is bounded to the north
approximately by the line extending from Villach--Celovec
(Klagenfurt)--Spielfeld--Radgona (Radkersburg)--and the mouth of the
river Mur, although there are noteworthy fragments at each end: about
65,000 on the hills to the west of the Isonzo (of whom 40,000 have
been since 1866 under Italy), and about 120,000, partly Catholics and
partly Protestants, who live on the other bank of the Mur. Anyone who
wished to follow the fortunes of the Slovenes through the Middle Ages
would have chiefly to consult the chronicles of the Holy Roman Empire;
he would find them in their old home at Gorica, but with a German
Count placed over them, he would find them being gradually supplanted
by the Germans in such towns as Maribor (Marburg) and Radgona, being
thrust out to the villages and the countryside; nowhere except in the
province of Carniola would he find a homogeneous Slovene population.
It is an interesting fact[15] that in the fifteenth century theirs was
the "domestic language" of the Habsburgs, even as in our time the
Suabian-Viennese; but until the era of Napoleon they took practically
no part in the world's affairs, and the part which they were wont to
take was to fight other people's battles: for example, when the
Venetians, in the midst of all their hectic merriment, were making the
last stand, it was largely to the Schiavoni, that is Slovene,
regiments that they entrusted their defence. We are told that there
was no question of the loyalty and the fighting qualities of the
Schiavoni and of their sturdy fellow-Slavs, the Morlaks of Dalmatia.
It was not possible for the authorities to provide ships enough to
bring over sufficient resources to maintain all those who were eager
to fight.[16] In spite of all the centuries of political suppression
the little Slovene people, which to-day only numbers 1,300,000,
retained its identity with even more success than a certain frog in
Ljubljana, their capital; for that wonderful creature, though
preserving its shape in the middle of a black-and-white marble table
at the Museum, has allowed itself to become black-and-white marble. We
shall see how Napoleon awoke the Slovenes, how Metternich put them to
sleep again, how they roused themselves in 1848 and what a role they
have played in the most recent history.

THE FATE OF THE CROATS

The Croats were to be much more prominent in the Middle Ages. They did
not, it is true, always manage to hold their heads above