ABSTRACT
The horror excited by the peculiar atrocity of Sunday’s crime has led unhappily to violent demonstrations of race antagonism in the southern Slav provinces of the Dual Monarchy, that is to say, especially in Bosnia and Croatia. At Sarajevo itself the Roman Catholic Croat population with a strong admixture of Mussulman Slavs proceeded to demolish all the property of the Orthodox Serbs they could lay hands on, Serb hotels, shops, and private houses were ransacked, and their contents thrown into the street. The marauding bands were in some cases preceded by Austrian banners and portraits of the Emperor. The feeble attempts of the police to restore order were set at defi ance. The work of destruction was continued on Monday, 29th June, the day following the murders; similar acts of violence being reported from other parts of the two annexed provinces, martial law was proclaimed on the afternoon of the 29th over Sarajevo and the adjoining district, and on the 1st July over the whole extent of both provinces. Disturbances are also reported from Agram and it seems pretty clear that the working arrangement between Croats and Serbs, the result of the Fiume manifesto of October 1905, by means of which it was hoped to secure greater political independence for the south Slav nationalities, has for the time completely broken down. Nothing in reality divides the two peoples but the difference of religion and the fact that their identic language is written by the Croats in the Latin and by the Serbs in the Cyrillic character. Southern Slav aspirations, therefore, which depend for their realisation on the unifi cation of the different Slavonic races under Austro-Hungarian rule would appear to have experienced a decided set back.
