How Littoral Slovenians Viewed the Idea of a South Slavic Unit in the Habsburg Monarchy

At the end of the 19th century, Austria-Hungary was facing many issues crucial to the very existence of the state. Reforms made to the bureaucratic apparatus were quite insufficient for the country to participate in the economic race with the industrialized powers. ¹ Internal weakness worsened the Habsburg Monarchy's position within the international community, which was evident even in its relations with smaller countries. A customs war with Serbia in 1906 potentially held much wider implications. Soča, a Slovenian liberal newspaper from Gorizia, wrote: ‘The customs war between Austria and Serbia is intensifying. The Serbs plan to order cannons in France, material for railways in Germany. Everything is inflamed to fight Austria, which will suffer loss. Germany also has its fingers in this affair, and is operating against Austrian interests in the Balkans’. ² Although it appeared to be a natural ally of the Habsburg Monarchy, German nationalism narrowed the manoeuvring space for Austro-Hungarian diplomacy. Moreover, Italy, a formal Habsburg ally since 1882, was acting similarly as it increasingly encouraged the irredentist tendencies of the Habsburg Italians. At the same time, the Russian threat clearly could not be ignored while considerable attention also had to be paid to the Ottoman Empire. The latter was, of course, not a direct threat, but with the decline of the sultan's power, the question had arisen as to who would take over the territories of the falling ‘Bosporus patient’. This made the South Slavs more important since they occupied a considerable part of the politically unstable Balkans, and raised the question of introducing a third state unit into the Habsburg Monarchy. At the time, certain scholars like the French professor René Gonnard ³ and British historian Robert William Seton-Watson ⁴ saw trialism as a means to consolidate and strengthen the Habsburg Monarchy's international position, yet even they correctly noted the differences between the German trialism and the many Slavic versions of trialism, not to mention the Serbs’ opposition to such reforms. While one version actually represented ‘only’ the revival of the Croatian kingdom, the Slovenians, in particular, wished to include their lands in the third unit. On the third side, the Serbs were opposed to any trialistic version that would imply a Catholic majority. This article presents how Slovenian liberals from the Austrian Littoral viewed the idea and its different versions.

1. The idea of a South Slavic Habsburg unit

The large number of stakeholders led to many visions of the monarchy's future development, and a multi-entity political formation in which small nations could satisfy their own national ambitions was just one of them. This strategic option included establishing new federal units, which would relieve the burden on the Vienna–Budapest relationship. It was hoped that this option would not only reduce Hungary's ‘veto’ power and strengthen Austria's position through its role as a moderator, ⁵ but also significantly lower Serbia's chances of encroaching upon Habsburg territory. ⁶ Foreign Minister Aloys Lex Baron Aehrenthal believed the reunification of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, as well as the creation of a single unit with its centre located in Agram (Zagreb), should be the initial phase of the reorganization. Adding Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), which had been annexed in 1908, to the Croatian Triune Kingdom could then form a third unit, which, in the long run, might not be the last one in the federal concept of the Monarchy. Yet, several versions of the trialistic idea appeared in political circles, with some also including Slovenian territories.

Only two Slovenian political parties had managed to have representatives in the state parliament and/or the provincial assemblies, and both pursued the goal of a wide South Slavic unit from Trieste to the Drina River. However, the conservatives in the Slovenian People's Party (Slovenska ljudska stranka – SLS), who dominated Slovenia's geopolitical heart, namely in Carniola with the exception of Ljubljana, emphasized the Catholic nature of such a state unit. In contrast, their main competitors, the liberal National Progressive Party (Narodno napredna stranka – NNS), which was particularly strong in both Ljubljana and the Austrian Littoral (especially in Gorizia and Trieste), stressed its (South) Slavic character. In the envisioned Kingdom of Illyria, Slovenia would hold the status of a province and, in addition to Carniola, would include the County of Gorizia and Gradisca, Trieste with northern Istria, Carinthia and Styria south of the Drava River. Edinost, the already mentioned Slovenian liberal newspaper from Trieste, then a cultural and economic battlefield between the Slovenians and Italians, ⁷ enthusiastically described this idea: ‘These are no longer the dreams of some hot heads. The idea is finally taking on a realistic shape and approaching its final solution’. ⁸ Such Slovenian hopes continued to be expressed in Slovenian public life, despite some discouraging signals from top authorities. An instance of such discouragement was in August 1908 and in the context of BiH's annexation, when the Council of Ministers for Hungary and Austria explicitly ruled out any trialist reconstruction of the empire. ⁹ Slovenian politicians, ¹⁰ especially the SLS’ leader and most influential Slovenian political representative at the time, Ivan Šusteršič, were hoping that the political circumstances would alter following the change of emperor. They held high hopes in Franz Ferdinand who had disagreed with Franz Joseph on many issues and was seen as someone who would become strong enough to overcome all the obstacles and implement the federal reform. ¹¹ Karl Schwarzenberg, another trialism supporter, defined Ferdinand's vision of state reorganization: ‘I cannot utter the word trialism without adding that I am in favour of a trialist arrangement only if we simultaneously consolidate and exclude common matters from different parts of the Empire and these would be merged into a common body. […] trialism, which might be […] the golden path between centralism and federalism, where common issues would be dealt with in one body […] I could accept such trialism’. ¹²

