Evidence of the fairly amicable relations between Slovenes, Croats, and
Serbs at the time of Gaj is not lacking. It was Gaj who reformed Croatian
orthography on the basis of the Serbian. Bleiweis and Vraz endeavored to do
the same in Slovene.

The revolution of 1848 demonstrated still further the friendly relations of
these potential rivals as national unifiers. For the first time, the Croats
and Serbs publicly fraternized and showed that the seemingly insurmountable
barrier of religious difference tended to disappear in the struggle for
national independence. In this sense the events of 1848--when the hand of
the foreign master was for the while taken away--have given confident hope
to those who believe that Jugo-Slav differences are soluble. Jela[c]i[c],
Ban of Croatia, the idol of the Serbo-Croats, was proclaimed dictator and
supported by the Croatian Diet at Zagreb (Agram) and the Serbian assembly
at Karlovac (Karlowitz). The Serb Patriarch Raja[c]i[c] and the young and
gifted Stratimirovi[c], provisional administrator of the Serb Vojvodina,
attended the Croatian Diet and the High Mass where Bishop O[z]egovi[c] sang
the Te Deum in Old Slavic. After Gaj, Raja[c]i[c], and Stratimirovi[c] had
failed at Vienna and Pressburg to bend the dynasty or the defiant Kossuth,
Jela[c]i[c] was empowered to defend the monarchy and bring back the
historical rights of the Triune Kingdom and the Serb Vojvodina. The dynasty
and the monarchy survived, but Jugo-Slav hopes and the promises they had
received were unfulfilled or soon withdrawn, as for instance the Vojvodina
in 1861. Absolutism reigned supreme from 1849 to 1860.

This disappointment led the Croats and Serbs to try cooperation with the
Magyars, who under Deak and Eoetvoes appeared to be anxious to conciliate
the non-Magyars in those uncertain years which began in 1859 and ended
in dualism. Austria lacked a great statesman, and the Prusso-Austrian
rivalry led the fearful and impatient Francis Joseph into the Compromise