-about 40 per cent. of the
population--to stand very much aloof from the Croats. This state of
things was naturally very pleasing to the Magyar imperialist Ban,
Count Khuen-Hedervary, whereas Strossmayer's Yugoslav idea would have,
owing to the intermingling of the two religions, a particularly
favourable ground in Bosnia. It may be that Leo XIII.'s conception of
drawing back the Slavs to Rome will remain a dream, but his and
Strossmayer's policy of an alliance would have been a blessing to the
Yugoslavs, and primarily in such provinces as Bosnia and Croatia.
Negotiations were begun in 1882, between Strossmayer and the Serbian
Government, with a view to establishing a Concordat. Serbia's Roman
Catholic subjects--who, by the way, were not very numerous--would be
placed under a patriotic priest depending not on Austria-Hungary but
directly on Rome. And thus the fence between them and their Orthodox
kindred would be gradually broken down. It would be foolish to assert
that Strossmayer and his fellow-workers were able to make all the
Yugoslavs dismiss their religious differences and remember their
national affinities. Orthodox and Catholic Slav have for so long been
divided that their approach to one another must often be slow and is
liable to be interrupted by the manoeuvres of third parties. The
Austrians were pretty successful, just before and during the Great
War, in setting the Catholic and Orthodox Bosniak at each other's
throat, and this antagonism will endure for a while in remote
districts, such as in a certain village of the Sandjak where one
found, in the summer of 1919, that the Catholic chief official and his
wife were compelled to dismiss their Orthodox maid, since the
villagers would not allow her to continue to serve in a Catholic
house. But Strossmayer's statesmanship went a long way towards
breaking down these barriers. "I have had to set my face against your
mission," said von Khevenhueller, the Austro-Hungarian Minister, to
Father Tondini when this Italian Barnabite, in whom Strossmayer had
every confidence, came to Belgrade. "It is one of our principles,
inherited from Schwarzenberg and Metternich," said the Minister, "that
we should exercise a sort of control over the Serbian Catholics by
having them under the jurisdiction of an Austrian Bishop." When
Strossmayer visited Belgrade, for the purpose of conducting
confirmations, he was driven at once, amid the booming of cannon, to
the royal palace. And if