live in the two independent States of Servia and Montenegro, which are now to all practical purposes a single state. The other half live in the Austrian province of Dalmatia, the Hungarian province of Slavonia and the Austro-Hungarian territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In addition there are in the Hungarian province of Croatia upward of 2,000,000 Croats, whose language is practically identical with that of the Servians, but who use a different alphabet, have a wholly separate history, are Roman Catholic and were long loyal subjects of the House of Hapsburg. Finally, in the Austrian provinces of Istria, Carniola and Styria there are 1,250,000 Slovenes, less closely related to the Serbs than the Croats, but Slavs. Thus, in a territory as large as the mainland of Italy and bounded by the Drave, the Adriatic and the frontiers of Montenegro and Servia there dwell 12,000,000 Slavs.
Prior to the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, the Servian dream had been limited to the hope of reclaiming Old Servia from Turkey, inheriting the title to Bosnia-Herzegovina, and with the acquisition of the Sandjak of Novipasar joining hands with Montenegro and through northern Albania reaching the Adriatic at Durazzo. The sudden and forcible annexation of Bosnia, the veto of Austria to the Albanian aspirations of Servia after the first Balkan war, these wrecked the whole Servian dream. They also put the crowning touch upon the bitterness between the Serb and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had long existed.