The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe
PREFACE
Tue writer of this book is a Serb who, during the war, has shared the heroic deeds and tragic sufferings of his peopledeeds which have excited the admiration and sufferings which have stirred the pity and indignation of the whole civilized world. The resistance which the small Serbian nation, in defence of its liberty, has offered to the two huge military empires by which it was most foully attacked, will always rank in history with the noblest efforts ever made by any community of men to maintain their just and lawful freedom against criminal aggression. Hence the people of the British Empire, to whom the writer primarily addresses himself, will no doubt be prepared to give a sympathetic hearing to the plea which he here enters on behalf of the Serbs and their near kinsfolk the other Southern Slavs. He pleads for the formation of a strong and independent Southern Slav State to be composed of all Southern Slay peoples of pure blood, and established by the Allies as a result, and a most important result, of their victory. This plea he bases on grounds both of justice and of expediency. The measure which he advocates is just, because it conforms to that
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