far-sighted politicians in Austria urged this course upon him, and the Serbian Premier actually approached Vienna with far-reaching proposals in this very sense.  Their contemptuous rejection by Berchtold and the little clique of Foreign Office officials who controlled his puppet figure, naturally strengthened still further the bonds which united Belgrade and Petrograd.  Serbia, shut out from the Adriatic, had no alternative save to seek her economic outlet down the valley of the Vardar towards the Aegean, and in so doing she came into violent conflict with Bulgarian aspirations in Macedonia.  These facts alone would justify the assertion that the war between the Balkan allies was directly due to Austro-Hungarian initiative; but it has also transpired that the dissensions between Sofia and Belgrade were actively encouraged from Vienna, that Magyar influences were brought to bear upon King Ferdinand, and that war material was sent down the Danube from Hungary to Bulgaria.  The outward and visible sign of these intrigues was a speech of the Hungarian Premier, Count Tisza, opposing the Tsar’s intervention in favour of peace and virtually inciting Bulgaria to fight it out.  The break-up of the Balkan League was the first condition to that Austrian advance on Salonica which has always remained the ideal of the advocates of a forward policy in Vienna and Budapest, and which lies at the root of Austria-Hungary’s action in provoking the present war.

Serbia and Montenegro, however, are but one half of the problem.  The issues involved are wider and deeper than the quarrels of Vienna and Budapest with Belgrade.  Even if every man in Serbia were willingly prostrate before the Habsburg throne, there could be no real peace until the internal problem of Austria-Hungary’s Southern Slav provinces is solved.  What is at stake is the future of eleven million people, inhabiting the whole tract of country from sixty miles north of Trieste to the centre of Macedonia, from the southern plains of Hungary to the North Albanian frontier.  Of these, roughly four millions are in the two independent kingdoms; the remaining seven millions are divided between Austria (the provinces of Dalmatia, Istria, and Carniola) and Hungary (the autonomous kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia), while Bosnia-Herzegovina are governed jointly by Austria and Hungary.  The history of these provinces during the past generation is one of neglect and misgovernment.  Croatia has been exploited economically by the Magyars, and the narrow interests of Budapest have prevented railway development and hampered local industries by skilful manipulation of tariffs and taxation.  A further result is that even to-day Dalmatia (with the exception of Ragusa) has no railway connections with the rest of Europe, and those of Bosnia are artificially directed towards Budapest rather than towards Agram, Vienna, and Western Europe.  It is not too much to say that the situation of those provinces had become less favourable (if compared with surrounding standards) than it was at earlier periods of their history; for the old system of trade-routes had broken down there as elsewhere in Europe, but had not been replaced by modern communications.