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The early history of the relation between the Teutonic and Slav peoples in Central Europe throws a curious light on the situation of to-day. The Slavs when first known to classical writers differed remarkably from their Teutonic neighbours and rivals. The Germanic peoples, from the earliest times, seem to have had a capacity for cohesion, and much reverence for authority. They were always prepared to obey. They did not resent an iron rule. They sank their personality in their community. Consequently they were efficient conquerors. The Slavs on the other hand were individualists. They were so impatient of authority that it was with difficulty that they could be got to combine, even in their own defence, against outside foes. Yet they were personally brave, and when led by persons of another race they were most capable soldiers. But these characteristics left them a subject people. Their name became a synonym for forced and captive labour. Every language in Europe added to its vocabulary the word “slave” as the domineering Teutonic conquerors supplied the markets of the Continent with prisoners taken from a people too personally independent for mutual defence. By nature they were wanderers. Singly they were capable of valorous adventures. In small parties they were good pirates, and they made their prowess felt not alone in the Baltic with the Island of Rügen as their headquarters, but also in the Adriatic and Ægean seas. As a people, however, they lacked cohesion, and they fell under the curse of the Gibeonites and there never failed to be of them bondsmen—hewers of wood and drawers of water. They were not a practical people as were their neighbours the Germans, but they were an artistic people, and early in their history showed a talent for music and poetry. Although an idealistic race their religious organization was remarkably undeveloped. Their god of Heaven, their chief deity, the Thunderer, had as sons the god of the Sun, and the god of cattle. Their evil deity was Stribog, the god of storms. In early times when first historically described they seem to have got along very successfully without temples, images or priests—nature was their temple. Their goddesses were relatively unimportant—with the exception, perhaps, of the goddesses of Spring, and of Death and Winter—and were mainly river and woodland nymphs. However, they were adequately supplied with man-eating witches, vampires, and were wolves. After death the soul, they believed, had a long journey to go in search of a paradise, and had to be carefully equipped for the journey. Their pagan festivals were chiefly concerned with the seasons—the solstices and the equinoxes, and these functions, as we shall see, continue to the present day to be kept as Christian festivals.

The central European Slavs are in two groups—the northern and southern, and reach from the Baltic on the north to the Mediterranean on the south. Classified according to language and community of interests they comprise Russians, Poles, Ruthenes, Czechs, and Slovaks, who form the northern group, and Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs,[1] who constitute the southern (Jugo-Slavs). With the exception of the first and the last all these peoples live mainly in Austria-Hungary, where they comprise one-half of the entire population, the other half of which is made up of Germans (25 per cent.), Magyars (20 per cent.), and Roumanians (4 per cent.). These northern and southern Slav groups are divided from one another by a broad stretch of country which lies along the course of the river Danube from where it leaves Bavaria down to the Black Sea, and which is inhabited in succession by Germans, Magyars, and Roumanians.

When the history of the origin of the present war comes to be written it will probably be conceded that it was mainly due to the clash of interests between the Teutonic and Slav peoples. The desire of Germany for world expansion, to secure “a place in the sun,” to acquire colonies, and to extend trade, were doubtless all contributory reasons, but the determining as well as the proximate cause was the racial struggle that for many centuries has been the origin of most of the central European Wars. Germany has had on its borders large communities of alien peoples differing from it in language, outlook, and aspirations. It regarded these Slav races as low grade, and always exhibited towards them the hatred and contempt that dominant castes have for what they consider inferior—that is less masterful—peoples within their borders. Germany has included in its Empire many persons of non-Teutonic descent, and her policy has been to retain and exploit them. She regards these alien peoples as servile races. Sometimes for diplomatic purposes she has dissembled her antipathies, but she has never forgotten them. She looks upon her Polish subjects as a stern schoolmaster views his pupils. Their duty is to obey, not to think or argue. Russia, her great Slav neighbour, she always regarded with a certain contempt mingled with fear. She adopted towards her a policy of cajolery and intrigue. The Russian Government being that of an autocracy ruling through a powerful bureaucracy introduced into the country by the German-born Empress Catherine—a bureaucracy extremely democratic in its composition and formation—was remarkably open to this species of influence. Its bureaucracy was drawn from members of the limited educated classes in an immense population of illiterate, unambitious, idealistic, patient, religious people—a people without an effective aristocracy, without leaders, without self-governing aspirations. The lowest in the land might attain to high government promotion did he show himself astute, capable, and useful. In this way the Russian bureaucracy was democratic; and an autocracy can have no more powerful support than a democratic bureaucracy.

