terly failed to bring the Servians to their knees. To the amazement of the Ballplatz, the little kingdom secured through French support fresh markets for its pork, holding its own with unprecedented vigor against that economic boycott of a whole people which Vienna hitherto had always found an equally easy and crushing method of coercion. This result was received with exultation by that vast majority of the Servian race-including the Croats, of the same stock, though of a different religion-which is already under Hapsburg rule. To grasp the fuil significance of this fact and what has followed, it must be thoroughly understood that Bosnia and Herzegovina form the very heart of that Greater Servia or Greater Serbo-Croatia which is the political ideal of nearly nine millions of people.

This huge mass is, in one sense, a geographical expression, for the SerboCroats are divided into sections variously ruled from Vienna, Serajevo, and Agram, from Belgrade and Cettigne. Less than a third part of the whole race is independent under King Peter or Prince Nicholas. More than twothirds of it is under German or Magyar ascendancy. Yet all these lines of demarcation are as artificial as the diplomatic frontiers separating the several divisions of the Poles. The Serbo-Croats also form a continuous racial block, filling up the territory between the Danube and the Adriaticcapable either of commanding or closing the route to Salonika, according as the region does or does not remain to a sufficient extent under Austro-Hungarian control. Bosnia and Herzegovina are the heart, then, of the Serbo-Croat lands. They are the key to the Servian problem, and that problem-as we shall realize if we remember that the Servian kingdom is only a minor fragment of it-is without exception the most interesting, the most complicated,

and according as it may be handled, will prove either the most promising or the most dangerous part of the whole Austrian question. The region of the South Slavs has often been called, not untruly, the Achilles heel of Hapsburg power; though it is equally true that the federal policy supposed to be contemplated by the Archduke Franz Ferdinand might once more make the Serbo-Croats, as against the Magyars, the spear-point of that Power. This, in the opinion of the present writer, is the real clue to recent developments. Throughout the two years in which Baron Aehrenthal has held office, the Serbo-Croat question has been with him in various aspects indeed, but in a more and more acute form. It is just to denounce the arbitrary and inopportune violation of the Treaty of Berlin. At the same time, it is useless to forget that, since Count Goluchowski's overthrow, the simultaneous developments of the Servian question in Austria proper, in Hungary, in the occupied provinces, in Novi Bazar, in the relations with Montenegro and Belgrade, have never ceased to engage Baron Aehrenthal's serious attention. At first he was not understood. He began to act at once, but for a long time he was singularly successful in lending an air of unimportance to his proceedings. There were current the most conflicting accounts of his intentions, and he kept up the mystery with a prudence he has lately flung aside. To public opinion in foreign countries he was practically unknown. Hardly anyone had seen his portrait. His first speech as Foreign Minister was as colorless as a calculated reserve could make it. He had, of course, three main problems to deal with:-(1) Relations with Germany; (2) relations with Russia; (3) relations with Servia and with the Balkans generally. Apart from these and other external affairs with which it was his business directly to

deal, Baron Aehrenthal, by his manipulation of foreign policy, can do much as we have seen to determine the lines upon which the reorganization of the Hapsburg dominions must ultimately take place if the break-up is indeed to be avoided, and if a splendid renaissance is to be realized. In all these things rumor was true when it declared Count Goluchowski's successor to be the heir-apparent's man. The real Baron Aehrenthal we now know, nor can there be any reasonable doubt as to his objects, or as to the methods by which he will endeavor to approach still nearer to them.

It is known that the Emperor Francis Joseph, with admirable sagacity, has already transferred much of the responsibility, if not the name of sovereignty, to his heir. It would hardly be too much to say that the influence of the future Emperor-King is already paramount with regard to all new developments of policy. In the sixtieth year of his reign, Francis Joseph has only one desire. He has devoted the closing period of his life with quiet moral heroism to removing difficulty after difficulty from the path of his successor, that his own withdrawal from the mortal scene may make as little change as possible, and the new reign begin with every initial advantage. The aged Kaiser's prestige is a priceless solvent of problems, and even yet there may be surprises. While Francis Joseph is on the throne things may be done with impunity which his successor could only attempt at the greatest hazard to the existence of his dominion. Now of the ideas of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Baron Aehrenthal is the exponent; and those ideas are characterized through and through by the democratic Imperalism advocated by every successful political leader in our time. Based upon universal suffrage and racial equality, the Austria-Hungary of the future is to be

a federal, not a dual system. Its Imperial unity, paradoxical as the statement may seem, can only be restored by such an increased division of its parts as would mean the effective subordination of every one of them. And Imperial Austria is to be not only a vital and progressive State within. Without it is to be an independent, active, and expanding Power. Franz Ferdinand is now forty-five. No man ever passed through a more thorough education for the duties of coming rulership. He was never so popular as today among the great majority of his future subjects. He is believed to have been the most resolute promoter of the universal suffrage which has restored to Austria the sense of life. He is thought to be behind the foreign policy which is looked upon as having at a stroke reasserted Austria's rightful influence in the world. He is believed to entertain plans which will restore the Dual Empire to the power and glory it possessed before Sadowa--which will enable it to hold the balance in Continental affairs, and, above all, to decide the destiny of the Eastern question.

From this point of view, then, the different phases of the policy pursued by the Ballplatz in the last two years appear as successive revelations, both of Baron Aehrenthal's own methods, and of the ideas he holds in common with the heir-apparent. The first question asked was whether he would make any change in Count Goluchowski's system. That was a system of absolute subservience to Berlin, joined to a renunciation, by agreement with Russia, of active effort in the Balkans. This policy was meant to play for safety. It meant temporary safety but no more. It made no provision for the future. It amounted to a partial abdication of independence. For this Count Goluchowski was not exclusively to blame.

