No. 43.
Mr. Kasson
to Mr. Evarts
.
Vienna , September 20, 1878. (Received October. 5.)
Sir: The undertaking by this government to occupy and govern Bosnia-Herzegovina proves to be a much more serious undertaking than its advocates anticipated. It has at no time been a popular enterprise with the people of Austria, while those of Hungary have been persistently hostile to it.
* * * * * * *
It is supposed that not less than 125,000 troops are assigned to * * * the conquest of these provinces. No great battle has been fought, but numerous rather obstinately-contested combats have taken place, in which the enemy * * * have been generally defeated, but have nevertheless inflicted losses upon the invading forces amounting hitherto in all to perhaps from three to four thousand men hors de combat.
The country sought to be reduced to a dependency of Austria-Hungary is occupied by a brave and historically warlike race. Their ancestors of the ancient Serb immigration fought the Romans some fourteen centuries ago, and finally reached the Adriatic at the ancient Dyrrachium, now Durazzo, which they captured by bloody storming. Afterward they constituted a Serb Empire, embracing Bosnia, Servia, Montenegro, and other adjacent territory. Later they waged wars with Hungary, and wars with Venice, and wars among their own confederated provinces. At last, the western tide of Ottoman conquest reached them, and brought them into nominal subjection to the Sultan in the fifteenth century. Immediately then commenced the suppression of Christianity and the propagation by force of the Mussulman faith. The old Christian nobility were more than decimated in the wars, some of those remaining migrated with their followers into Dalmatia and Croatia, while a large number abandoned their creed, and accepted the faith of their conquerors; and so retained their lives, their lands, and their dignities. The humble subjects who retained their faith sank into a class of despised and wretched serfs, tolerated by their masters who required their labor. The descendants of these converted Christian lords became the most fanatical of the followers of Mahomet, and are the landholding, warlike, turbulent, cruel, and unconquered Begs of this epoch. The Christian descendants of the old subject class are the contemned and maltreated rayahs of this century.
The Begs, proud of their pure Serb blood and of their domination unbroken for centuries, have, during nearly the whole period since the Ottoman conquest, maintained a semi-independent relation to the Porte. They have paid tribute and lent their swords to the service of the Sultan, but if their will was thwarted by a dominant pasha, they drove him off or decapitated him, and had no fear of occasional rebellion to substantiate their right of self-government, and their resolution to repel all reforms and all elevation in the condition of Christians which European civilization might force from the Padishah at Constantinople. Even after the temporarily successful effort under Omer Pasha, twenty-five years ago, to execute the firman of the Sultan, the imperial decree in a few years became a dead letter, and the practical sovereignty was again in the hands of the Begs, and the rights of Christian vassals became as insignificant as before. So for centuries, by intrigue, by war, and by rebellion they have maintained their tyrannical autonomy.
[Page 54]This autonomy, which has survived all former assaults of external and internal forces, Austria has now assailed with the moral sanction of Europe but with only her own financial and military resources. There seems to be no doubt that she will succeed in securing the most important strategic points and lines of communication, so that, in a military sense, the country will be “occupied.”
Whether she can retain and administer it without substituting for the Begs a Christian land-holding class, with arms in their hands, accompanied by disarmament of the Mussulmans, and even by expulsion of their chiefs—this question can only be solved by time and experience. It is a fit country and a fit race for persistent insurrection and for successful guerrilla warfare.
I have, &c.,