Joseph was entitled to do was what he had deliberately refrained from doing, that is to say, occupy and administer these two provinces in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, with a view primarily to their own well-being, and secondarily to the settlement as far as possible through this action of the Balkan difficulty. In the end, as we have seen, and inevitably, the House of Hapsburg could not resist its hereditary predatory instinct, with the result that the Bosnians found themselves subject to the dreaded power of Francis Joseph, and also, what was to them even more terrible, to the virulent despotism and oppression of the Magyars of Hungary. The predominant race in Bosnia, in fact the characteristic Bosnian race, is the Slav, a race whose one all-pervading and predominant passion is political freedom. So Bosnia is not only in its racial and political aspirations in harmony with the Slavs of Croatia and southern Hungary generally, but is also naturally sympathetically inclined to the Pan-Slav, or in its lesser form the Big-Servian, gospel of which its near neighbour, Servia, is the most strenuous missionary. Servia, having acquired and maintained, against Austrian and Magyar forces, her own independence as a Slav State, has naturally become in the Balkans a centre of all Slav and particularly Serb, political aspirations. So far, therefore, as Slavism may be regarded as a disrupting element in Austria-Hungary, so Servia may be regarded in her turn as a most unsatisfactory and even dangerous neighbour to Bosnia.
Serajevo is the name of the capital town of Bosnia, and is situated not very far from the Servian boundary. It is a well- built town in parts, and, on the whole, from the point of view of trade and commerce in that part of the world, a particularly progressive town. In variety of race in its population it is typical not only of Bosnia, but of all the Balkan States. Its population is very mixed. There are Germans, Servians, Czechs, Ruthenes, and Magyars. In religion, too, there are several divisions. The Greek Church accounts for most of the people, but there are nevertheless about 15,000 Mohammedans and about 4,000 Jews. It will therefore be seen that out of the total population of about 41,000 people, the Catholics are in a small minority. The Greek Church, in this neighbourhood, is the church of the Slavs and Pan-Slavism.
On Sunday morning, the 28th day of June, 1914, a National Fete Day, Serajevo was arrayed in its best, with flags flying and colours streaming. Its streets were thronged with people intent on enjoying the national holiday, most of them, however, waiting eagerly as though to witness or to assist in some great
