russian people were always more Pan-Slavist than their Tsars.
Mr. Taylor discusses fully and frankly the problem of the Eastern Adriatic, but, like a good many ardent friends of Serbia, lie is far less sympathetic to Italy than he ought to be. He tells us that by a secret treaty of April 27th, 1915, a month before Italy entered the war, Great Britain, France, and Russia agreed that Italy ahould receive at the peace the Trentino, Gorizia and Trieste, Istria—but not Fiume—and Northern Dalmatia down to the neighbourhood of Smartt°, with several of the outer islands fringing the coast towards Ragusa. Mr. Taylor is much concerned because Serbia was not informed of the negotiations for this treaty, and he contends with some heat that it is a violation of Southern Slav rights. He declares that in the territories assigned to Italy there are a million Southera Slays, and he argues that Spalate, for example, might be placed under the fire of Italian batteries and thus rendered useless as a port. It seems to us that this way of treating the question Can only do harm. The plain fact is that, if the Southern Slays are to be freed from Austrian misrule, their chief saviour will be Italy. On the Isonzo the Italian armies are performing superhuman feats of bravery and endurance, first, to rescue their own fellow-Italians in the borderlands, and, senandly, to drive out the Austrians and Hungarians from the Slav provinces. If Italy is prepared to help ten million Southern Slays to found a Great Serbia, it seems a relatively small matter whether or not a million Southern Slays on the coast come under Italian rule. Italy and the proposed Southern Slav State will be neighbours and must be friends, with a common interest in defending thennelves against the Germane and Magyars to the north of them. The Southern Slays on the coast will in any ease benefit by the substitution of the mild and efficient Italian system for the harsh and corrupt Austrian official. dom. It will be to the interest of Italy to encourage the develop- ment of Great Serbia, and it is monstrous to suppose that Italy would go out of her way deliberately to ruin the Adriatic ports which are to be left to the Southern Slays. We are unwilling to believe that these people are as blind to realities as some of their advocates seem to be. For very good reasons. Italy is bound to secure the chief ports on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. She cannot again have her own shores exposed to raids from the Austrian ports, to which she cannot reply because she has no good naval harbour io this sea. Consequently she must gain poesernion of Istria. and Northern Dalmatia. It is bars that the Italian inhabi- tants are in a minority, but Italy has been the chief eivilizhig influence there for ninny manlier, and was popular with the Slays until the Austrian rulers, for their own purposes, incited the subject.races to quarrel with one another. Doubtless there has boon much wild writing against the Southern Slays in some it alien newspapers, but it may safely be clismgarded. Italy is perfectly conscious of the value of a large Southern Slav State as a buttress to her eastern frontier and a new field for her industry in the Near East. The Southern Slays, for their part, must look to Italy as the chief agent in the restoration of their national unity and inde- pendence, and it would be absurdly tactless of them to quarrel with her and jeopardize their ehance-s of freedom because elle desires, from military considerations and for reasons of sentiment, a little more of the Adriatic coast than she can claim on the ground that it is mainly inhabited by Italians.
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