ation Zagreb will remain
particularist, zealously preserving the differences--personal, social
and religious--which distinguish her people from the dominant Serbs. The
Croat officers who burned with shame at the Archduke's murder on Bosnian
soil, the Croat regiments that in 1915 marched into Belgrade with bands
playing and their colours flying, the Croat officials whose bread and
salt came from the Habsburgs in administering Yugoslav countries during
the War--all these will not forget a long, deep-rooted and honourable
tradition. But Zagreb is now even as Munich was in 1866; after having
been the Rome of the Yugoslav movement, the seat of its philosophy and
the centre of its politics, the Croat capital has now an atmosphere of
sad futility, for Belgrade is the beacon of the Yugoslav world. While
comparing Zagreb with Rome one must add that she had also the misfortune
to resemble Rome of the decadence--a good deal of outer polish was
imparted by the Austrians, at the expense of their victims' backbone.
The five centuries of Turkish domination had no such demoralizing
influence upon the Serbs, especially not in the country places. In the
opinion of a very close observer,[119] whom I quote, there is nothing
that so thoroughly displays the dominance of Belgrade as the agrarian
problem. The projected reforms, which have been based on the principle
that no one should own more land than he can cultivate with the aid of
his family, would dispossess large numbers of big landowners in Croatia
and still larger numbers of men with moderate holdings, whose
compensation would be "determined hereafter." The application of these
reforms has been delayed for various reasons, but nowhere at any time
has it been suggested that Croatia might reject them. In the old kingdom
of Serbia, with much the greater part of the land in peasant possession,
it may be said that there is no agrarian problem.... Those enemies of
Yugoslavia, by the way, who have hoped that the particularism of Croatia
would be something altogether different from what it is, should have
mingled with the crowd at Zagreb on the evening of Prince Alexander's
arrival in July 1920. The Prince interrupted his dinner, came out on to
the balcony and made a speech. "Draga moja bratjo Hrvati," he
said--"Croatians, my dear brothers." Not for a thousand years had a
ruler of Croatia addressed his people in their own tongue. One immense
roar of delight broke, as the _Morning Post's_ specia