Among the South Slavs, the trialist concept found support in the Croatian Party of Rights, which cherished the concept of a ‘political nation’ whereby the Croats were the sole holders of the right to statehood on all of the territory once covered by the medieval Croatian state. ¹³ According to some sources, Ferdinand had sent signs to this Croatian political stream that he held the same belief that Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina naturally belonged to the Croats and, for their efforts to hold the monarchy together in the 19th century, should be rewarded with the unification of their lands and greater autonomy at the expense of Hungary. For example, the Croatian historian and politician Ivo Pilar reported that Franz Ferdinand had repeatedly assured the Croatian nobleman Marko Count Bombelles about this: ‘Tell your Croats that they should be able to maintain their traditional loyalty in those times as well. As soon as I ascend the throne, I will repay them for all this injustice’. ¹⁴ René Gonnard also wrote that ‘the Eastern (Austrian) Emperor should promote the spread of European culture and Catholicism to the East’, ¹⁵ and mentioned that Archduke Franz Ferdinand advocated reforming the trialism. ¹⁶ The Slovenian historian Andrej Rahten also draws attention to Gonnard's mention of an unnamed Hungarian statesman who supposedly stated that Franz Ferdinand supported trialism and wished to establish the Kingdom of Illyria that would have its own independent constitution and include Slovenian lands, while Hungary would receive Galicia and Bukovina in exchange. ¹⁷ Still, it remains unclear whether this was a genuine strategy of Ferdinand or merely a tactical approach to gaining Croatian support in the context of undermining the agreement from 1867 ¹⁸ and/or testing out one of the many possible solutions for the Habsburg Monarchy, which, in the end, would not bring any substantial change for Croats and other non-Magyar and non-German peoples. ¹⁹ Marie-Janine Calic, ²⁰ for example, claims the archduke was against any kind of strong state in the Balkans, including large South Slavic state formations. Conversely, the archduke might have perceived a relatively smaller Croatian kingdom within the Habsburg Monarchy as an alternative and a counterbalance to the idea of Great Serbia, the biggest threat in the eyes of the archduke's advisers, ²¹ and could satisfy the majority of Habsburg South Slavs. ²² The Slovenian historians Gestrin and Melik ²³ also wrote that there was no proof of Ferdinand having been keen on the idea of federalization, while the Croatian historian Mirjana Gross ²⁴ notes that it is impossible to know the archduke's true intentions since, as heir to the throne, he could not openly advocate any particular reform program. Regardless of what he truly thought about trialism and the fact that one part of the South Slavs hated him, ²⁵ we can be sure that trialist visions persisted in the heads of prominent Slovenian politicians right up to the end of the Habsburg Monarchy. ²⁶ However, their attitude to the idea was inconsistent during the last decade before World War I.

