The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

insistently demanded the introduction of their native tongue as the official language in Hungary, the national feelings of the Croats were already strongly aroused. The Serbs, as we have seen, had never for a moment lost their national consciousness or forgotten the glorious memories of a great past.

The stream of Orthodox Serb immigration which had flowed into Croatia ever since the fourteenth century, when the Balkan Provinces were occupied by the Turks, had greatly strengthened the national element, and by mingling with the Roman Catholics had smoothed away the existing provincial differences between Serbs and Croats. By the bond of a common destiny, and the stress of much fighting side by side on countless European battle-fields in brotherly union, these religious differences were sunk in a single national consciousness and a strong feeling of national unity.

In 1839 Vienna, fearing outside complications, tried to reconcile the Magyars by granting the introduction of the Magyar language in all departments of the Hungarian administration excepting the army. Intoxicated by this national success, the Magyars attempted to detach from the kingdom of Croatia, Syrmia and Slavonia, and to incorporate them completely with Hungary, on the strength of the argument that these provinces were already occupied by Hungary when the union of Croatia and Hungary

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