THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE SLAVS
To make matters worse for the Austrian or German invader, there are conflicting relations between their own people and the Russians. The Polish provinces, for instance, however unfriendly toward Russia, as one of the dismemberers of the Polish kingdom, are strongly bound in blood and speech to the Russian nation. The Poles and Russians are brother Slavs, and are likely to remember this in any conflict which approaches an issue between Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism. The Poles of East Prussia have an ingrained hatred of their German masters and have been embittered by political oppression almost to the point of revolt. Those along Austria’s eastern border are little less bitter.
The estimate is made that Europe contains in all about 140,000,000 Slavs, this being the most numerous race on the continent, the Teutons ranking second. While the great bulk of these are natives of Russia, they have penetrated in large numbers to the west and south, and are to be found abundantly in the Balkan region, in the Austrian realm, and in the region of the disintegrated kingdom of Poland.
According to recent authoritative statistics the race question in Austria-Hungary is decidedly complicated and diversified. In the kingdoms and provinces represented in the Reichsrath in Vienna there are nearly 10,000,000 Germans and 18,500,000 non-Germans. Of these nearly 17,500,000 are Slavs. Among these Slavs, the Croats and Serbs number 780,000, chiefly in Dalmatia, while there are in all 660,000 Orthodox and nearly 3,500,000 Greek Uniats.
In Hungary, with its subject kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia, there are 8,750,000 Magyars, 2,000,000 Germans, and 8,000,000 other non-Magyars. Of these, 3,000,000 are Roumanians and well over 5,000,000 Slavs. The Croats, or Roman Catholic Serbs, number 1,800,000, and their Orthodox brothers are 1,100,000 in number. All told, Hungary has nearly 11,000,000 Roman Catholic subjects, 2,000,000 Greek Uniats, and 3,000,000 Orthodox. In this connection it should be remembered that the Patriarchate of the Orthodox Serb Church has been fixed at Karlowitz, under Hungarian rule, for over two centuries.
In Bosnia there are 434,000 Roman Catholic Croats, 825,000 Orthodox Serbs, and over 600,000 Bosniaks, or Moslem Serbs. Thus it will be seen that the Emperor Francis Joseph rules over more than 24,000,000 Slavs and 3,225,000 Roumanians, of whom nearly 4,500,000 adhere to various Orthodox Churches and 5,400,000 are Uniats. Of this Slav mass 5,000,000 Poles, mostly Roman Catholics, are not particularly susceptible to Pan-Slav propaganda, as that is largely Russian and Orthodox.
Within the boundaries of Germany herself there are over 3,000,000 Slavs, chiefly Poles, the Slavs of Polish descent in all being estimated at 15,000,000. To these must be added the Bulgarians, Serbs and Montenegrins of the Balkan region, constituting about 7,0000,000 more.