2. Opponents to the idea

The biggest obstacle in making the state concept with three centres – Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb – a reality was the existing decision-making system that required the consent of Budapest for such far-reaching reforms. The dispute over the status of BiH showed that this indeed would be a huge hurdle to overcome. On the one hand, joining either the Austrian or Hungarian parts would mean upsetting the internal balance. On the other hand, the division, according to which Bosnia would belong to Hungary and Herzegovina to Austria, did not seem the most reasonable act since it would give rise to the dissatisfaction of some of the Hungarians and all of the South Slavs, particularly the Croats and Bosnian Serbs. Aehrenthal therefore sought a sub-dualistic form as a temporary solution or operational phase in his federal strategy. His proposal from 1907 foresaw the annexation of BiH to Croatia together with Dalmatia, which would then be a special part within the Hungarian half of the Monarchy. This sub-dualistic model would reduce the Austrian part of the Monarchy, but would also retain Austria's access to the Adriatic Sea in Istria. Yet, in the long run, Aehrenthal predicted that the initial enlargement of the Hungarian part of the Monarchy would eventually lead to trialism as the proportion of South Slavs would rise up to the point that Budapest could no longer stop its emancipatory aspirations. Therefore, this ‘will not lead to a strengthening of the Hungarian state but lead the Monarchy to the path that is probably the most suitable for its development’. ²⁷ Aehrethal's plan, however, did not impress the Hungarians, who rejected the new sub-dualistic concept and demanded the immediate annexation of BiH to Hungary. ²⁸ In this period, Slovenian liberal newspapers from the Austrian Littoral, Edinost and Soča, were reporting on the writings of the Hungarian newspaper, especially Aj Ujsag, which wrote in May 1909: ‘It is well known in Viennese circles well acquainted with events behind the scenes. Aehrenthal personally took this idea of trialism quite seriously in order to establish a third state within the Monarchy, which would strengthen the ruler's position in the Balkans. The Hungarian influence in this area of the Monarchy, however, would be completely excluded’. ²⁹ Paradoxically, the Hungarian newspapers in Croatia tried to spread the fear that the unit of South Slavs would only lead to political and economic problems and thereby harm the quality of life of the Slavic people in the Monarchy. In line with this thesis, the Hungarians were overtaking Slavs in number, cultural development and economic wealth, ³⁰ making the Hungarian leadership absolutely necessary for the well-being of the South Slavs. ³¹

Similar rhetoric could be heard among the Austro-Hungarian Italians, although they were convinced that trialism was directed against them with the aim of Slavic domination in Dalmatia and the Austrian Littoral.As the Italian journal Il Piccolo della Sera wrote: ‘With trialism Slavs see an opportunity to realize what in the past seemed to be only a dream of certain marginal politicians: the construction of a new South Slav kingdom that would include Carniola and the Slovenian part of Styria and Carinthia, all of Dalmatia (our Littoral as well!) and be attached to Austro-Hungary only by the ruler. This is a Slavic attack on Trieste’. ³²

Besides the Italians and Hungarians, most Serbian political parties (from Serbia and the Habsburg Monarchy) were also opposed to the trialist intentions. The strongest Serbian political party, the People's Radical Party (Narodna radikalna stranka – NRS), and its leader Nikola Pašić, cherished the idea of Greater Serbia with the goal of acquiring all of the territories inhabited by Serbs. From that perspective, the other South Slavs included in Greater Serbia should accept the rule of the Serbian political elite and the Orthodox domination because they already had two independent states (Serbia and Montenegro), which had allegedly managed to preserve more Slavic characteristics in their national culture than the Habsburg Slavs and achieved greater international support, particularly among the Habsburg's competitors. ³³

3. The Slovenian Liberals’ perspective of the Croatian–Serbian coalition

Different perspectives on trialist plans existed in Croatia. While the idea of having greater autonomy for the Habsburg South Slavs was welcomed by all parties, two political groups with differing visions were formed in Zagreb. Within the ‘New Course’ movement and after resolutions in Rijeka and then with the Croatian Serbs in Zadar, a Croatian–Serbian Coalition (Hrvatsko-srpska koalicija – HSK) was formed. ³⁴ In its efforts to unite Croatia-Slavonia (a unit within the Hungarian part) and Dalmatia (in the Austrian part of the Monarchy), HSK advocated a strategic partnership with the Serbs and Hungarians against the Austrians. Consistent with the aim of obtaining Serbian support, the new Croatian political wave began to deviate from the concept of Croatian rights on the lands of BiH. The leaders of this Croatian ‘New Course’ did not try to hide this, as seen in the speech of Frano Supilo before the Croatian Parliament on 25 February 1907:

