spectacle. The people were excited, as, of course, the peoples in that corner of Europe get excited over any matter or function of any sort of political importance. The excitement under ordinary circumstances would be one of pleasurable anticipation. On this day, however, the excitement may have been due to sensations other than those merely pleasurable. Certainly these waiting people were drawn together in their crowds because of the visit to the town, for the purpose of a military inspection and subsequent reception at the town hall, of the heir-presumptive to the Crown of the Dual Monarchy—the Archduke Franz Ferdi- nand, accompanied by his consort, the Duchess of Hohenberg. The Archduke, however, was not a man whose views and actions were such as could naturally and spontaneously excite the sympathy of a Slav people who were subject to the domination of his House.
In regard to religious questions—and these are of first im- portance in the Balkans, and certainly in the town of Serajevo, where religious differences are so marked—the Archduke was a devoted adherent to the Roman Catholic Church, believing that with that Church was bound up the welfare of his country and dynasty. Yet he could have been a devoted Catholic and at the same time an acceptable Prince to a people like the Bosnians. His religious convictions, however, carried with them certain unlovable characteristics. At the best, he was merely tolerant, because of the pressure of circumstances, to the Greek Church, the Church which, in one or other of its forms, was a supreme object of Serb devotion. Moreover, he had a violent antipathy to the Jews, being in fact a strenuous supporter of the Austrian Christian Social Anti-Semite party. Mohammedans he regarded as a dangerous element in the State. And, politically, he was first and foremost a Hapsburg. He was neither German, Magyar, nor Slav. His one object was to attain power and territory for his dynasty. As the Dual Monarchy was constituted, the German element was already, for some remarkable but unknown reason, in a state of passive and apparently happy subjection to the House of Hapsburg. The aim of the Archduke was to reduce the Magyars and the Slavs to the same state of subjection, but neither of these races intended to be so reduced. The Magyar loves liberty, to judge by his rule in Hungary, in order that he may oppress those whom he regards as inferior peoples. The Slav, in the Balkans, is indifferent to questions of superiority and inferiority amongst races, and aims only at his own freedom. He is content with that; he does not desire, having attained it, to become the oppressor of others.
