THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



489 



In habits and purpose they are in sharp con- 

 trast to the Croats and Slavonians, their near 

 kin. Constantly intermarrying with Germans, 

 Hungarians and Italians, they have seemed 

 until very recently little affected by racial con- 

 cerns. They are industrious, pliant, little in- 

 clined to resist or complain. Perhaps in con- 

 sequence the Austrians treated them with a 

 moderation shown to no other subject Slavs. 

 They number about 1,350,000, are Roman 

 Catholics and use the Latin alphabet. 



THE SLAVONIANS 



The Slavonians, people who have appro- 

 priated the ethnic name of their race, are 

 neighbors of the Croats on the north. In 1840 

 the Hungarians imposed the Magyar on both as 

 the official language, whereupon the smoulder- 

 ing hatred for all things Hungarian burst into 

 flame. Everywhere insurrection broke out. 



After 1868 the Croatian-Slavonians enjoyed 

 the empty honor of being entitled the King- 

 dom of Croatia-Slavonia. Controlled directly 

 by Hungary, their Ban or King was appointed 

 by the Hungarian Premier and was subject to 

 instant dismissal by him. The National As- 

 sembly was limited to strictly local affairs, but 

 its every enactment required the approval of 

 the Hungarian minister for Croatia-Slavonia 

 who was himself a member of the Hungarian 

 cabinet. This device of "The Kingdom of 

 Croatia-Slavonia" was most dexterous for 

 soothing the pride and dictating the action of 

 a subject people. Temporarily successful, in 

 the end it enraged the inhabitants, as they real- 

 ized how plausibly they had been duped. 



CZECHOSLOVAKIA * 



The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was an 

 anomaly, both as to its system and as to the 

 ethnical composition of its inhabitants. A ref- 

 erence to its method will throw some light 

 upon present and future conditions. 



Austria-Hungary consisted of two equal and 

 independent parts, Austria and Hungary. In 

 Austria in 1910 there were 9,950,000 Austrian 

 Germans as against 18,243,000 non-Germans 

 of various races, mainly Slav. In Hungary in 

 1910 there were 10,051,000 Magyars as against 

 10,836,000 non-Magyars of various races. 



The Germans, though but one-third the popu- 

 lation in the one, were dominant there and the 

 Magyars (see page 497), though less than half 

 the population in the other, were dominant 

 there. To maintain this ascendancy of these 

 two minorities summed up all the internal 

 policy and determined most of the foreign 

 policy of Austria-Hungary. 



The Austrian-Germans and the Magyars al- 

 ways disliked each other. The Austrian was 

 a foreigner at Buda-Pest and the Magyar at 



* See also, in National Geographic Maga- 

 zine, "The Land of Contrast" (Austria-Hun- 

 gary), by D. W. and A. S. Iddings (December, 

 1912), and "Hungary, a Land of Shepherd 

 Kings," by C. Townley Fullam (October, 1914). 



Vienna. But each recognized that his own po- 

 litical salvation depended largely on alliance 

 with the other. To the Austrian especially it * 

 was an absolute necessity. The ascendancy of 

 each was to be ascribed in part to long monop- 

 oly of power and to superior cleverness in 

 manipulation. 



But always it could count on jealousies and 

 divisions among the Slavic subjects, a condi- 

 tion always encouraged. More than once the 

 hopes of some one of its subject Slavic peo- 

 ples have approached realization, only to be 

 thwarted by the opposition of other Slavs or 

 by its own dissensions. 



The disruption of the Austro-Hungarian 

 Empire left the Magyars in much the same 

 position as before, but broke Austria into frag- 

 ments. The Austrian Germans still formed a 

 compact body, but each of the subject Slavic 

 peoples sprang to a realization of the national 

 idea. 



The Germans inhabit a large territory, ex- 

 tending from Switzerland south of Bavaria to 

 a little east of Vienna; also a belt of German 

 population almost surrounds the Czechs, and 

 German enclaves are dotted like islands in the 

 midst of neighboring Magyars and Slavs. 



Despite frequent usage, it must not be for- 

 gotten that the word Austrian never was iden- 

 tified with or represented a nation. It is a 

 convenient distinguishing term, as in saying 

 that the Austrian Germans have strong sym- 

 pathies with the Germans in the former Ger- 

 man Empire and will ultimately unite with 

 them. 



The former South Slav, or Jugo-Slav, sub- 

 jects of Austria-Hungary, the Bosnians, Hel- 

 vats, Croats, Slavonians, Dalmatians, and 

 Slovenes, were described among the races of 

 Jugo-Slavia, where they are placed by geogra- 

 phy. The other Slavic peoples, former subjects 

 of Austria, are the Czechs, Moravians, Slovaks, 

 and Ruthenians. 



The Czechs, together with the Slovaks and 

 Moravians, are now recognized by the United 

 States and the Entente Allies as forming the 

 independent Czecho-Slovak nation. On the 

 map one remarks the broad area, inhabitated 

 by Germans and Magyars, which separates the 

 Czecho-Slovaks from the Jugo-Slavs. 



THE CZECHS* 



The Czechs or Bohemians are the farthest 

 west, surrounded except on the east by a Ger- 

 man population. Bohemia, Czech in Slavic, de- 

 rives its name from the Boii, a Celtic people 

 who once occupied the country and who were 

 succeeded by various German tribes. Long 

 afterward the Czechs took possession, prob- 

 ably during the great Slavic invasion of the 

 sixth century. 



The Czech nobles or land-proprietors soon 

 adopted German ways and spoke only German. 

 Christianized by Saint Methodius, the middle 



* See also, in National, Geographic Maga- 

 zine, "Bohemia and the Czechs," by Ales 

 Hrdlicka (February, 1917). 