The entire policy of both states (Austria-Hungary and Germany) has been directed to the removal of all obstacles that are on their way to the great ‘Drang’[…] If we acknowledge that our task is to be a guardian of the Balkans rather than a bridge over which the enemy will cross, then we also know that we can count on our Serbian brothers […] By recognizing the Serbs, we have again got their support for the reincorporation of Dalmatia […] But we do not know what is happening with Bosnia and Herzegovina. … Austria-Hungary is doing nothing to improve their situation, rather the opposite; it is hurting them, and wants to create a favourable terrain for a battle against the East. And if we are lucky and Bosnia and Herzegovina steps out of the Monarchy, it is quite natural that any true and honest Croat would prefer to give Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Serbs rather than to foreigners. ³⁵

Denoting the Austrians (and Germans) as the enemy, while simultaneously placing Croatia on the side of the ‘East’, represented a dramatic shift in the Croatian political sphere. In 1908, HSK won the elections in Croatia-Slavonia, while the Pan-Slavic Serbs gathered around the newspaper Slovenski jug even expressed the hope that a similar political agreement like the one in Croatia would also be reached with the Bulgarians. ³⁶ In this context, some Serbian newspapers were publishing articles in support of unification of the Triune Kingdom. ³⁷ However, during the annexation campaign, some Croatian members of HSK also began to re-emphasize the concept of the right to a Croatian state and in this sense the affiliation of BiH with the Triune Croatian state. Their cooperation with HSK came into question when they held talks with the Hungarian clergy and sought ways for Croatian political emancipation without considering the Serbian goals. This triggered an avalanche of criticism in Serbian newspapers. Simultaneously, some Serbian HSK members were acting against the idea of Croatian unification. Serbs feared that Croatian HSK members, despite the apparent preparedness to leave BiH to the Serbs, had quietly determined that this would not be necessary since they hoped Vienna would never allow such an outcome regardless of the Croatian formal position on this issue. The Serbian newspapers therefore competed over which one would condemn the act of annexation more strongly. ³⁸

Despite HSK's internal conceptual divisions, liberal Slovenians in the Littoral saw it as a recipe for the success of the South Slavs on the path to trialism:

Former lifelong enemies, the Serbs and the Croats, have united in a coalition that now stands, after the Vienna process, crystal clear and solid as steel […] We Slovenians must also join this party if we seriously care about trialism, […] That is why we Yugoslavs must condemn any excessive clericalism, let it be Catholic, Orthodox, Islamic. […] Let us unite against the common enemy, which is still very strong in the frontier lands! […] Our example will certainly have a good effect on small parties in Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. They will see their salvation in association with the Serbo-Croatian coalition and with us. ³⁹

Those Slovenians, mostly with a liberal worldview, thus saw HSK as a formula for overcoming religious differences. Moreover, the internal conflicts in HSK seemed to have been resolved by 1910 and its leaders’ public appearances did not leave any doubt about which concept of Yugoslavism had prevailed in the Coalition. Edinost reported on Frano Supilo's speech in Prague on 28 November 1910:

Relying on the works of Croatian kings and Serbian emperors is a misunderstanding of history. As statesmen, they expanded the scope of their lands, but they could not prejudge the scope of today's Croatian or Serbian politicians. Language is common, it is the same; and whoever today takes religion as an obstacle to unification, makes a fool of himself. The Slovenians are also nothing but a part of the Yugoslav nation’. ⁴⁰

This was an obvious diminishing of the historical state right concept, suggesting the defeat of the right-wing Croatian stream within HSK. Already in the first part of his speech, Supilo indicated that clericalism was the second-biggest fundamental opponent of Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian unity. Moreover, Supilo believed clericalism to be a pillar of the existing Habsburg state system that was extremely unfavourable for all South Slavs:

The Yugoslavs are artificially divided into various state units in order to be weak and incapable of doing anything, whereas together they could do a lot. In the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, dualism takes care of this division. Therefore, the only true position of every Yugoslav politician in this Monarchy is the relentless struggle against this state form. We Yugoslavs must ensure that we make our own decisions. […] The basis of each policy should be the following: the awareness that we Slovenians, Croats, and Serbs are one nation! […] In order to achieve freedom, we must fight clericalism! ⁴¹

At first glance, the theses on South Slavic reciprocity and the critique of the dualist system did not differ considerably from the views of the Slovenians and Croatians who were advocating trialism, but, in the last part of his speech, Supilo offered a completely different idea of reorganization of the state:

