Balkan Revolution And Its Effects On Austria.

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 15, 1912:
Prof. M. I. Pupin Tells of the Causes Leading Up to the War and Expects the London Treaty to Proclaim a New Doctrine to the World — The Monroe Doctrine of the Balkans.    Prof. Michael I. Pupin, writer of the article printed below, though a native of Hungary, is a Serb; he is President of the Serb Federation Sloga. He is an eminent electrical authority, being Professor of Electro-Mechanics at Columbia University, member of the National Academy of Sciences and many other scientific organizations. Since the outbreak of the war between the Balkan allies and Turkey Prof. Pupin has lectured extensively on the questions involved and the probable outcome of the struggle.

By M. I. Pupin,
of Columbia University.
    The Balkan revolution is a struggle against the military feudalism of the Ottoman Empire and all its concomitant evils; and it is also an armed protest against any European power which may refuse to recognize the great principle, that the Creator has endowed the Balkan races with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness.
    The Balkan races, that is, the Serbs, the Bulgarians, and the Greeks, have always known, as their national ballads testify, that their kingdoms of the fourteenth century fell because they did not present a united front against the invading Moslems. Even the Moslem himself understood this, because it is a well-known saying among them: Allah, Allah, do not unite the Giaours!
    Five hundred years of oppression and suffering have taught the Balkan Giaours a lesson, and they have united. The irresistible power of their united action has demonstrated that the Turk was right when he prayed, Allah, Allah, do not unite the Giaours!
    Military feudalism and all its concomitant evils are at an end in European Turkey, destroyed by the sword, just as it was established and maintained by the sword. There was no other way of ridding Europe of this abominable pest.
    The first task of the Balkan revolution has been performed, and the time has now arrived for the performance of its second task. It is: A protest, backed up by force, against any European power which may refuse to recognize the great principle of the unalienable rights of the Balkan people.
    A European power has already appeared which may soon face this armed protest of the Balkan Federation. This power is Austria. It demands that the Kingdom of Servia shall not have an outlet to the Adriatic Sea. This demand is well understood by the Balkan Federation. They know that this demand is a notice to them that Austria will refuse to recognize the great principle that the Balkan nations have certain unalienable rights.
    Austria's flagrant violation of the Treaty of Berlin by annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina, two purely Serb provinces, and the repressive anti-nationalistic policy pursued by Austria in these two provinces since and prior to their annexation, has shown to the people of the Balkan Federation that their united action is an absolute necessity, not only against Turkish oppression, but also against Austrian aggression.
    A brief survey of the political history of Southeastern Europe will throw much light upon this matter and disclose to the American student the key to the chamber which contains the secrets of the present Balkan situation.
    The middle of the fifteenth century found the whole of the Balkan peninsula under Turkish dominion with the exception of Dalmatia and Croatia. These had formed a political union with Hungary long before the arrival of the invading Moslem into Europe. The Dalmatians and the Croatians are the same people as the Serbs and essentially the same as the Bulgarians, but their long political separation from them, who were under Turkish rule, and their different religious creed are responsible for their former belief that they were different.
    This belief exists even to-day among the uneducated. It is encouraged in every possible way by the Austrian anti-nationalistic propaganda, the object of which is to suppress a certain nationalistic movement which dates back to the Middle Ages. It is the South Slavonic movement, which received its first impulse from the ancient Serbo-Croatian Republic of Ragusa. It is similar to the movement which united the Italians under Garibaldi and the Germans under Bismarck.

The South Slavonic Movement.
    "When Dalmatia was conquered by Venice the famous town of Ragusa, on the Adriatic Sea, regained its independence as the Republic of Ragusa. It vied with Venice in culture, in wealth, and in commercial and political power. Serb literature, under the influence of the Italian Renaissance, flourished here when the Turk had put an end to it everywhere else. It found its highest expression in the poet Gundulich, who, in the seventeenth century, sang of the past glories of the Serb and South Slavonic Empires.
