An Observer in the Near East

by William Le Queux

From the religious point of view, what is required is effective liberty of conscience, liberty of the cult, and the autonomy of the Serb Orthodox Church. From the moral point of view, the religions and customs of the different nationalities in Bosnia should be respected, liberty of education should be given as well as liberty of speech and liberty of the Press.

Regarded from an economic point of view, an immediate solution of the agrarian question is required; a readjustment of the unjust taxes; the establishment of schools of agriculture, as in Servia and Bulgaria; liberty of commerce and industry; and the establishment of poor-relief and poor-houses.

Many reforms are also required in the Administration. The citizens of the two countries should be eligible for employment in public offices; the public functionaries should be replaced by a more educated class; the police force should be purged and diminished; the costly spy system should be entirely abolished; a less corrupt justice should be introduced, and economy effected in the present wasted finances.

Yet how can one hope for reforms from a nation like Austria, who is working daily and unscrupulously to crush and exterminate the unfortunate Serbs under their rule, with one aim and one policy, namely, to extend their territory south through Novi-Bazar and Macedonia in order to obtain the port of Salonica?

Under the Treaty of Berlin the Powers have a right to interfere. If they would check Austria’s advances southward they should step in at once and claim, in the name of civilisation and humanity, justice for poor persecuted Bosnia. If half a dozen African negroes are maltreated by a Belgian rubber-hunter we throw up our hands in pious horror, lift our eyes heavenward, the papers are flooded with “atrocities,” often manufactured, and questions are asked in the House. Yet when we have here a whole country being vigorously and secretly crushed under our very noses, by a Power who intends to be one of our rivals in the East, we turn our heads in the opposite direction. Austria, we say, is a Christian country, and can do no wrong!

Go to the Balkans, and you will see what I have seen. You will then realise the clever, subtle influence of Austrian agents in Montenegro—where they persuade the pride of the country to emigrate, themselves paying the expenses, and thus sap the nation of its future population; in Northern Albania, where the priests in Austrian pay never cease to descant upon the benefits of Austrian rule; in Servia, where they are ever stirring strife; in Bulgaria, where their spies are ever active; and in Macedonia, where they secretly encourage the Greek bands to massacre the Bulgars.

Thus over the whole of the Balkans Austria has spread forth her wings, and her dark, threatening shadow is now across everything. The Austrian policy, shown so very plainly to all who travel in the Balkans, is to compete with Germany and become the paramount Power in the Peninsula, and obtain Montenegro, Albania, and Macedonia for herself, together with the much-coveted port of Salonica. From this latter point she already has a railway—constructed by the late Baron Hirsch—through Usküb, and joining the main Vienna-Constantinople line at Nisch, in Servia. Therefore part of the policy is to lay hold of the kingdom of Servia—though under the present régime there, and with a Government so firmly established as it is, there is, I think, very little to fear in this latter. Fortunately, Servia knows how to take care of herself.

Such is the programme of Austria—one of extermination and extension. And with these facts in view, indisputable to every traveller, surely it is in the interests of the Powers to remain no longer indifferent to the state of affairs in Bosnia.

Is it possible that the prophetic words of the Russian delegate Gortchakoff, speaking at the Berlin Congress, will ever come true, as so many of his prophecies have done?

He said, “The tomb of Austria is in the Balkans.”