The situation for the Yugoslavs is similar to a prison. […] In Austria today, the German and Hungarian nations are the nation of the first order, we are all nations of the second order. If trialism were to prevail, the Yugoslavs would become a first-class nation, while the Czechs, Poles, Ruthenians and Romanians, who are culturally, economically and politically stronger than us, would remain second-class nations. This seems unnatural […] and therefore impossible. ⁴²

From 1910 on, Supilo radically demanded the formation of a South Slavic state outside of the Habsburg Monarchy. As part of this, HSK denoted the trialist idea as a Habsburg clerical attempt to deepen the differences between the Slovenians and Croats on one side, and the Serbs on the other. While Hungarian press presented HSK as Croatian-speaking Yugoslavs, who did not have a sense of Croatian unity, ⁴³ Slovenian liberal newspapers accepted HSK's arguments and criticized the strongest opposition party in Croatia, Josip Frank's Pure Party of Rights (Čista strana prava – ČSP). ⁴⁴ Yet, the Croatian opposition was too weak, ⁴⁵ similar to the Croats from BiH, who upon perceiving annexation as liberation, warned against the danger of joining Serbia ⁴⁶ and demanded from Aehrenthal the annexation of BiH to the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia. ⁴⁷

4. Slovenian hopes and concerns

Slovenians were certainly the subject of trialist plans, yet their specific geopolitical position created many dilemmas. The peripheral position among the South Slavs, direct contacts with the Romanesque and Germanic worlds, and favourable demographic trends in Trieste ⁴⁸ and Gorizia, ⁴⁹ which included the most strategically important Adriatic port, ⁵⁰ represented a possible source of difficulties in integrating the entire Slovenian national area according to the concept of the third Habsburg state unit.

At the time of the annexation, members of SLS had no problems with their affiliation of BiH. The party was indeed maintaining strong ties with Croatian parties that advocated the concept of Croatia's historical state rights and, in an effort to subjectivize the Slovenians and prevent their Germanization, the SLS tried to attach Slovenian territories to the Croatian-centred concept. The fact that Croatia's right to a state was recognized by Austrian and Hungarian politicians was in their favour. All prominent members of SLS acted according to this strategy, including Janez Evangelist Krek, who on 18 July 1907 stated: ‘We have written rights to be one with Croatia. And on the basis of these rights we declare that we will never deter Slovenians from protecting the rights of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia’. ⁵¹ Relying on Croatia's right to a state and pursuing the Croatian trialist concept, then, seemed to be the sole strategy that was able to separate the Slovenian lands from Germanic Austria. Since an administration in Zagreb was also expected to reduce the influence of the Italian irredentists, the trialistic idea found approval early on among Littoral Slovenians, where liberals enjoyed stronger support than the conservative SLS. Similar to the conservative SLS, the liberal NNS initially tried to encourage the unification of South Slavs around the Croats. At a certain point in the late 19th century, it was even the first to create ties with the Croatian Party of Rights. Twenty years before the annexation of BiH, Edinost in Trieste wrote:

Many Slovenians still dream about a united Slovenia […] but all the failures we have experienced in recent years should warn us that we Slovenians are too weak to win this battle. […] It would be helpful for us to politically unite with the Croats and Bosnians. […] And if we manage to do this, then the Serbian kingdom would no longer have the conditions to persist by itself: indeed, half of the Serbs in Serbia and the other half in Austria, this has no sense. The larger and more powerful Slovenian-Croatian-Bosnian state would attract the Serbian kingdom’. ⁵²

The same article then argues that there was no alternative for Slovenians and that the relationship with the Croats and Serbs clearly indicated who should play the leading role:

If Austria does not unite Bosnia with Croatia, the Monarchy will lose those lands. The Serbs consider Bosnia as their heritage and will wait for a good opportunity to take it. This would be bad for the Croats and Slovenians. […] Without the support of the Serbs, who do not love the Croats, Croatia would fall under either Hungarian or German supremacy. Slovenians also cannot expect support from the Serbs. They are only Serbs, they don’t like the Croats and Bulgarians, they don't like the Russians much either, they don't like to hear much about Slavic reciprocity because they only dream about their Serbian empire and think that the Balkans must obey the Serbs. They would not care much for the Slovenians, only to get them under their rule ]…} in the ‘Serbian Empire’. Croats are different. They were already willing to adopt the name ‘Illyrians’ to facilitate the association of Slovenians and Serbs; they will not demand any prerogatives, they recognize us as perfectly equal brothers. ⁵³

Glorification of the idea of a South Slavic association around the Croats was thus present at least in part of the history of both Slovenian political poles, while integration around Serbia was not perceived to be Yugoslavism but more the danger of Greater Serbia's expansion.