    The merchants of Ragusa carried on trade in all parts of the Ottoman Empire, and they were the first to discover a long forgotten ethnographic truth, namely, that the Serbs, the Croatians, and the Bulgarians were one and the same people. This discovery gave birth in the sixteenth century to the idea of the South Slavonic Federation, which found its poetic expression in the great epic poem "Osman," by Ivan Gundulich. It gained great popularity in the eighteenth century when the poet monk of Ragusa, Myoshich, published his poems entitled "Pleasant Talks for Slavonic Folks" — that is, for Serbs, Croatians, Bulgarians, and Slovenes in Corinthia, whom he considered one people.
    These poems deserve a brief consideration here, because they throw a most interesting sidelight upon the present situation in the Balkans. When the Moslems conquered the Balkan peninsula they took away everything but they could not take away the poetic talent of the Southern Slav.
    Literature was destroyed, but the folksongs and national ballads survived; printing presses were prohibited, but the wonderful memory of the Serb race was there, and the wandering minstrel, the gouslar, accompanied by his one-stringed instrument, the gouslah, fed this memory with soul-stirring poetry which described past glories of the Southern Slav and his heroic struggles for the "honored cross and golden liberty."
    This is the great poetic mine which Myoshich discovered in his missionary travels among the humble rayah in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Old Servia, and Macedonia, and he decided to depart from the classic forms of Ragusan poets and to mold his verses after the pattern of these folksongs and ballads and to borrow his themes from them. Hence the wonderful popularity and the powerful impulse which the poetry of Myoshich gave to the South Slavonic movement. But with Myoshich closed the period during which Ragusa was the centre of South Slavonic culture and of the South Slavonic movement for national union.

Agram and Belgrade Succeed Ragusa.
    Napoleonic wars wiped out the Serbo-Croatian Republic of Ragusa in the beginning of the nineteenth century. In place of Ragusa there appeared the Illyrian Kingdom constructed by Napoleon. It contained the South Slavonic countries, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Carniola, and its birth was an evidence that Napoleon was aware of the South Slavonic movement and used it against his enemy, Austria. With the fall of Napoleon the Illyrian Kingdom disappeared. Ragusa became a part of the Austrian Empire, and the power of Ragusa's intellectual influence among the Southern Slavs diminished rapidly.
    Just then two epoch-making events in South Slavonic history occurred: First, the rising, in 1804, of several Serb vilayets under fearless Kara George, grandfather of the present King of Servia, resulting after years of desperate struggle in the expulsion of the privileged class of Moslem land owners and the creation of the principality of Servia; second, the publication of the great South Slavonic folksongs and ballads by Vuk Karadjich, collected by him during many years of travel in all South Slavonic lands.
    This publication was the greatest literary sensation of the beginning of the nineteenth century. Germany, France, and England greeted the appearance of a new nation, possessing this wonderful poetry, with glowing enthusiasm. Goethe, Grimm, Mme. de Stael, and other great literary lights took up the study of the Serb language, in order to get into close touch with the newly discovered nation and its unique poetry.
    Here we have, then, in the very beginning of the nineteenth century, the appearance of soul-stirring poetry of the highest type, whose roots are planted in the very hearts of the South Slavonic people, teaching them that they are all one in flesh and blood, and reminding them of their past glories and heroic struggles; and, on the other hand, we have the great Serb revolution, kindled up by the fearless Kara George, and ultimately crowned with the freedom of the principality of Servia, inspiring the Southern Slavs with strong hopes for a glorious future.
    It is owing to these two great intellectual and political impulses, which stirred up the whole of Europe, that the gospel of South Slavonic federation, which the Republic of Ragusa had preached for many years, appears now as the powerful Illyrian movement, particularly in Croatia.
