then Austrian Cabinet, since dead, who was certainly in a position to
know.]

The Obrenovitch dynasty was thus at an end. Its rival, the Karageorgevitch
dynasty, returned to power--naturally under a black cloud of European
disgust and suspicion. King Peter is not, however, as black as he has
sometimes been painted. He fought gallantly in 1870 as a French officer; as
a young man he translated Stuart Mill's _Essay on Liberty_ into Serb, and
for a generation he lived by preference in democratic Geneva and in Paris.
Under him Serbia has for the first time enjoyed real constitutional
government. Quietly, as occasion arose, the regicides were removed to the
background, the old methods of favouritism were steadily discouraged, and
it is not too much to say that an entirely new atmosphere has been created
in Belgrade since 1903. Among the younger politicians in Serbia, as in
other Slavonic countries, the moral influence of Professor Masaryk, the
great Czech philosopher and politician, has grown more and more marked.

The depth of Serb aspirations in Bosnia has two obvious grounds--on the one
hand, pure national sentiment of the best kind; on the other, the urgent
economic need for a seaboard, Serbia being the only inland country in
Europe save Switzerland, and not enjoying the latter's favoured position
in the immediate vicinity of great world-markets. Austria-Hungary, on her
part, set herself deliberately not merely to block this access to the sea,
but also to keep Serbia in complete economic dependence. Under the new
dynasty the little kingdom showed a keener desire to shake off its
vassalage and find new markets. The so-called "Pig War"--the breeding
of swine is Serbia's staple industry, and the founders of her two rival
dynasties were wealthy pig-breeders--proved an unexpected success, for new
trade outlets were found in Egypt and elsewhere. But the initial strain
hit every peasant in his pocket and thus greatly accentuated the feeling
against Austria-Hungary. At this stage came the Young Turk revolution and
its sequel, the annexation of Bosnia. To any impartial observer it had been
obvious from the first that those who dreamt of Austria-Hungary's voluntary
withdrawal from the two provinces were living in a fool's paradise. The
formal act of annexation merely set a seal to thirty years of effective
Austrian administration, during which the Sultan's rule had been confined
to the official celebration of his birthday. Educatio