The Yugoslavs, for instance, consist of three peoples: the Serbs and
Croats, who speak the same language and differ only in religion and
orthography, the former being Orthodox and the latter Catholic; and the
Slovenes, who speak a dialect of Serbo-Croatian and form the most western
outpost of the Yugoslav (or Southern Slav) compact territory. It was the
object of the Austrian Government to exploit these petty differences among
Yugoslavs so as to prevent them from realising that they form one and the
same nation entitled to independence. At the same time Austria has done all
in her power to create misunderstandings between the Slavs and Italians,
just as she tried to create dissensions between Poles and Ruthenes in
Galicia, and between Poles and Czechs in Silesia, well knowing that the
dominant races, the Germans and Magyars, would profit thereby. Fortunately
the war has opened the eyes of the subject peoples, and, as we shall show
later on, to-day they all go hand in hand together against their common
enemies in Berlin, Vienna and Budapest.



II

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE PRESENT WAR

In order to understand fully what is at stake in this war and why the Slavs
are so bitterly opposed to the further existence of Austria-Hungary, it is
necessary to study the foreign policy of the Central Powers during the past
century. The "deepened alliance" concluded between Germany and
Austria-Hungary in May, 1918, resulting in the complete surrender of
Austria's independence, is in fact the natural outcome of a long
development and the realisation of the hopes of Mitteleuropa cherished by
the Germans for years past. The scares about the dangers of "Pan-slavism"