    Two great intellectual leaders, the Serb Vuk Karadjich and the Croatian Lyudevit Gaj, gave to this movement a power which it never had before. They reformed the spelling of the Serbo-Croatian language and prevailed upon the two branches of the same race, the Serbs and the Croatians, to adopt the same literary language. This was a most important step in the direction at race unification and gave to the South Slavonic movement a significance which it never had before.
    Austria understood the full meaning of this movement; she knew that a new Nation was being formed consisting of over 10,000,000 of Serbs and Croatians, inhabiting the most beautiful lands of Europe like Croatia, Slavonia, the southern part of Hungary, Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Old Servia, Montenegro and Macedonia, a Nation more homogeneous than even that of Italy or of Germany.

Austria Anti-Nationalist Propaganda.
    It is not surprising that at this very epoch appears the inauguration of the anti-nationalistic propaganda in the Austrian Empire, the fierceness of which was particularly felt in Croatia and in other Slavonic countries during the first half of the nineteenth century. As an illustration I refer to the decree of Emperor Ferdinand of Austria in 1843 forbidding any reference to Illyria and Illyrism in any printed works.
    The anti-nationalistic propaganda of Austria covers a period of a hundred years, and it consisted at first in clever manoeuvring against the political ambitions of the Hungarians, the Bohemians, the Poles, and the Southern Slavs in order to keep the political power of the empire in the hands of her German subjects.
    But the revolution in 1848, the defeat at Marengo in 1858, and at Sadowa in 1866, resulting in Austrian losses of the Italian Provinces Lombardy and Venetia and in the expulsion of Austria from the German Bund put an end to this. During a period of twenty years, from 1848 to 1868, Austria went through all stages of treacherous political trickery. To the Croatians and to the Serbs, in the military frontier of Austria, she promised everything in order to prevent them, as she did, from joining the rebellious legions of Kossuth, who, like a whirlwind, swept away Austrian absolutism from the Hungarian plains.
    When this trick failed to down the Magyars she promised to the Slavs in Austria all sorts of autonomies, in order to induce Russia to save Austria's hide from the victorious Hungarian armies; this second trick worked, and Austria was saved.
    Austria was to be a federation of politically independent States, Bohemia, Galicia, Hungary, Croatia, &c., held together by one supreme head, the Emperor of Austria. But in 1868 all these beautiful promises were repudiated, and Austria became a dual monarchy, a most remarkable and sudden change of policy, the reasons of which will be seen presently.
    Austrian dualism means to-day to the Austrian Slav one thing only, and that is a treacherous scheme to prevent the Slavonic majority in Austria from enjoying the power and the influence in the empire which they believe belongs to them. To the Southern Slav it means a fierce propaganda carried on by the Jesuits, on the Vienna side, and by the Magyar magnates, on the Budapest side, riding roughshod over everything which might in any way impede Austro-Hungarian expansion toward Salonika and the Aegean coast.
    That distinguished Scotch historian, Seton-Watson, who lived several years in Austria, speaks as follows in his famous book, "Racial Problems in Hungary":

    I hope to prove that in matters of education, administration of justice, of association and assembly, of the franchise and the press, the non-Magyar nationalities are the victims of a policy of repression which is without any parallel in civilized Europe.

    By repressive methods of this kind Austria succeeded somewhat in banishing the South Slavonic movement from its southern provinces; but when it disappeared from Agram, in Croatia, it appeared again in Belgrade, and in a form more formidable than ever.
    It is a matter of well-established historical record that Prince Michael of Servia, in 1867, had actually formed a Balkan federation, as it stands today, and with the same object in view, with the exception that Bulgaria was represented in it, not by a kingdom, which did not exist at that time, but by a Revolutionary Committee. Russia and France gave it their moral support; Austria was opposed to it as much as she is opposed to the Balkan federation of to-day.
    Suddenly, in 1868, Prince Michael was murdered by hired assassins; the Balkan federation lost its leader and collapsed, and a new era was inaugurated in Servía, an era of Austrian influence and political domination.
