The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1923. GREATER SERBIA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 86, 16 August 1923, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1923. GREATER SERBIA.

Serbia before the Great War was a small strip of land with five million inhabitants, rtith a peasant population devoted to agriculture and nature, and with a past full of glory and blood; but the Greater Serbia, known as Jugo-Slavia, wluch has been created since the Armistice, has a population of fourteen millions, extends from Izonzo to Scutari, and is the very gate of the Near East. When the Turks captured Serbia 500 years ago the Serbian population was forced by the conquerors by degrees to abandon the towns and to retreat into the villages, and then to abandon even the villages on the plains or the banks of the rivers, where the soil was most fruitful, and to escape into the forests, the mountains, and the less accessible country. These scattered communities became intensely patriotic, and the small villages became the soil upon which has grown the Serbian democracy. Driven into the forests and mountains by the ruthless Turk, despoiled of freedom and riches, the upper and the lower classes, the learned and the illiterate suffered the same abasement and injustice; succeeding generations struggled against the same evil and sang the same hopes. Serbia is a country in which politics are taken very seriously, and weapons are often used to enforce arguments, culminating in civil war. During the last hundred years Serbia has killed no fewer than three of her kings. On the night

of May 28, 1903, the conspiring officers entered the palace and, alter killing the guard and the principal officers in attendance at the palace, chey slaughtered Kins; Alexander and Queen Draga in circumstances of extreme brutality, throwing their corpses from the windows of the palace on to the street, where they lay for three days, no. one daring to remove them for decent burial. After this terrible crime the conspirators sent for Peter Karageorge, who was in exile in Paris, and he was crowned King of Serbia. It cannot be said that the country has been tranquil during his reign, for Serbia has been engaged continuously in fratricidal strife, and since 1912 has fought againt Turks, Bulgars. and Magyars. At the beginning 0 f 1914 Serbia emerged from these wars victorious, exhausted by disease, and seriously crippled financially. Austria had in 1908, with the approval of Germany, annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, and only required some pretext for the annexation of Serbian territory. The inhabitants of Bosnia were chiefly Serbs, and the visit of the Austrian heir-apparent was a singularly tactless proceeding, considering the circumstances in which Bosnia became part of the Austrian Empire. In June, 1914, the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were visiting Serajevo, and as they were driving to the town hall a bomb was thrown at their motor, but the Archduke and bis consort escaped unhurt, though several other persons were njured. The Royal car proceeded to the town hall, where a reception was held. When the tour subsequently continued a second attempt was made upon the lives of the Archduke and the Duchess, a student firing shots from a Browning pistol, both be<\r fatally wounded. They were conveyod to the

Governor's house, but had meantime expired. Austria immediately adopted drastic measures towards Serbia, and the assassination of the Austrian Crown Prince was the ostensible cause of the Great War.