The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

The Turks inflicted all manner of oppression and wrong upon the Serbo-Croat nation. They annihilated their states, they devastated their territories, eradicating many noble efforts for a higher spiritual culture and civilisation. The Serbo-Croat aristocracy fell on the battle-fields or took refuge in foreign countries. Their young men were led away as janissaries, and their sisters were sold in the slave markets of the East; their mothers were trampled upon by the conquerors’ horses and the men slain by thousands and tens of thousands. They burnt their castles and churches; but they could not kill the national soul nor force them to forget the glorious memories of the past. Some good sprang out of all this evil. The SerboCroat refugees from the different provinces were rolled like pebbles before the onrush of the Turkish tide. They intermingled and consequently were welded into strong national unity. The sharing of hardships and common miseries did more for their moral unity and for the formation of a single national consciousness than centuries of easy and prosperous life could have done. In annihilating the Serbian States and aristocracy the Turks annihilated also the existing social classes and their privileges, and made at least an equality of subjugation.

Notwithstanding all this, the Serbo-Croat nation continued its resistance. First in alliance

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