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Mediate Causes of the War. By the treaty of Berlin, which signed by the parties in 1878 some time after the close of the Russo-Turkish war, :he independence of Servia was recognized, subject to certain conditions, and the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were handed over to the Austro-Hungarian Government for administration and military occuption. Servia, Bosnia and Herzegovina were all formerly Turkish provinces.

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN OCCUPATION.

The Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, authorized on the 13th of July 1878 by the treaty of Berin, was not easily effected; and, owing to the difficulty of military operations among the mountains, it was necessary to employ a force of 200,000 men. Haji Loja, the native leader, was supported by a body of Albanians and mutinous Turkish troops, while the whole Moslem population bitterly resented the proposed change. The losses on both sides were very heavy, and besides those who fell in battle, many of the insurgents were executed under martial law. But after a series of stubbornly contested engagements, the Austrian General, Philippovic, entered Serajevo, the capital, on the 19th of August, and ended the campaign on the 20th of September, by the capture of Bihac in the North-West and of Klobuk in Herzegovina. The government of the country was then handed over to the imperial ministry of finance; but the bureaucratic methods of the finance ministers resulted only in the insurrection of 1881-82. Order was restored in June 1882, when the administration was entrusted to Benjamin von Kallay as imperial minister of finance. He retained this position until his death in 1903.

AUSTRIAN ANNEXATION.

Justly to estimate the work done by Kallay, it is only necessary to point to the contrast between Bosnia in 1882 and Bosnia in 1903; for in 21 years the anarchy and ruin entailed by four

centuries of misrule were transformed into a condition of prosperity unsurpassed in south-eastern Europe.

It was no doubt natural that Austrian statesmen should wish to end the anomalous situation created by the treaty of Berlin, by incorporating Bosnia and Herzegovina into the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The treaty had contemplated the evacuation of the occupied provinces after the restoration of order and prosperity; and this had been expressly stipulated in an agreement signed by the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman plenipotentiaries at Berlin, as a condition of Turkish assent to the provisions of the treaty. But the Turkish reform movement of 1908 seemed to promise a revival of Ottoman power, which might in time have enabled the Turks to demand the promised evacuation, and thus to reap all the ultimate benefits of the Austrian administration. The reforms in Turkey certainly encouraged the Serb and Moslem inhabitants (Moslems 626,649 and Servian Orthodox 856,158 out of a total population of 1,62,411) of the occupied territory to petition the emperor for the grant of a constitution similar to that in force in the provinces of Austria proper. But the Austro-Hungarian government, profiting by the weakness of Russia after the war with Japan and aware that the proclamation of Bulgarian independence was imminent, had already decided to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina, in spite of the pledges given at Berlin, and although the proposal was

unpopular in Hungary. Its decision, after being communicated to the sovereigns of the powers signatory to the treaty of Berlin, in a series of autograph letters from the Emperor Francis Joseph, was made known to Bosnia and Herzegovina in an imperial rescript published on the 7th October 1908. The Serb and Moslem delegates, who had started on the same day for Budapest, to present their petition to the emperor, learned from the rescript that the government intended to concede to their compatriots "a share in the legislation and administration of provincial affairs, and equal protection for all religious beliefs, languages and racial distinctions." The separate administration was, however, to be maintained, and the rescript did not promise that the new provincial diet would be more than a consultative assembly, a consultative assembly, elected on a strictly limited franchise.

THE BOSNIAN CRISIS IN SERVIA.

In 1908 the annexation of Bosnia and

and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary and the revolution in Turkey brought about an acute crisis in Servia. Many Serbs still hoped for the realization of the so-called "Great Servian Idea," i. e., the union in a single empire of Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and Old Servia or the Sanjak of Novibazar with north-western Macedonia-all countries in which population consists largely, and in some cases almost exclusively, of orthodox Serbs. The whole nation clamoured for war with Austria-Hungary, and was supported in this attitude by Montenegro. As, however, the armaments and finances of Servia were unequal to a conflict with Austria-Hungary, while Great Britain, Russia, France and Italy counselled peace, the Skupshtina, the national assembly of Servia, meeting in secret session, determined to avoid open hostilities, and sent M. Milanovitch, the Minister for Foreign affairs, to press the claims of Servia upon the powers. The tariff war with AustriaHungary was at the same time renewed. Servia demanded compensation in various forms for the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; what the Government hoped to obtain was the cession to Servia of a strip of territory between Herzegovina and Novibazar, which would check the advance of Austria-Hangary towards Salonica, make Servia and Montenegro conterminous, pave the way for a union

