The Serbs are an extremely democratic people, more so than the English, Americans, or any other people

THE SERVIANS AND AUSTRIA

BY

G. M. TREVELYAN

Printed for THE VICTORIA LEAGUE,

It is because Servia is only one part of the great South Slav race, which is found in the provinces of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia.

The typical Servian peasant or soldier (who are one and the same) is a fine, upstanding type of humanity, who looks you in the face as an equal. They are also a very pleasant and kindly people, as indeed are most of the inhabitants of the Balkans when they are not engaged in racial war. The Servians have lightness and gaiety, and have been called „the French of the Balkans.“

The Servians, like everyone else, have the defects of the qualities. If they have the merit of equalitarianism, they lack leadership. They have very little in the way of an upper or even a middle class, the mercantile element being very slightly developed among them as yet. If they have the peasant’s virtues, they have his limitation of outlook.

The Servians are an extremely democratic people, more so than the English, Americans, or any other people among whom there are great distinctions of rank or of wealth.

Closely allied to the Servians are the Montenegrin mountaineers, almost identical in race and language, but more primitive and merely warlike. They will some day form part of the Greater Servia, whether by complete union or federation. In all her recent wars the Montenegrins have acted as if they were Servians.

It is said that the Archduke, murdered at Sarajevo,intended to do something to liberalise the system in these Slav provinces, when he came to the Austrian throne.

That adds another reason why we must all regret that murder in blood and tears. Whether such a scheme was not too late, whether such a reversal of Austrian policy could have been carried through by the will of one man, we shall, alas ! never know. But the Austrian assertion that the Archduke’s murder was prepared or instigated in Servia is utterly unproven and in the highest degree unlikely.

It is unproveu, for Austria had every reason to advance the proofs if she had them, and she has advanced none. It is unlikely, because Servia was engaged in various delicate negotiations at home, among other things a negotiation with Montenegro, and it is absurd to suppose that she would have chosen that moment to force on a crisis, even if she were held capable of doing so by so base a crime.