A large proportion of the immense population of Russia is uneducated and neglected. The great landowners along the Baltic littoral, who are mainly descended from German settlers in Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia, enjoyed many advantages of education and environment which enabled them to attain high rank in the service of the state; and they were consequently in a position to make their influence felt in Russian government at an early date. The authority they exercised was altogether pro-German in its aims and efforts; and it resulted in so directing the autocratic rule of the Czar as to aid German designs rather than Russian interests. What Prussia dreaded most was a pro-Slav policy on the part of Russia in Poland. It saw that such a policy would be a serious menace to itself in its own treatment of its Polish subjects; it saw that sympathetic and irresponsible governments of the same race could not exist side by side without manifest danger; and it guided the movements of Russian Officialdom in the direction it desired. Thus the great Motherland of the Slav peoples became their oppressor and their tyrant, and instead of building up the race into one great community and Federation, it played the Teutonic game and alienated those whom it ought to have attracted. Herein lies the explanation of the tragedy of Poland.

The partitions of Poland in the eighteenth century were the work of rulers, not of peoples—of German-influenced rulers who knew not the meaning of nationality, who cared not at all for the wishes and aspirations of the peoples they governed or conquered. The Poles were a Slav people of high intelligence who in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries became a great European power ruled by a Lithuanian dynasty. But this power suffered from inherent weaknesses which led to its downfall. The ultimate determining cause of the collapse was, as Professor Alison Phillips has pointed out, the fact that they had never developed a true national consciousness. Like the Turks and the Magyars, the Poles were a conquering race which never amalgamated with the conquered peoples, as the Franks had done in Gaul and the Normans in England to form an united nation.[2]

After their conquests the Poles reduced the original inhabitants to a condition of serfdom, and the landowners—the great lords (pans) and the gentry (szlachta)—were alone recognized as the “Polish people.” Added to this social and political gulf was a barrier of religious hatred. The Poles were Catholics while many of their subject peoples belonged to the Orthodox Eastern Church. These obstacles to a national unity were utilized by powerful and unscrupulous neighbours and Poland as an independent Kingdom had ceased to exist before the Napoleonic Wars changed the face of Europe.

Western Europeans realize with difficulty the power of dynastic influence in the government of races and peoples. The rulers of Germany and of Russia thought little and cared little for the feelings and desires of the subject masses whose political destinations they trafficked in as men buy and sell cattle in the market place. We can see the power of dynasty in the manner in which the Balkan States have been brought into the present war. The influence of hereditary government which has well nigh disappeared in Western Europe is still effective in the centre and in the East. The rise of the spirit of nationality has tended to counteract the influence of dynasty, and the subject races of Central Europe have become vocal and urgent in their demand for national unity and self-government.

Of the three great Imperial States of Central and Eastern Europe Russia and Germany have almost learned the lesson of the necessity of race union if their Empires are to endure. Each represents a great and growing people. Each is affected in its foreign relations by the fact that some of its dominant race lives outside itself. Russia is the motherland of the Slav peoples, Germany of the Teutonic.

There are, however, 12 millions of Teutons in Austria-Hungary, and 23 millions of Slavs, exclusive of 8 millions more in Serbia and Bulgaria. Also Russia and Germany have large elements of non-Slav and non-Teutonic peoples within their borders. Both do their utmost to Germanize and Russianize their alien races, and in the process have been guilty of many acts of oppression. But Russian misgovernment has been mainly of people of its own race whose relationship it is beginning to recognize. Germany on the other hand has introduced the strong hand to break the resistance and subdue the spirit of an alien race forcibly dragged within its borders.

