Here is a portrait of the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, Franz Josef. He is an old man, eighty-five years of age—the oldest monarch in Europe. It is impossible not to be sorry for him; his life has been full of trouble, and he has had to rule over the most divided kingdom on earth. There has never been any love lost between Austrians and Hungarians, and the only bond that unites them is the aged king-emperor. Probably there never was so unfortunate a royal family as that of which Franz Josef is the head. His younger brother, Maximilian, after being invited to become Emperor of Mexico, was shot by the Mexicans in 1867; his heir, Rudolf, was found dead in a hunting-lodge in 1889; and his wife, the Empress, was stabbed to death in the streets of Geneva nine years later. Nor was this the last of his sorrows, as you will presently hear.
The heir to the Austrian throne in June 1914 was the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the aged Emperor's nephew. He was a man of strong will and great ambition, and he eagerly desired to win power for Austria in the Balkans, and so secure for his country the port of Salonica. This port would enable Austria to develop her foreign trade, and become an important sea power.
Now, before Austria could send her army into the Balkans and carve out a road to Salonica, she must be sure that the Slavs of Bosnia and Herzegovina would not rise in rebellion and make her task doubly difficult. So, on the 23rd of June last, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, a lady who had Slav blood in her veins, left the Austrian capital to pay a state visit to Bosnia, for the purpose of reviewing the troops in that province and trying to secure the favour of the Bosnian people.
The Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the Archduchess, and their family.
If you and I proposed to visit Bosnia, our best route would be to take ship, say, from Venice, and cross the Adriatic Sea to the beautiful town of Ragusa,[15] with its castled walls, its dizzy cliffs, its quaint old buildings, its palaces, churches, and monasteries, all shut in between the blue sea and the steep gray hills that rise up suddenly in the rear. At Ragusa we should take the train through the wild, rugged country of Herzegovina, which has been called the Turkish Switzerland. Our train would run through rocky defiles, up steep passes, by the side of yawning chasms, until we reached Mostar,[16] the chief city of the country. The Austrian part of Mostar, we should find, consists of two white streets, a modern hotel, a public garden with a bandstand, and barracks for soldiers. All the rest of it is Turkish. You see the same narrow streets, the same kind of bazaars, the same mosques, the same solemn, white-turbaned Turks and veiled women that you see in Constantinople; but you also see swarthy, stalwart men of Herzegovina and Albania,[17] every one of them carrying a sharp knife at his girdle and a gun in his hand.
We now leave Mostar for Sarajevo,[18] the capital of Bosnia, by a railway which is one of the wonders of the world. "In places whole cliffs have been blasted away to enable the metals to follow a narrow pathway with granite walls and a nasty precipice on either side. As the engine creeps carefully over the slender iron bridges towards the summit you may look down from your carriage window into a thousand feet of space, and feel thankful that cog-wheels are beneath you, for otherwise any hitch with the brakes might cause a frightful accident. At times the track twists and turns so much that an engine-driver may glance across a chasm, and without looking back see the rear van winding round a corner." Such is the railway by which we reach Sarajevo.
Let us suppose that we have arrived in Sarajevo on the morning of Sunday, June 28th of the year 1914. Upon the craggy heights above the town we see the citadel and fortifications, and here and there above the roofs of the houses the minarets and white domes of mosques; but we soon perceive that we are not in an Eastern but in a modern Western town. The Austrians have made wide streets, with fine shops, cafés, and beer-halls; they have erected handsome public buildings, theatres, and hotels; trams run along the streets, and taxis ply for hire; and on the outskirts of the town we find a racecourse and golf links. We must give the Austrians their due. They have done wonders in civilizing the country and in making it prosperous; but they have not won the hearts of the people, and that is the all-important business of rulers, after all.
To-day Sarajevo is in festive array. The yellow Austrian standard, with its black, double-headed eagle, flies above all the public buildings, and flutters from the upper windows of the shops along the Franz Josef Strasse; soldiers are marching through the streets; bugles are blowing, and bands are playing. On the pavements stand the townsfolk, and you notice that many of them are sullen and silent. They are waiting for the coming of their future king, but they show no signs of loyalty. When our beloved Prince of Wales visits one of our towns, we flock gladly to see him and greet him with the heartiest of cheers. Suppose, however, he was a man of another race, and that he was going some day to be our king against our will; how do you think we should receive him? Very much as the Bosnians are receiving their future king to-day.