between them, and give Servian commerce an outlet to the Adriatic. Neither the Dual Monarchy nor the Young Turks would consider the cession of any territory, and in January 1909 the outcry for war was renewed in Servia. But the threatening attitude of Austria-Hungary, with the moderating influence of M. Pashich, who became the real, though not the nominal, head of a new ministry in February 1909, induced Servia to accept the advice of the Russian government by abandoning all claim to territorial compensation, and leaving the Balkan question for solution by the Powers. The Servian government defined its attitude in a circular note to the Powers, and finally accepted the terms of a conciliatory declaration suggested by the British government. By this declaration Servia abandoned all its demands as against Austria-Hungary, while the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister made simultaneously a public declaration that the Dual Monarchy harboured no unfriendly designs againt Servia.

PANSLAVISM.

The immediate cause of the European war, the spark which has set ablaze the most powerful countries of Europe, was the assassination of the late heir-apparent to the Austrian throne and his consort by a member of a conspiracy of Serbs. The foregoing narrative of historical facts has placed us in a position to understand the object of the conspiracy. But before we proceed to lay bare the motive of the assas sination, it is necessary to understand why Russia is ranged on the side of Servia.

The Slavonic peoples, or the various divisions of the Slavs, constitute the largest race in Europe, estimated according to the extent of the Slavonic languages at about 140,000,000 persons. Of these the Russians form the chief division and number 100,000,000. The Tsar of Russia as being the ruler of this section considers himself the patron and protector of all the Slavonic peoples,-of course when it suits his policy to do so; for instance, the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 was declared, inter alia, to free the oppressed Slavs of the Turkish empire.

The Serbs are a section of the Slavs. The Pan-Slavic movement is wider than and includes the Pan-Servian movement. The first Pan-Slavist was an author named Yuri Krzhanich, who was a Serb by birth

but wrote in Russian. His pan-Slavism, however, sometimes took a form by no means practical. He went so far as to maintain that a common Slavonic language might be made for all the peoples of that race-an impossible project which has been the dream of many enthusiasts.

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Pan-Slavism is a movement with the aim of drawing closer together all the various races of Slavonic stock, and combining their influence in political and other directions. Some extreme Slavophils have even proposed an actual amalgamation in nationality, language, literature, and religion. The movement showed first in Bohemia. It first took definite shape about the year 1825. The Poles of Prussia resisted Germanisation; in Hungary, Serbs, Slovaks, and Croats asserted their rights against their Magyar masters; and the Slavs of Turkey gladly swelled the chorus. The first great Pan-Slavic Congress was held at Prague in 1848. Russia after being called to suppress the Hungarian revolution, came to be regarded as the protector of all Slavs. The growing dominance of Russia caused the Poles to withdraw their hearty support, and even the Czechs began to fear that pan-Slavism, under Russian guidance, looked like pan-Russism. There were Poles at the second Congress at Moscow in 1867; but Russia found a most receptive field for her propaganda in Bulgaria, Servia, and Macedonia. And in the recurrent crises of the Eastern question Russia became more pronouncedly the protector of all Eastern Christians. The Austrian Slavs felt themselves put into the background by the re-constitution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1867, which gave so much more power to the Magyars. The war in the Balkan peninsula in 1875-78 was doubtless largely due to pan-Slavist intrigue as well as to Christian grievances; but the re-arrangements that have taken effect since the Berlin treaty of 1878 have somewhat disillusioned Russian pan-Slavists, whose desire is to unite all Slav peoples under the rule of the Tsar. Pan-Slavism plays a great part in Austro-Hungarian politics and on the death of the present emperor was expected to become still more important; but the present war is likely to upset all previous expectations and calculations and may bring about unexpected combinations and re-arrangements of national forces.