Austria-Hungary, the third of this trio of empires, differs from the other two in that she is an agglomeration of races that will not mix, of peoples who will not amalgamate. She includes within her boundaries 12 million Germans, 23 million Slavs, and 10 million Magyars.

Germans rule Austria, Magyars dominate Hungary. The Slavs who equal both in number are treated as subject peoples, and are governed on the well-known principle of “divide and rule.” This empire of divisions and contrasts has up to the present been held together by three main forces—the dynastic influence of the House of Hapsburg, the joint army of Austria and Hungary, and the Catholic Church.[3]

The two States—the Austrian Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom—are independent of each other, each possessing its own constitution, legislative bodies and Executive Departments. They are held in connection by having one Sovereign and common ministries for affairs that affect both States such as foreign policy, the army and navy and financial matters that are mutual. Each State has a large population of Slavs. Teutonic-governed Austria rules over 6½ millions of Czechs and Slovaks, 5 millions of Poles, 3½ millions of Ruthenes and 2 millions of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. While Magyar-controlled Hungary governs 2 millions of Slovaks, half a million of Ruthenes, and 3 millions of Croats and Serbs. In addition 2 millions of Bosnian Slavs are under the administration of the joint Austrian-Hungarian Finance minister in Vienna[4].

In the following pages an attempt is made to describe the various Slav peoples who live in separate communities between the Russian Steppes and the Adriatic Sea. Starting from the province of Podolia and its chief town Kamenets (Kamieniec) the home of many races and many religions, and the scene of many attacks and repeated invasions of Tartars, and Turks, an account is given of the country and its peasants up to the town of Husiatyn in Galicia, the border town between Russia and Austria. The people of Eastern Galicia known as “Ruthenes” are really Little or Red Russians separated artificially from the remainder of their race who inhabit south-western Russia to the number of 23 millions. Dynastic changes that took no note of relationship of race or of language, cut them off from their own people and transferred them first to Poland and after the partition of that kingdom to Austria.

It has often been asserted that the government of Vienna has ruled its Galician subjects more kindly than the remainder of Poland was treated after the Partition by its German and Russian masters; and this is probably true. It was a matter of much importance to Austria to have on its side a people who could be turned into good soldiers and be a make-weight against the newly incorporated Poles, so the policy was adopted of setting one Slav people against another—the usual Hapsburg policy of “divide and rule.” The Little Russian peasants of Galicia were converted into a new nationality and a new name was invented for them. They were called “Ruthenes” so as to obliterate from memory their Russian origin. But they and their language and their literature are Russian. In religion they stand between Catholic Poland and “Orthodox” Russia. They belong to the Uniate Greek Church, acknowledging the authority of the Pope while adhering to the ritual, discipline and doctrine of the Orthodox Russian Church. The Austrian Government—the great supporter of Catholicism—has looked with disfavour on the propagandist efforts of Catholic Poles to win over the Ruthenes. Such a junction of religions would tend to strengthen the Polish element in Galicia—a consummation devoutly to be avoided.

In their efforts to manufacture a new nationality for their Little Russian subjects the Austrian Government also tried to give them a language of their own, with Latin characters to take the place of Cyrillic, a new phonetic spelling, new words collected from all quarters and new grammatical forms. A strong effort was also made to set up opposition and ill-feeling between this manufactured nationality and their Russian relatives over the border. They were pampered with benefits, they were well supplied with schools, churches and museums. They were given a large share in the magistracy and bureaucracy and their religion was favoured even at the expense of the Roman Catholic church. For the last half century Austria has done everything in its power to create and set up nationalities of Poles, and Ruthenes as a bulwark against Russia. There are 4 millions of these Ruthenes in the Austrian Empire. They are a passive and melancholy people, often deceitful and cunning—the characteristics of a race long tyrannized over and ground down as these were by the Polish aristocracy who lived amongst them. They are, however, rapidly improving. The competition of the Austrian and Russian Empires for their favour—for Russia has not been idle—is having its effect and the people are rapidly rising in the social scale.

