Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-26
UJCOSLAV UNITY AHEAD,
COUNT SFORZA PREDICTS
Bulgaria Will Become Integral Part OF
United Slav State Leaning Away From
Austria, Statesman Prophesies.

democracies in which Germans, Hun
garians, SlavS and Rumanians would
have become equal partners.
Vain play to reshape history with IFS.
But one cannot help wondering what
Europe would be If Francis Ferdinand's
plan had become a reality-no European
war; feudal, aristocratic Austria trans
formed into sort of gigantic federal
Switzerland; an example for some tu-
ture United States of Europe, or at
least for a ''Mittel Europe" with no
German hegemony.
Indeed. a remote but essential part
Of Francis Ferdinand's plan inevitably
eliminated all idea of war and, with
war, the hatredS and the menaceS of
new wars that war inevitably engenders.
For not only was he planning the unfit
cation Of the JugoSlavS with the mon
archy, changing its character from dual
istic to trialistic, but he also considered
that perhaps some day even Serbia
might become more or less loose part
ner of his new AuStria-no longer a
German Magyar monarchy, but wider
union Of free national entities, linked
together by common allegiance to the
supreme HapSburg lord After all, he
must have thought sometimes, Serbia
had once been a sort of vaSsal OF Aus
tria during the reign of Milan Obreno-
vich, and at a time when Austria was
lacking the power Of attraction he was
dreaming Of her.
Jugoslavism rs Strategy.
Certainly the love of independence Is
with the Serbians, blood of their blood
But the Archduke was entitled to hope
that even the Serbians of Serbia proper
might have ended by envying the free
dom and well being of their brothers
beyond the borders, granted, OF course,
that these did feel free and happy.
The Archdukes thoughts did go as
far as that, was told by typically
Serbian witness, old Pachich. In Corfu,
where we shared, during the war, SO
many hopes and fears-besides the oc-
casional diversion of Austrian lombard
ments-the Serbian leader told me more
than once. when in some Of his rem
iniscent. moods, that he had never
trembled for the future of his beloved
little Serbia as he did when he finally
caught the secret thought Of Francis
Ferdinand.
And yet Pachich had a sort of super
human faith in the strength. the tough
ness, the vitality of his Serbian people
by which he meant only his little
peasant independent Serbia that had
never fallen under Austrian or Hun
garian masters. The wider form OF
Jugoslav patriotism he never under
stood; to him it was Croat invention
to repeat the very words he often used
with me during the war. Jugoslavtsm
was to him first a strategical necessity
during the war-and later on-dur1ng
the Versailles negotiations-a political
necessity; but I am sure that he always
looked with mistrust on the transforma-
ton Of what he would have called q
Greater Serbia" into the Kingdom OF
the Serbs, !Croats and Slovenes.
Early in August, 1914, some influential
Jugoslavs, among them Trumbich, a
noted Spalato lawyer, were already at
work in Rome. Their program was the
same-or seemed the same-as that
which was proclaimed in the Skupsh-
tina by the Serbian government in No
vember, 1919: THE unity Of all oul
brothers who are not yet free, Serbians
CroatS and Slovenes."
Succeeding in escaping from Prague
the Czech leader Masaryk arrived In
Rome in December, 1914; Masaryk's ln.
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