Serbia

The last occasion when all parties co-operated was on July 20, 1917, when the Declaration of Corfu, drawn up between Trumbie for the Yugoslav Committee and Pa§iC for the Serbian Govern ment, met with unanimous approval. It affirms that the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes constitute a single nation, and demands com plete national unity under the Karageorgevie dynasty, a con stitutional democratic and parliamentary monarchy and the refer ence of all details to a Constituent Assembly after the war. Pagi.6, having strengthened his position abroad by a visit to Paris and London, declined to convoke parliament for four months after the legal period had expired. At last, as the result of a direct appeal of its president to the Crown, it met in Corfu on Feb. 12, 1918, and the Government resigned, but of ter weeks of fruitless negotiation for a Coalition Ministry was allowed to resume office.

In April, the Opposition, which numbered 6o as against 64 Old Radicals, withdrew in a body from the Chamber, thus leaving the Government without the quorum of 84 required by the Serbian Constitution.

During the spring and summer of 1918 there was acute tension among the rival Serbian groups, and the real initiative in the Yugoslav question and in the political campaign against Austria Hungary passed to Trumbie, Beneg, Lansing and the Allies and to the leaders of the movement inside the Dual Monarchy. On April 8, 1918, a "Congress of the Oppressed Nationalities of Austria-Hungary" was opened in Rome, based on the agreement reached a month earlier in London between TrumbiC, on behalf of the Yugoslav Committee, and Andrea Torre, representing an influential committee of Italian deputies and senators. The result was immediate in two directions. The propaganda organized on the Italian front by the various national committees led to wholesale defections from the Austro-Hungarian army, and con tributed materially, according to the high command's own ad mission, to the failure of the last Piave offensive in June. Mean while the Roman Congress was deliberately imitated inside the Dual Monarchy by an imposing Congress at Prague : it was attended by Czech, Polish, Rumanian, Slovak and Yugoslav dele gates—among the latter Radie and Pribi6eviC—and adopted a pledge of mutual support in the cause of unity and independence.

During 1918 the initiative among the Yugoslays of the Mon archy fell more and more into the hands of the Slovenes, led by Father Korogec. The official recognition accorded to the Pact of Rome by Lansing in the name of America (May 31) was a fresh encouragement ; and Korogec, after constituting a Yugoslav Na tional Council for the furtherance of unity, convoked a new Slav Congress at Ljubljana on Aug. 18, at which the Catholic hierarchy

and clergy took a prominent part. In the early autumn, at the Emperor Charles's instance, Count Tisza visited Zagreb, Sarajevo and Dalmatia with the object of promoting a Hungarian solution of the Southern Slav question, but met everywhere with a blank refusal. After the surrender of Bulgaria (Sept. 30) the Czech and Yugoslav spokesmen in the Reichsrat were still less concili atory and insisted on separate representation at the peace nego tiations and the absolute right to decide their own future state allegiance.

The Collapse of Austria-Hungary.

Events now followed each other with lightning speed. On Oct. 4 Austria-Hungary in a note to America accepted President Wilson's speeches as a basis of discussion, and on the 8th Baron Hussarek admitted that the Monarchy's internal structure must be modified and "full-grown nations" determine their own future. This only precipitated the collapse, and while Count Tisza voiced Hungarian public opinion in declaring the basis of the Dual system to be shattered, the Yugoslav National Council was transplanted from Ljubljana to Zagreb and strengthened by the inclusion of representatives of all parties (Oct. 1o). On the 16th the Hungarian Government de clared in favour of Personal Union, and next day Hussarek pub lished an Imperial Proclamation, dated Oct. 16, dividing Austria (not Austria-Hungary) into four federal units (German, Czech, Yugoslav and Ukrainian), and leaving the Poles to make their own decision. Korogec, in the name of the Czech and Yugoslav Clubs unreservedly rejected this stillborn project and claimed that the future of both nations was an international problem which only the Peace Conference could solve.

Henceforth the Yugoslays acted independently of both Vienna. and Budapest; and when on Oct. 21 the news of President Wil son's answer to Count Burian's final Peace Note (refusing to negotiate save on the basis of a recognition of Czechoslovak and Yugoslav national claims) became generally known, the old regime vanished almost as if by magic. Extraordinary scenes took place in many towns, the troops tearing off their military badges with the Habsburg arms and trampling them underfoot. National councils were speedily formed in Dalmatia and Bosnia, which arranged for the disarmament of the troops pouring northwards from the broken Albanian and Macedonian fronts. As early as the 23rd a Croat regiment stationed in Fiume disarmed the Magyar militia and took possession of the town. On the 24th Count Andrassy was appointed Joint Foreign Minister, but the machinery of State had ceased to work, and both the Austrian and Hungarian Cabinets were in statu demissionis.