Der Kampf der Südslawen um Freiheit und Einheit by Hermann WendelReview by: R. W. Seton-WatsonThe Slavonic Review, Vol. 4, No. 11 (Dec., 1925), pp. 520-522Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4201984 .

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520 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

no less than her national development: or that Magyar policy in Croatia reacted upon foreign relations, or that the crises of 190o8-9 and I9I2-13 created a tremendous ferment throughout the Jugoslav provinces of the Dual Monarchy, which was entirely spontaneous and required no prompting from Belgrade. Without at least a summary of these facts it is impossible to form any proper estimate of the Southern Slav problem or of Austro-Serbian relations, and their suppression deprives Miss Durham of all claim to balance or perspective. She has no inkling of what is meant by historical evidence, and again and again employs the method so noticeable in her earlier volume, Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle, of accepting as gospel the merest pothouse gossip or braggadocio. She pours ridicule on a lecturer before the Royal Society of Arts who declared that he " never listened to the gossip of servants and muleteers" (p. 4I); but she herself fall into the opposite extreme of treating the chance remarks of some obscure provincial innkeeper or hostler or the boast of a schoolmaster or monk in the wilds of Macedonia or Albania, or even an exiled schoolboy, as proof positive of the high policy of Govern- ments and statesmen all over Europe. In opening her latest anti-Serb campaign by an address to the British Institute of International Affairs she betrayed her animus by speaking of " Serbian vermin," and the present volume only confirms the impression that it is unsafe to accept any of her facts or deductions without first verifying them elsewhere.

Among numerous minor errors may be mentioned the following: Karlstadt for Karlowitz (Karlovci) (p. i6); Baron for Count Bencken- dorff (p. 2I); Freiherr for Ritter von Storck (p. I2); Herz for Herzen (p. I2I); Chamjakov for Homyakov (p. 4I); 30 May, I9I4, for 19I3 (p. 67); Gruitz for Grujic or Grouitch (p. I39); Tan for Temps (p. I45). In I9I4 "Sir Charles de Gratz" (p. Io) was still "Mr. des Graz." On p. I75 "theologian" is a mistranslation for "theological student."' It is notorious that Pasic is not of Macedonian origin as is stated on p. 24. Nor is it clear why the Bosnian capital should invariably be called " Serajevo " instead of " Sarajevo," wvhich is its real name.

R. W. SETON-WATSON.

Der Kampf der Sfidslazicen un mFreikeit -und Eiuheit. By Hermanni Wendel. Frainkfurt (Frankfurter Societats-Druckerei), 1925. 798 pages.

No greater contrast can be imagined than that between this book and Miss Durham's, just reviewed above. Herr Wendel has a complete mastery of the literature on his subject, as his very full bibliography wvell attests. And yet, amid a perfect maze of details he never allows

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REVIEWS. 52I

the reader to lose his way, but holds a lamp for his feet and a rope for his hand. Though the trees are many and varied, there is no excuse for not seeing the wood fcr the trees, for the Jugoslav movement, in Herr Wendel's skilful hands, has froin the first assumed a rhythm and a meaning of its own. Indeed not the least of his achievements is to have combined a certain dramatic sense with skill in focussing and an admirable sense of proportion. The one weak spot is the complete absence of footnote references, which is a serious blemish ini a subject where so much is controversial, and is bound to weaken an effect which might otherwise have been overwhelming: for the more one attempts to check his references the more does evidence accumulate as to the wideness and range of his researches, and with only the most trifling exceptions, as to the soundness of his judgment. It is not so much that he has published material hitherto not available, as that he has thoroughly sifted and arranged what was scattered in a thousand obscure corners of history, literature and journalism, apd has thus made available, to the German public a closely reasoned analysis of the Jugoslav national movement and its causes.

One special merit is his treatment of economic problems. Evein the most ignorant are aware that the peasant element predominates among all branches of the Jugoslavs, but none-the-less the salient facts about serfdom, land tenure and tariff policy are far too often overlooked, even where they provide a main clue to political and national development. Specially useful is what he has to say of the Military Frontiers, of the economic crisis in Croatia in the period of reaction, of Austria-Hungary's fatal neglect of the land question in Bosnia, and of her impossible economic policy towards Serbia. In this connection he reminds us that " the more stubbornly the big landowners in the Habsburg Monarchy tried to keep Serbian cattle out of the home market, the more eagerly did the big indus- trialists, finding it hard to compete in the world market, try to secure the Serbian market " (Absatzgebiet); and that the " Pig War " was the inevitable result of two conflicting economic policies pursued simultaneously by Austria and Hungary, through the Ballplatz as an ostensibly unitary organ. There was some piquancy in the fact that the place thus lost by Austro-Hungarian trade was being rapidly filled by Germany on the eve of the war. Another point on which the book contains valuable indications is the evil influence of high finance (in all the European capitals) upon the development of the Balkan States, notably in the matter of railways.

There is a specially vivid account of French reforms in the transitory " Illyrian " State of Napoleon's creation, and of the significance of this experiment in treating for the first time as a unit many districts which had lived for centuries in watertight compartments. He is careful to bring out the role of Serbs from Bosnia, Macedonia and Dalmatia in the first insurrection of Kara

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522 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

George, and that leader's attitude to his " race-brothers in Illyria,' as also the interconnection between the Serbs south and north of, the Danube and Save in the i8th century and onwards: and he shows that Vienna's fear of influences from the emancipated Serbs upon their kinsmen in her own territory was already a dominant motive in Austrian policy under Metternich and was to remain so under Andrassy and KMlnoky, under Aehrenthal and Berchtold alike. A policy resting upon force and negation was bound to end in disaster, and in actual fact it was reserved for the Jugoslavr problem to do what even the Italian problem had not done-namely to provoke not merely defeat, but actual dissolution.

Herr Wendel's worst strictures are reserved for the Great Powers, and almost decade by decade for the last century he recounts their selfish and unscrupulous intrigues, and worst of all, their continual voltefaces of policy towards the Christian states ot the peninsula. In this he shows a fine impartiality, awarding the meed for villainy equally between Austria and Russia, and yet reserving many severe verdicts for all the others in turn. It would, however, probably be fairer to ascribe quite a number of their worst blunders and inconsistencies to shortsighted ignorance and lack of imagination rather than to deliberate ill-will. But the attitude of both groups of belligerents towards the Balkan States during the Great War certainly tends to confirm his theory, when reviewed to-day in cold blood and in the light of such secret documents as have already been made public.

There are many points of detail to which attention might be drawn, but it must suffice to congratulate Herr Wendel on having produced a very remarkable and illuminating book. It is not without some reason that a Slav writer has already described it as one of the best acts of moral reparation performed by Germany since the war.

Misprints are rare, but it may perhaps be worth while to point out the following. On p. 82 the reference should be to the mouth of the Drim (in Albania), not of the Drina. On p. ioi, Leopold I. should be Leopold II.; on p. i9i Himok should be Hirnok; On p. 26i, Szartoryski should be Czartoryski. On p. iI8 the Slav name Drinopolje is given for Adrianople! Kallay had not been appointed as Diplomatic Agent in Belgrade so early as I867: he only went in April, i868, and, therefore, was not connected with the earlier negotia- tion (p. 332). Count Khevenhiiller was Austro-Hungarian Minister, not Consul, in I885 (p. 489). The value of the statistics scattered through the book is considerably impaired by the habit of invariably writing, e.g., " four thousand seven hundred and forty-nine " instead of " 4749."

Herr Wendel has a trenchant style of his own, which is sometimes eloquent and never dull, but some readers will regret his periodical lapses into " journalese."

R. W. SETON-WATSON.

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