    A parting advice was given by Bismarck to Austria when, in 1866, she was expelled from the German Bund. "Transfer your capital from Vienna to Budapest," said Bismarck to Austria; in other words, seek a compensation in the south for your losses in the north. Austria took that advice; she did not heed the warning of Prince Gortchakoff, who, in a speech at the Congress in Berlin in 1878, prophesied that the "tomb of Austria is in the Balkans."
    Austria's aspirations for territorial expansion in the direction of the Aegean Sea, the well-known "Drang nach Osten," are much older than Bismarck's historic advice to her, but the methods which she has employed during the last forty years for carrying out her expansion policy are new. They are an extension of the time-honored principle of the Austrian Empire, Divide et regna; that is, cause dissensions among the numerous races of the Empire and then rule over them.
    This is the deadly weapon which Austria has used mercilessly against every move in the direction of South Slavonic solidarity. In Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina she has been sowing the seeds of fierce religious dissensions between her Croatian and Serb subjects; every Servian knows to-day that she brought on the war between Servia and Bulgaria in 1885, and that she has tried her best to keep the flames of savage feud between them blazing forever by urging her hirelings, the late profligate King Milan and his son Alexander, to irritate Bulgaria continuously by Servia's unreasonable claims in the Bulgarian parts of Macedonia.
    As long as Austrian influence under the Obrenovich dynasty was powerful in Servia royal favors were conferred now upon this political party and then upon that, and internal strife, bordering on civil war, sapped the very life of the vigorous little kingdom. Austrian agents who have been lately captured by the Servian Army and whom Austria calls her Consuls, have managed to keep up a savage feud between the Serbs, the Bulgarians, the Greeks, and the Albanians in Macedonia and Albania.
    It is no wonder, then, that foreigners who have lived in Turkey, like our ex-Minister to Turkey, Oscar Straus, and who know well these fierce racial dissensions, look to-day upon the Balkan Federation as the greatest among the many miracles which have happened during the last six weeks, and Mr. Straus even predicts that the Balkan allies will fly at each other when the war is over. I believe that Mr. Straus is wrong and that his prophecy is based upon superficial knowledge.

King Peter and the South Slavonic Movement.
    Nine years ago the Balkan Federation would have been a miracle; to-day it is not. Up to nine years ago the Obrenovich dynasty and Austrian influence ruled in Servia; to-day the dynasty of the great hero Kara George guides the destinies of the brave little kingdom. In 1804 Kara George, followed by a small band of Serb peasants, rebelled against the military feudalism of the Ottoman Empire and created the free principality of Servia. A hundred years later, that is, in 1913, his grandson. King Peter Karageorgovich, liberates Servia from the baneful influences of the Austrian Empire, and for that reason the Southern Slavs consider him a worthy son of his great ancestor.
    From the very first day of his arrival in Belgrade, in June, 1903, Servia's constitution becomes the guiding star of the kingdom's administration; no royal favors are bestowed upon any particular political party, and, as a result of that, internal strife, court intrigue, and public scandals, so frequent during the era of Austrian influence, disappear as if by magic. To make Servia economically independent of Austria a tariff union with Bulgaria is arranged which promises to provide for Servia free commercial access to the Black sea and render ineffective Austria's most deadly closing of her frontier against Servian goods.
    Constitutionalism, economic development, and a truly nationalistic policy is the motto of King Peter. International diplomatic entanglements are banished for good from the Kingdom of Servia.
    A wave of profound enthusiasm swept over the lands of the Southern Slavs when they discovered that in King Peter Servia had found a true Serb leader. The South Slavonic movement showed immediately a renewed vigor. In spite of diplomatic intrigues Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro drew closer together; in Croatia and Dalmatia the Serbs and the Croatians formed the famous Coalition party which opposed, and still opposes in Parliament, Austro-Hungarian anti-nationalistic aggression; in Bosnia and Herzegovnia the nationalistic movement became so strong that, according to the opinion of an Englishman who lived there, Austria needs there just as many troops to rule a million and a half of people as England needs in India to rule a population of three hundred millions, and all this nationalistic activity seemed to be controlled by levers in Belgrade, in the South Slavonic Club.