Eastern Galicia is mainly occupied by Ruthenes, but as we journey west Poles predominate. Of this race are the rich landowners and aristocrats of the northern Carpathian Plain that extends through Galicia across the Russian border into Podolia where it amalgamates with the great Steppe country that stretches away to the Urals and the Caucasus.

The Poles have been described as a people with a grand past, but a sorry present. We have seen how their want of understanding, and their ill-treatment of their own subject peoples destroyed them as a homogeneous kingdom, and made them an easy prey to the powerful states that grew up on their borders. It is only of recent years when their kingdom had been destroyed, and their independence trampled in the dust that their economic renaissance began. Out of evil may come good, and as will appear from the descriptions given in the following pages Poland was on the way to a period of revival and rebuilding when with the war came chaos. In these pages the country is described as it was when the war broke out: as it was with its growing prosperity; with its better understanding with Russia; with the spirit of comradeship and nationality that was rapidly cementing the gentry (Szlachta) and the peasants: all to be destroyed by the coming of the German armies.

After Poland comes Bohemia, the home of the Czechs—a Slav people whom the spirit of John Huss still influences. Of recent years as in centuries gone by they have exhibited a courage, a determination, and a persistent nationalism that have won for them a position of remarkable power in the Austrian Empire. A couple of generations ago they were of small account in the Parliament of Vienna. Their language, which had almost ceased to be written, was gradually revived during the last century. Now it is ousting German all over Bohemia, and the Czech people are rapidly gathering national and political strength.

Bohemia is the principal and most progressive province of the Austrian Empire although in population it is exceeded by Galicia. It stands in a ring of mountains right in the centre of Europe almost equi-distant from the seas of the north and of the south. It contains the most western of the Slavonic races, and was the roadway and the meeting place of the migrant peoples who centuries ago roamed over the European continent. It is rich in mineral wealth and in agriculture. Its soil is very highly developed—one half of its area being under cultivation. Its fertility can be seen by any one who visits the “Paradise” and the “Garden of Bohemia,” and who travels the “Golden Road” on the upper waters of the river Elbe. It is one of the most important manufacturing centres in Europe. Almost every industry is represented. It contains the most valuable medicinal springs on the continent. Two-thirds of its population are Slavs (Czechs) and one-third Germans, while over 95 per cent. belong to the Roman Catholic Church. But the Czechs are Catholics somewhat Protestant in character. They have still in them much of the stubborn spirit of their fifteenth century leader and patriot John Huss. They exhibit an intellectual independence, a stern insistence on their right to private judgment, that are not strongly characteristic of other Catholic peoples of Europe.

Prague, the capital of the Czechs, is a place of many memories. Nature designed it to be the chief city of Bohemia as it is near the centre of the country. Tradition makes it the residence of the legendary Prince Krok and his masterful daughter Labussa and her peasant husband Přemysl. Long centuries later two fierce battles of the Hussite wars were fought here (A.D. 1420). Here also the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) began, and over a century later (1757) the Seven Years’ War may be said to have commenced with its siege. At the “Blue Star” hotel in Prague was signed the Treaty that ended the Austrian-Prussian War of 1866, and made a Peace that drove Austria out of the German confederation back upon herself; that gave Hungary its chance, and made Dualism triumphant. The Peace of Prague in fact changed at once the balance of central Europe; making the way for a great and powerful German Empire while it handed over Austria to a conglomeration of races not alone non-German but anti-German. And yet the influence of dynasty, the organization of government and the power of the Church have held together up to the present this strange and creaky empire. Its very weakness and immobility have made it the tool and the cat’s paw of the resolute, ambitious, and unscrupulous government of Germany.

