last Piave offensive in June. _ Unfortunately, while the new Czechoslovak army was recognized by Italy and took its place in the front line, Baron Sonnino, for political reasons, vetoed the formation of similar Yugoslav legions, though General Diaz had consented, and though the Yugoslavs interned at Nocera and elsewhere were clamouring to be enrolled.
Collapse of Austria-Hungary. Meanwhile the Roman con- gress was deliberately imitated by an imposing congress at Prague (May 16), at which Czech, Polish, Italian, Rumanian, Slovak and Yugoslav delegates attended. Among the latter were the mayor of Zagreb, the poet Vojnovic, and prominent Serb, Croat and Slovene deputies of all parties, including the peasant leader Stephen Radic and the future minister Pribicevid. Their resolutions, though necessarily vague, amounted to a pledge of mutual support in the cause of unity and independence. During 1918, the initiative among the Yugoslavs of the Monarchy fell more and more into the hands of the Slovenes, led by Father Korosec since the premature death of Monsignor Krek. The official recognition accorded to the Pact of Rome by Mr. Lan- sing in the name of America (May 31) was a fresh encourage- ment: and Korosec, after constituting a Yugoslav National Council for the furtherance of unity, convoked a new Slav con- gress at Lyublyana (Ljubljana) on Aug. 18. The demonstrative part taken by the prince-bishop Jeglic and the leading Catholic clergy, and the fact that the Emperor's birthday was entirely disregarded, was intended as an answer to those who claimed the Slovene Catholics as a bulwark of the Habsburg throne. The central authority in Austria was steadily breaking down, and the food crisis was rendered still more acute by the wide- spread formation of " Green Cadres " well organized armed bands which held positions in the mountains and defied capture. As early as Feb. a mainly Yugoslav revolutionary committee had almost gained control of the Cattaro naval base, which would have fallen into Entente hands if the ringleaders, who crossed the Adriatic for help, had not been detained by sub- ordinate Italian subordinates until the Pola squadron had time to crush the mutiny. Moreover ,the High Command viewed with alarm the growth of " Septembrist " doctrine among the troops i.e. the insistence upon " peace by September " and a refusal to face a fifth winter in the trenches.
During the late summer the authorities in Vienna and Buda- pest keenly debated rival plans for solving the southern Slav question in every case, however, in accordance with Austrian or Hungarian rather than Yugoslav interests. Strangely enough the only attempts to consult the Yugoslavs themselves were an audience to which the Emperor Charles summoned Father Korosec and a journey undertaken by Count Tisza in Sept., with the crown's approval, to Zagreb, Sarajevo and Dalmatia. This last attempt to win support for the Magyar solution was everywhere met with a blank refusal, and in Bosnia especially the Orthodox, Catholic and Moslem leaders united in a mani- festo assuring him of their adherence to the full programme of Yugoslav unity. The surrender of Bulgaria (Sept. 30) naturally rendered the nationalities indisposed to concessions, and the Austrian Premier's admission that national autonomy was now inevitable was icily received. The Czech and Yugoslav spokes- men in the Reichsrat insisted upon separate representation at the peace negotiations, and the absolute right to decide their own future State allegiance (Oct. i).
Events now followed each other with lightning speed. On Oct. 4 Austria-Hungary, in a note to America, accepted Presi- dent 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 Na- tional Council was transplanted from Ljubljana to Zagreb and strengthened by the inclusion of representatives of all parties (Oct. 10). On the i6th the Hungarian Government declared in favour of personal union, and next day Hussarek published an imperial proclamation, dividing Austria (not Austria-Hungary)
into four federal units (German, Czech, Yugoslav and Ukrain- ian) and leaving the Poles to make their own decision. This project was stillborn and pleased no one. Korosec in the name of the Czech and Yugoslav Clubs unreservedly rejected it and claimed that the future of both nations was an international problem which only the future Peace Conference could solve. Henceforth the Yugoslavs acted independently of both Vienna and Budapest; and when on Oct. 21 the news of President Wilson'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 north- ward 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. On the 28th (the same day on which the Czechoslovak Republic was born in Prague) the military command in Zagreb handed over its authority to the National Council, and next day the diet pro- claimed the independence of Croatia from Hungary, and assumed control of Fiume. The arsenals of Pola and Cattaro were al- ready in the hands of the insurgents; and the Emperor Charles, in the hope either of winning the favour of the new regime in Zagreb or of throwing an apple of discord between it and the Entente, signed a decree on Oct. 31 making over the whole Austro-Hungarian fleet to the Yugoslav State. This was not unnaturally interpreted by the Italian Nationalists as a proof of collusion between Zagreb and Vienna; nor was it generally known that as early as Oct. 4 Stepanek and Giunio, as delegates of the Czech and Yugoslav revolutionary committees, reached Italy in a fishing-boat, to concert with the Allies a general rising along the coast, but were closely imprisoned in Rome and not allowed to communicate with Doctor Benes and Doctor Trumbic till nearly three weeks had been lost. But for this delay the fleet might have been in the Entente's hands a fortnight before the final Italian offensive opened on the Piave. Unhappily every step led to a fresh misunderstanding. The action of the Supreme Council in Paris in prescribing the frontier line of the secret treaty of London as the line of occupation under the Austro-Hungarian armistice was keenly resented by the Yugo- slavs as a breach with Wilsonian principles. The Allies very properly insisted that the fleet must be surrendered into their hands, but before this could take place a deplorable incident occurred in Pola harbour, the " Viribus Unitis " being blown up by an Italian mine, with a Yugoslav admiral and crew on board. In Italy Baron Sonnino's frankly anti-Slav attitude threw the Pact of Rome into the shade: and the Consulta worked hard to prevent Yugoslavia's recognition by the Allies.
Rival " Great Serb " and " Yugoslav " Programmes. That this recognition had not already been accorded before the collapse of the Central Powers began was due to disunion among the Yugoslavs themselves. During the summer America gave a lead to the Allies by accepting the Yugoslav programme, and after Austria's failure on the Piave there was a growing disposi- tion on the part of the western Powers to fall into line with Mr. Lansing's very clear pronouncements. But Pasic, free from the restraints of a coalition and from all parliamentary control, had. reverted to his original pan-Serb standpoint, and steadily declined to reconstruct his Cabinet on a wider Yugoslav basis. Trumbic on his part could not enter a purely Serbian Cabinet without prejudicing that freedom of choice of his compatriots in the Dual Monarchy, upon which the moral case of the Yugo- slavs depended. A series of incidents proved the difference of outlook to be not merely personal but fundamental. In July Mr. Mihajlovic, the Serbian minister at Washington, was sum- marily dismissed by Pasic, the reason being his refusal as a good
