whisper to the Croats of the
ancient days; the Croats heard them gladly, but they could not stop
another voice from whispering as well. They had lived for so long with
another religion, another civilization, their eyes had been turned in
other directions, their hearts been filled with other hopes. And now
it was as if the modern voice was being interrupted by the ancient
voice. The Croats were inclined to ask the interrupter to be silent,
but they found they could not live without him.

ACTIVITIES OF THE SOUTHERN SLAVS UNDER THE HABSBURGS

In the Banat and elsewhere under Habsburg rule the Serbs were filling
their accustomed part and fighting, now against the Turk and now
against Rakoczi's insurrection, during which, between 1703 and 1711,
they are said to have lost about a hundred thousand men. Prince Eugene
of Savoy, in whose campaigns they took a large share, described them
as "his best scouts, his lightest cavalry, his most trusted
garrisons." And they are rewarded--Joseph I., making use of very
chosen phrases, insists on the merits of the Serbs and confirms their
privileges. And until the Treaty of Pojarevac these privileges are
maintained immune. This treaty came at the conclusion of the 1716-1718
war against the Turks; it put the Banat in the hands of Austria, who
made it a Crown-land, with military government and autonomous
administration. From this time onward the country, which had had an
exclusively Serbian colouring, begins to receive an influx of
strangers. The German governing class introduce Germans from the
Rhine, from Saxony, from Wuertemberg, Bavaria, Upper and Lower Austria
and Tirol. Not only are these colonists settled in some of the most
fertile parts, but Vienna also makes enormous grants of land in the
Banat to lofty military personages and to families of the
aristocracy, and these in their turn assist the immigration of
Germans.

But before the Habsburgs could continue in their efforts to
assimilate, by one process or another, the Southern Slavs in the
Empire, it was necessary to induce them to accept the Pragmatic
Sanction, for Charles VI., the reigning Emperor, had lost his only son
and wished to secure the succession to Maria Theresa. It is
interesting to see that Croatia negotiated independently of Hungary,
that she recognized the Pragmatic Sanction in 1713, whereas the
Magyars did not do so until 1733. Consequently, if the Emperor had
died between these two dates Croatia would have b