The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF

The reader may realise that “ the real Serbia,” as Dr. Dillon rightly said, “‘ was more than the little realm of a few million inhabitants. From the beginning of the nineteenth century Austria had been baulked in her onward march eastward by this tiny State, whose very existence was regarded in Vienna as a standing menace. And not without reason, for Serbia is more than the little kingdom ruled by King Peter. She contains the soul and the right arm of a race, the vast body of which is still under Austrian and Hungarian rule, split into separate provinces watched with eager and suspicious vigilance. Bosnia, Hercegovina, Croatia, Dalmatia are all parts of Serbia towards which they tend with a centripetal motion which is waxing ever greater. The language, literature and historical traditions are common to them all, and only in the case of the Croats who are Catholics is there the difference of religion.” +

A glance at the diagrammatic map of the Slav territories east of the Adriatic, by Sir Arthur Evans, will yet more strongly illustrate the above truth. The reader will see that from the Italian frontier south of the Drave to the Aigean lives a nation, one in blood, language and traditions, which, besides Serbia and Montenegro, inhabits also Bosnia, Hercegovina, Dalmatia, Eastern and Central Istria, Gorizia, Southern Carinthia and Styria, Carniola, Croatia,

1 The Daily Telegraph, December 30, 1914. 6