    To counteract this activity Austria resorted to means which no other modern power ever employed, so much so that she was accused of having committed an international crime, and she never succeeded in disproving the charge. I shall come back to this point presently.
    In order to make King Peter's position in Servia untenable Austria closed her frontier against Servia's goods for two years, 1905 to 1907, and brought Servia to the very brink of economic ruin. At the same time she broke up the proposed tariff union between Servia and Bulgaria by creating in Bulgaria an impression that Servia was conspiring in Macedonia against Bulgarian interests.
    She annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina by which she aimed a death blow at South Slavonic aspirations. She brought a suit for high treason against fifty-three most respectable Serbs in Croatia, charging them with conspiracy against the interests of the Austrian Empire on the ground that they were agents of the South Slavonic Club in Belgrade and working for a separation of Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina from the Austrian Empire in order to join greater Servia. These men were kept in prison for two years, and when, in spite of all Austrian efforts, nothing could be proved against them, they were allowed to go; but most of them were ruined both physically and financially. A collection was made for them among the Serbs of this country two years ago in order to save them from starvation.
    But Austria over-reached herself when she engaged the historian Prof. Friedjung of the University of Vienna to publish a memoir in which he supplied documentary evidence which was furnished to him by the Austrian Foreign Department, proving conspiracy against the Austrian Empire, not only on the part of the fifty-three conspirators mentioned above, but also on the part of the South Slavonic Club in Belgrade, and on the part of some members of the Serbo-Croatian Parliamentary Coalition Party.
    A suit for slander was instituted by the coalition members against Prof. Friedjung, and it was proved in court that the documentary evidence brought up by Prof. Friedjung was forgery. Baron Forgach, Austrian Minister to Belgrade, was accused of being involved in the forgery. Prof. Masaryk of Prague, a member of the Austrian Parliament, denounced the Austrian Foreign Office in most severe terms, both in Parliament and in an public print, calling Baron Forgach and his Chief, agents provocateurs and forgers.
    Foreign Minister Count Aehrenthal, and The Austrian Foreign Office failed in its attempts to disarm Masaryk, the relentless champion of Servia, and of the Southern Slavs; it was defeated and stood discredited in the eyes of the Balkan people and of the world.
    All this happened within the last three years and is common knowledge. King Peter and his Government, against whom the Austrian Foreign Office had made its fierce attacks, came out victorious.
    This victory cleared the vision of the long deluded Bulgarians and Greeks and they saw clearly for the first time that Servia's national aspirations were not antagonistic to their own national interests, whereas Austria's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovnia and Italy's unjustifiable grab of Tripoli they interpreted as a move on the part of the Triple Alliance against all future attempts of the Balkan nations to work out their national solidarity.
    The Balkan Federation is the direct result of this historic victory of King Peter over Austrian diplomacy. The sentiment of the Balkan allies may be easily gathered from the words which a Bulgarian general lately addressed to the Christian population of a conquered town in Macedonia: "We have come," he said, "to free you from our old national enemy and to keep out a new national enemy." Mingled with the cheers that greeted his words there were also cries: "Down with Austria; down with the Triple Alliance."
    Austrian influence in the Balkans is dead, and her attempt to keep it alive in the proposed autonomous Albania is only a confession on her part that she considers her game in the Balkans as lost. The Balkan Federation may not oppose Albanian autonomy, but if it is established it certainly will be fenced in, so that no loophole will be left open for Austria or any other foreign influence. Foreign spheres of interest have no points on the Balkan peninsula.
    The treaty of peace which is being constructed in London will undoubtedly proclaim a new doctrine to the world — the Monroe Doctrine of the Balkans: Leave the Balkan nations alone and allow them to work out their own salvation along the lines of their national ideals.