Under Russian guidance a conciliatory spirit was meanwhile spreading among the Southern Slays of the Dual Monarchy. At a conference held in Fiume October 1905 a reso lution was adopted that ended the old feud between Roman Catholic Croatians and Ortho dox Serbs. Regarding this reconciliation as a conspiracy rather than a spontaneous move ment, the Hungaro-Croatian authorities in 1907 arrested 53 Southern Slays, who were accused of high treason on the strength of denunciations by an agent provocateur. The trial of these individuals at Agram developed into a judicial scandal; it lasted two years and ended in acquittal of the defendants. In 1908 Baron Aehrenthal (q.v.) utilized an alleged Pan-Serb conspiracy as a pretext for annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina (q.v.). The annex ation aroused the deepest indignation in Ser bia, where hopes of adding the two provinces to the kingdom had long been entertained. These aspirations were based upon the fact that the population of the provinces is entirely Serb, though divided by religion into Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Mohammedans. The Bosnia-Herzegovina coup brought Austria no practical advantage; the provinces were her own to all intents and purposes, and few seri ously believed or even wished that they would ever be handed back to Turkey or be per mitted to fall to Serbia. What the event did, however, was to draw upon Austria the hos tility of Russia and Serbia and to teach the smaller Balkan states that they could achieve their national aims only by united action and in disregard of the Great Powers. Accord ingly, they formed a new and formidable pow er bordering on Austria-Hungary and looking forward to the acquisition of provinces in that empire inhabited by people of their race. Austria-Hungary thus became exposed to a double menace: besides that of the "Italia Ir redentap of the Trentino and Trieste, the pros pect of a Irredenta) in Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Istria, Car niola and Carinthia and a "Rumania in Transylvania and Bukovina. Even her naval power in the Adriatic was imperilled by her abandonment (at the time of the an nexation) of the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, which barred the access of Serbia to that sea, and Serbia's claim to an Adriatic port, now that the way was open to her, brought Austria Hungary to the verge of a war with her and her protector, Russia, already in 1909.
The members of the Serbo-Croatian coali tion in the Diet of Agram, the capital of Croatia, prosecuted an Austrian semi-official writer, the historian Dr. Friedjung, in De cember 1909 for libel. Friedjung had laid charges of treasonable commerce with Serbia against the members, who proved, at the trial, that the historian had based his accusations on forged documents which had been supplied to him by the Austrian Foreign Office. These documents, tending to prove a Pan-Serbian conspiracy against Austria-Hungary, had been forged by an individual who was in the em ploy of the Austrian legation at Belgrade. The Serbian government prosecuted the for ger, who received 15 years imprisonment In course of time a strong sympathy with Ser bia became general among the Southern Slays of the Monarchy. When the Balkan League (q.v.) was formed in 1912 against Turkey, it was understood to be directed in almost equal measure against Austria-Hungary, which country was suspected of harboring a design to humiliate Serbia and reduce her to her for mer position of dependence. The murdered Archduke Francis Ferdinand was regarded as the head of the anti-Serbian military and clerical party in Austria. He had fully esti mated the vital importance of the Southern Slav question for Austria; he wished to upset the Dual System, which he regarded as the main obstacle to proper treatment of the Aus tro-Hungarian Southern Slays, and at the same time to find a Roman Catholic "Croa tian,' as opposed to a Serb Orthodox, solution for the problem. On the outbreak of the Bal
kan War (q.v.) in October 1912, the military party in Austria desired armed intervention against Serbia. Their wish was overruled, mainly because it was expected that the Turks would defeat the Serbians and that Austria would then be able to intervene again, as in 1885, save Serbia from ruin and re-establish political control over the kingdom. Contrary to expectations, however, it was the Turks who were defeated, a circumstance that was deeply deplored in Vienna, while the ensuing quarrels between the Balkan allies over the division of the spoils were heartily encouraged by Austrian diplomacy. The second Balkan War was directly due to the influence of Aus tro-Hungarian, diplomacy upon King Ferdi nand of Bulgaria, who undertook to crush Serbia but was himself defeated. During the peace conference held in London in the winter of 1913 and in the ambassadorial conferences that accompanied it, Austria-Hungary and her allies successfully exerted their influence to prevent Serbia from acquiring a port on the Adriatic. At that time the Serbian Premier, M. Pashitch, made overtures for a direct set tlement to Count Berchtold (q.v.). He of fered considerable economic and financial concessions to Austria-Hungary and begged Count Berchtold to use his influence to secure satisfaction for the legitimate aspirations of Serbia to a commercial port. He offered bind ing guarantees that this port would be purely commercial and urged that friendship would be sealed between the two countries by such a proof of Austro-Hungarian good will. These overtures were summarily rejected. Austria Hungary was the only great power that had any vital interest in the Balkan question, and it was no doubt her grave concern that her neighbor Serbia should not become too strong. Influential persons in the empire came to the conclusion that the only effectual way of se curing this object was to compel Serbia to submit to Austrian dictation by force of arms. This process was seriously under consideration in 1913, but Count Berchtold, supported by the Emperor, held that this would be too a policy, as it might not only involve a war with Serbia and her allies, but also with Russia. He therefore hit upon the idea of creating a buffer state of Albania, whose harbors on the coast would be open to Serbia for purposes of trade only. But Russia insisted that some compensation should be made to Serbia for the Albanian territories she had conquered in the Balkan War and would now have to surrender again. At the time Russia had a large army on the Galician frontier, which compelled Austria to retain her troops there. Negotiations between the Emperor and the Tsar led to an agreement whereby Serbia re ceived the principal Albanian towns on her frontier, Ipek, Prizrend, Dibra and Diakova. Thus was the spectre of a European war re moved in 1913. But not for long. The Sera assassinations in 1914 fanned the slum ering embers of animosity once more into flame. It was immediately realized by those acquainted with the past history that Austria Hungary might take advantage of the murder as a reasonable excuse for invading Serbia, and that, if the struggle could be localized, it might well end in the annihilation of Serbia. But success in this direction would not have brought the Dual Monarchy a solution of the Southern Slav problem, for though conquest might indeed bring Serbia under Austro Hungarian domination, it would have tended to unite within the Monarchy all the branches of the Southern Slav race and raised in an acute form the question of the stability of the Dual System, that legacy of Sadowa which was the primary cause of the ill-treatment and disaffection of the Southern Slays within the Austrian empire and of the perpetual agita tions and plottings of the other Slays outside.