He

inherited the defensive tendency from Count Kalnoky. Both perhaps interpreted the temperament of their Sovereign in his later years. Both were hampered by the fierceness of internal dissensions. Baron Aehrenthal went back beyond the methods of his three immediate predecessors. He resumed the threads where they had been dropped by Andrassy more than a quarter of a century before.

When Baron Aehrenthal was ambassador at St. Petersburg he had a bad press among the German newspapers. It was maintained by many, who only judged him by his outer attitude and by the temporary circumstances, that he would be decisively pro-Russian. Others, and these were at least somewhat nearer the mark, were of the opinion that he proved himself a consummate ambassador by his apparent sympathy with the particular country to which he was accredited, but that the loyalty with which he interpreted the policy of his Government was no sufficient indication of his own opinions. According to these observers. Baron Aehrenthal would lean decidedly towards Germany. In any case, he was to be either far more pro-Russian or far more pro-German than his predecessor. It may now be said with tol erable safety that both these estimates missed the fact. The truth lay between them. Baron Aehrenthal holds, with profoundly good judgment, that at present nothing can replace the advantages secured to Austria by the Triple Alliance. He has accordingly from the outset taken every occasion to emphasize the paramount importance of good relations with Berlin. He has had notable success in improving relations with Rome. He has, beyond all question, breathed into the Triple Alliance something more of reality and vigor than that compact had possessed since the beginning of the system of ententes which it is one of his professed

purposes to destroy. He has thus rendered to Berlin very considerable services, though in a way that shows incidentally how absurd and insincere is the cry that Germany is isolated because England has made definite arrangements for the maintenance of peace with France and Russia. If Baron Aehrenthal unmistakably served the interests of Berlin he did this under the conviction that he was serving the interests of his own country to a more than equivalent extent. He revivified the Triple Alliance, not because he is pro-German, but because he is simply pro-Austrian. He looks to a goal far beyond his immediate purposes-and not necessarily in a line with them.

In one word, Baron Aehrenthal, since he entered the Ballplatz, has aimed more and more definitely at a very great and very legitimate object. If he can achieve it, his name will be well remembered. He does not wish, to lean either upon Germany or upon Russia. He desires to make Austria more independent of both and more equal with either than she has ever been during the present generation. But though Baron Aehrenthal has been impartial in spirit he could not be so in the means he employs. He is not anti-Russian in temper. His present business is to act as though he were no less systematically anti-Russian than Andrassy, and to press an active policy up to the limits of safety-with the calculated boldness that intends to stop short of blind temerity, but may easily find that it has stepped the one fatal inch too far. To restore the independent and equal position of Austria-Hungary in the circle of the great Powers, there was but one way. That way lay in the direction of taking the utmost possible advantage of the temporary difficulties of Russia. If possible, the Andrassy method is to be pursued. That statesman secured, with

out striking a blow, the consent of St. Petersburg to the occupation—the “annexation," as we now call it-of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1878 Russia, having fought a victorious war, was deprived of all the fruits of victory. Austria, without going to war, was presented with splendid provinces opening up a still more splendid prospect. Of the principle that Russia's difficulty is Austria's opportunity, Baron Aehrenthal will make a similarly successful application if he can.

Up to the present he has defeated M. Isvolsky with ease. The two statesmen are so well acquainted that a certain free-masonry exists between them. A glance or a pressure of the hand in those circumstances may save some compromising sentences, and may yet be a language perfectly understood between those who exchange it. M. Isvolsky and Baron Aehrenthal alike mean in their intercourse with each other to play a complicated game, but M. Isvolsky has shown less fundamental decision in developing the opportunities afforded him by the Triple entente, and the Austrian has been the colder psychologist of the two, and up to the present the better tactician. The reason is simple. Baron Aehrenthal knows Russia, as we have said, as well as it is known to any foreigner. He is credited by some who know him with the belief that Russia is a quantité négligeable, and will remain so for an indefinite period; that the causes which led to the disasters in Manchuria would lead to as complete a catastrophe in Europe. This theory is well known to be held even more strongly in Berlin, where it is sedulously preached by Baltic Germans. They belong to a race which has supplied the Tsars in the past with some of their ablest servants. They have a hereditary knowledge of Russian conditions. Their hostility sharpens their insight into Slav weaknesses and--though this is less

recognized in Berlin-tends to blind them to Slav qualities. Both in Berlin and Vienna, however, the prevailing opinion among the political and military experts is that Russia for many years yet will not dare to wage an offensive war, and would march if she did to the greatest overthrow the Slavs have ever known since the Tartar conquests in the north and the Turkish in the south. This opinion leaves out of account the fact that with French and British support Russia would be interminably formidable in spite of a succession of isolated disasters. She could reconstitute armies again and again. Add to this the certainty that Russia would enter a struggle against Berlin and Vienna with an elemental enthusiasm such as her Slav masses have never yet known. That is the one ordeal, that whether it led immediately to defeat or victory would probably mean for Russia the great awakening. From that moment the Slav race as a whole would begin to come to its own. But all that is music of the future. Baron Aehrenthal does not ignore these possibilities. He takes short views. He believes that he can pursue an apparently hazardous policy without any real risk. He holds that Russian diplomacy is no longer-inspired by fundamental self-confidence, and that there will be no war. Russia upon this calculation can be compelled to compromise after compromise. In this process Austria-Hungary, owing to the superior efficiency of its State organization, will steadily gain in relative strength. Upon this theory, before Russia has become a State as formidable in reality as throughout the nineteenth century she was thought to be, the Hapsburg Empire will be reorganized and aggrandized and consolidated. It will be at need as independent of Germany as of Russia, capable of joining either against the other should the Slav menace become threat