Akin to the Czechs, but on a somewhat lower social grade are the Slovaks of Moravia and north-western Hungary, districts in which they seem to have lived ever since the fifth century. During all these years they have been a subject people—ruled in succession by the Avars, the Franks and finally by the Magyars, who down to recent times have tried in every way to destroy their nationality, even the use of their language being forbidden in their churches and in their schools. They are essentially an agricultural people, slow in mind, peaceful in character, fond of music and song, wandering often as tinkers and farm labourers all over Austria and Hungary. As wet-nurses and children’s maids they are much sought after in Vienna where their well-starched white bonnets, short full skirts, and brightly coloured aprons and stockings are familiar sights. In population they number about 2½ millions, and their language may be classified as a variety of the Czech. In religion like their neighbours in Bohemia they are 95 per cent. Catholic.

Crossing the German-speaking Archduchy of Austria and Magyar-ruled Hungary we come to the country of the Southern Slavs—the Slovenes, the Croats and the Serbs.

The first of these peoples—the Slovenes—numbering about 1¼ millions, dwell in Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and portions of Istria. Here they arrived in the sixth or seventh centuries, driven west by the Avars. Eventually they came under the rule of German nobles, but being a peaceable, placid people they, their language and customs, were not much interfered with, and they were easily and early converted to Christianity. Some attempts were made at the time of the Reformation to introduce new ideas amongst them by means of translations of the Bible and the use of Catechisms; but the Church after some unsatisfactory controversial efforts adopted the policy of burning all the Slovene books that could be found—a policy that proved successful in rarefying their literature and maintaining their religion. At present about 85 per cent. of these people belong to the Catholic Church.

The Slovenes come south to the Adriatic right into Istria—the Austrian province of Küstenland—up to the suburbs of Trieste, which itself is a city of Italians. Lying between this region and Croatia is the weird, wonderful, desolate country of the Karst. Long years ago denuded of its forests, subjected to the bitter Bora winds from the Balkans that swept away the soil itself, this district assumed a character almost unique in Europe recalling in a way the “bad lands” of Dakota. Crossing this strange series of ridges we come to Croatia, a land of many interests. Its people racially are one with the Serbs but are distinguished from them partly by religion, partly by language. For literature indeed the languages are identical, but the Croats adopt the Latin alphabet while the Serbs use Cyrillic characters. In their songs, dances, folk-lore and customs, in their brilliant costumes, in their love of colour and embroideries the two people show their race unity. In many districts both peoples still live in patriarchal communities (Zadruga), under which family life is controlled by the eldest and ablest member who exercises absolute power, distributes the work, and administers affairs generally. Both men and women are proud in carriage and handsome in face and figure. Illiterate, warm-hearted, dashing and reckless, the Croats make the best soldiers and sailors in the Hungarian Monarchy.

The population of Croatia is about 2½ millions, of whom four-fifths belong to the Catholic Church, and the majority of the remainder is made up of members of the Orthodox Church of Serbia.

Akin to the Croatians are the Serbians and the Bosnians, all belonging to the Serbo-Croatian branch of the Slavonic race. The language of the three peoples is almost identical; but in Croatia where the inhabitants are mainly Roman Catholic, it is written in Latin characters; while in Serbia and Bosnia where the Orthodox Greek Church prevails, it is written in Cyrillic. In Bosnia and Herzegovina over two-fifths of the people are adherents of the Orthodox Greek Church, over a third are Moslems and about one-fifth are Roman Catholics. In Serbia the great majority belong to the National (Orthodox) Church. These people resemble one another in their love of poetry and music: in pride in their race and in their history: in their customs, superstitions and beliefs.

In the following pages it is sought to give an account of their various aspects and to describe the terrible harvest that the war reaped among them as furnished by friends who knew and loved them in peaceful days and witnessed the infamy, the terror, and the destruction, that the invasion of their country by the Central European Powers brought upon them.