The Austrian offer to Italy diverges from the Italian project at Illmenspitze[276] and strikes south, carefully avoiding abandonment of territory of German speech to Italy. In doing this, however, it leaves some of the Italian-speaking northeastern districts of the Noce valley in Austrian territory. All the mountain outlets which open into the Adige valley are retained by Austria. This from the Italian standpoint is inadmissible, as it would leave the southern country exposed to aggression from the north. On the basis of the Austrian census for 1910 the changes in population consequent upon such a boundary revision are as follows:

Italians and
Ladins 		Germans
In territory offered by Austria366,83713,892
In territory retained by Austria18,863511,222

In case the Italian claim is granted the following changes will result:

Italians and
Ladins 		Germans
In new Italian territory371,47774,000
In territory retained by Austria14,229440,805

A margin of coastland along the eastern Adriatic is mainly Serbian in nationality though Italian in culture. It was once the nest of pirates who terrorized the Adriatic and Mediterranean. We catch historical glimpses of their retreats to the admirable shelters teeming along the coastland which skirts the Dalmatian mountains. The fringe of long islands deployed like a protecting screen enabled their vessels to evade capture. This feature of the region still exercises its influence, for a strong naval power in control of such a base might easily dominate the Mediterranean lane of traffic between east and west. The political fate of the eastern shores of the Adriatic cannot therefore be sundered from their geographical aspect.

The Italians have been exhibited elsewhere in these pages as a vanishing minority throughout this Dalmatian coast. We are in the presence of Serbians, disguised under various appellations, among which the most familiar are Croatians, Slavonians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Montenegrins, Dalmatians and Illyrians. All these elements were susceptible of being strongly knit into a single nationality. The inclusion of a sympathizing, though numerically small, Slovene group could only introduce wholesome competition among them.

Nationalism in this region was awakened by French achievements and influences at the time of its conquest by Napoleon’s armies. The French provinces of Illyria, which included Slovene territory on the north and extended as far south as Montenegro, were converted in 1816 into a kingdom of the same name which survived, up to 1846, as part of the Austrian Empire. The taste of political independence acquired by southern Slavs in that interval of time never lost its savor. Schemes for the formation of an independent Jugoslavia were naturally thrown into sharper relief through the medium of linguistic unity.

Such a south Slavic political entity must necessarily be identified with Serbia. Its extent is admirably defined by geographical, ethnographical and linguistic lines all of which coincide, thereby pointing irrefutably to national unity. The Drave, Morava, Drina and Lim rivers, with the Adriatic Sea, encircle this genuine Serbian area. It comprises the entire system of parallel ranges which form the mountainous rearland of the Adriatic. Because of its arduous character the region was never thoroughly mastered by foreigners. Invaders established themselves in force only along the sections of international highways which cross the land. The rest remained accessible to the Serbian natives only.

The defining of an independent Hungary presents little confusion if approached from the main highway of geography. Agreement between the land and its inhabitants appears to exist here, for the Magyar is, in the first place, a lowlander accustomed to live within the precincts of a fertile plain. He has always shunned the mountain and is rarely to be met above the 600-foot contour. As soon as the hills to the north of the vast field of his birth are attained he disappears, leaving a few officials to represent him. Slovak, Rumanian and Ruthenian hillmen then come upon the scene. On the western side, west of the Raab, the heights drained by the river are peopled by Germans and, in spite of a complex boundary zone, a convenient line of demarcation could be drawn upon the basis of elevation. Southward the old-time utility of the Drave as the dividing line between Croat and Hungarian remains unimpaired to this day. In the east, however, around the confluence of this river with the Danube and towards the Theiss valley the swamp lands have repelled the ease-loving Hungarian as effectively as the mountains to the east and north. The Serb, less particular in his choice of residence, advanced northward as far as the swampy land extends. In this section any physical map contains the data for a territorial division.