ABSTRACT
Austria, although the biggest state in the Bund, belonged to it only by virtue of her western provinces, where the German language predominated, and even here there were non-German minorities. The unification of all the southern Slavs was the subject of propaganda in Austria by Croatian writers. For a long time the Serbs hoped for liberation at Austria’s hands and were prepared to unite with her, though there was also a pro-Russian movement among them. By the constitution of the Bund, Austria was its president and there she exercised a certain influence on the other member states, who feared her less than they did the traditionally expansionist Prussia. Liberal historians have justly held the Emperor and Metternich largely responsible for the blows which fate subsequently dealt to Austria and Germany. Hungary, without Transylvania but including Croatia, had at this time some twelve million inhabitants, but of these only five millions were Magyars; the rest were Slavs, Wallachians and Germans.
