An Observer in the Near East

by William Le Queux

But this is Bosnia, and assuredly strange things happen here under the unjust rule of Austria.

Strangers seldom come to Sarayevo. In the heart of that mountainous region between the Save and the Adriatic, only approached from the south by that rack-and-pinion railway, or from the north by the one train a day from that un-get-at-able station in Slavonia, Bosnche-Brod, it is entirely shut away from European influence—or European eyes, for the matter of that—and quite off the track taken by strangers in the Balkans.

Indeed, I would never advise the intending traveller to take that route from Ragusa to Belgrade. Better by far take the steamer right up the Adriatic to Fiume, and thence by rail, as it is quicker, and much less fatiguing. I did not go to Bosnia, however, so much to see its capital as to obtain some idea of the present system of government there, and to hear from the lips of the people themselves the advantages, or disadvantages, of the rule of His Majesty the Emperor Francis Josef.

With many well-known men in Sarayevo I talked. I heard both sides. But I am bound to admit that some of the facts proved to me were utterly amazing, showing how ill and unjustly governed is both Bosnia and Herzegovina. I had read André Barre’s recent book, La Bosnie-Herzegovina, and had doubted the very serious and direct charges which he brings against the Austrian Administration.

Therefore I went to see for myself, to make inquiry, and to thoroughly investigate.

The opinion I formed, after analysing the many facts placed before me, is that the present oppressed state of Bosnia is surely a vivid object-lesson to Servia, where day by day Austria is endeavouring, by the most ingenious and unscrupulous forms of intrigue, to obtain a footing. This latter I will explain more fully in my chapters on the future of Servia. Suffice it here to say that poor struggling Bosnia is to-day helpless beneath the talons of the Austrian eagle, and that the administration is a shameful travesty of civilised rule.

The Serb population are more essentially the sufferers, and have been so ever since the Austrian occupation allowed by the Treaty of Berlin. Through the four centuries of the Turkish rule, the Christians were from time to time oppressed, and in return revolted, more particularly in 1850 and 1875; but the position of the Serbs to-day is very little better, if any, than it was before the Russo-Turkish War.

Indeed, it seems that the whole policy of Austria in Bosnia has been directed against the Servian Orthodox people. The Servian Mohammedans are not feared because of their ignorance, while their fatalism renders them docile. On the contrary, however, the local Government of Bosnia fears those professing the Orthodox faith, and, having established the Jesuits solidly in the country, have proceeded upon a course of systematic persecution. Austrian methods are too apparent all over the Balkans. Unscrupulous to a degree, her policy in Bosnia has been one of terror, of espionage, of famine, and of assassination. In truth it is accomplishing the moral and material ruin of a splendid country, the crushing of the noble Servian race which has, alas! fallen beneath its hand.

At first I was inclined to doubt. The Serb is a patriot, sometimes given to exaggeration. But very quickly, as the result of my inquiries, evidences of Austria’s evil rule were apparent on every hand. To go into a mass of detail is not within the province of this record of inquiry, neither do I wish to scream hysterical condemnations. I went to the Balkans, not for sight-seeing, but seeking to penetrate some of the mysteries of their politics, and their aims for the future. I travelled there in order to have audiences with the Kings, Princes, and Cabinet Ministers of the various countries in the Peninsula. These were granted me, and thus I obtained, at first hand, their views regarding the present situation, and their hopes and aspirations.

In Bosnia, both on the Mohammedan and Christian side, I found only a grave and grim story of misrule and oppression, which it may be well to briefly outline, in order to show how Austria rules the unfortunate country that falls beneath her dominion.