THE CZECHS AND AUSTRIA
inducement to remain subjects of the Dual Monarchy. That it is increasingly difficult for them to do more than ward off the blows of their adversaries is apparent from the utter disintegration and paralysis of political and parliamentary life in Austria. The Government cannot secure a working majority without the Slavs, yet open political warfare prevails between it and the Slavs. The Emperor is quite unequal to the situation, and there is no sign of any statesman who could end the deadlock save by a radical change of policy such as would arouse the enmity of the Magyars and shake the whole Monarchy to its base. And meanwhile, in the words of the Socialist Naše Doba, “the whole Czech nation stands behind its deputies; and it must conquer, because it rests alike upon historic and upon natural right.”
The Outlook of a Patriotic Serb
Serbia has suffered a terrible martyrdom in this war. Fire and sword, and the scourge of disease and famine, have swept away one-fourth of her people. Her enemies, especially the Bulgars, have waged a campaign of extermination and deportation in order to destroy her national life; and they have systematically pillaged the country of its industrial resources, its flocks and herds, and even of the domestic possessions in its private houses. The process has reached a horrible culmination in the deportation of a large number of Serbs to Asia Minor, where death is the kindest fate that can overtake them. In a word, Serbia is prostrate; and, though all the invaded countries in Europe have suffered grievously, none has undergone such a trial as our little kingdom. The treatment she has received from Austria-Hungary is witnessed by the fate of the Serbian prisoners of war, who have died in thousands by famine, disease, and cold in the Austrian concentration camps. The Southern Slavs of Austria-Hungary, in Bosnia for instance, have undergone sufferings unknown even during the Turkish régime. They have been shot and hanged without trial, and their possessions have been confiscated, in over one hundred thousand authentic cases, by order of the Austrian Government. The action of Vienna in this matter has demonstrated the reality and vitality of the unity of all Southern Slavs, both in Serbia and in Austria-
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