From the Slovenian perspective, the long-awaited annexation of BiH was seen as an opportunity to increase the number of South Slavs in the Monarchy, thus strengthening their political position and making the third unit inevitable. At a meeting of Austrian and Hungarian parliamentary delegations on 27 October 1908, Janez Evangelist Krek, a future leader of SLS, welcomed ‘the first step towards uniting all South Slavs of our Monarchy into an independent state under the sceptre of the Habsburg dynasty’, ⁵⁴ while Ivan Šusteršič stated: ‘… I hope that the time will come when not only the Bulgarians, but also the Serbs on the Balkan Peninsula, who are more related to us, will realize that the best guarantee for the free development of Yugoslavs in the Balkans would be a Balkan Federation led by our Monarchy’. He also clearly defined the opinion on the future of the annexed area: ‘… The act of October 5 will in the foreseeable future be inevitably followed by another act: the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the neighbouring Croatian lands. Then the perspective opens to solve our Slovenian issue under the sceptre of the Habsburg Monarchy’. ⁵⁵

Even though certain changes had already taken place in this period among Slovenian liberals in relation to the South Slavic association, most liberals then saw BiH as an area belonging to Croatia. The Slovenian liberal newspaper Soča thus wrote:

Instead of linking Bosnia and Herzegovina geographically and ethnographically to the Kingdom of Croatia and thereby solving the Croatian question, a stateless legal neutrum has been created that violates the rights of the Croatian nation, hinders cultural, political and economic development and may be the cause of new great dissatisfaction and complications. ⁵⁶

The Trieste Slovenians reacted similarly:

We approve the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina only on the condition that the people become equal in reality and not only on paper, and we are for the unification of Bosnia with Croatian and Slovenian territory to create one unit under the crown of the Habsburg dynasty of the enlightened Emperor Franz Joseph I. If dualism succeeds, why should ‘trialism’ not be in place? ⁵⁷

However, the Littoral Slovenians soon realized that trialism would not be easy to introduce:

It's a nice idea, but it depends on too many factors. The Viennese government will probably not agree to this program before the Hungarian chauvinists. Then the Czechs also have an important role because their state rights have even greater historical support than the Croatian ones. Yet, all Germans are certainly opposed to enforcement of the Czech state since there are 2 million Germans in Czech territory and represent a factor that all Slavs must reckon with. The Czech Germans will never allow a Czech state without their own national autonomy. ⁵⁸

This was also reflected in the emergence of different views regarding the affiliation of BiH. The Slovenian liberal Gregor Žerjav submitted a new proposal with a detailed territorial division of the Habsburg Monarchy in which he proposed establishing a special unit within the Monarchy consisting of three provinces, namely Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian, each with a royal deputy and a provincial chamber:

From the territory of Carinthia, Styria, Carniola, Gorizia, Gradisca, Trieste and its surroundings, Istria, Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia, Rijeka and its surroundings, and Bosnia and Herzegovina should be created the Croatian and Illyrian kingdoms and the Serbian duchy on the basis of natural law and thus the Yugoslav kingdom within the Habsburg Monarchy […] The Yugoslav kingdom should be divided into three provinces: Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian. Each is formed by the territory on which one tribe resides compactly and whose name has been substantiated in history. The Slovenian province would be called the Kingdom of Illyria, the Croatian would be the Triune Kingdom, and the Serbian Vojvodina and the Kingdom of Bosnia. Each province would have its own royal deputy, its own provincial government and provincial chamber. Zagreb would be the capital of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, with the central government being accountable to the central parliament. ⁵⁹

Žerjav's plan may be described as a transitional phase in development of the Yugoslav idea among Slovenian liberals as it took historical and natural law into account, while anticipating the need for a Serbian unit within the South Slavic unit.

The Vienna authorities delayed the final decision on the legal status of BiH due to various strong political groups being in opposition. In the process of negotiating on BiH, future reserve plans promoting a somewhat smaller third unit began to appear. On 16 January 1909, Šusteršič emphasized in the Vienna Parliament the line between positive and negative trialism:

[…] it is necessary to distinguish between narrower and broader trialism. German politicians have not yet come so far that they see a need for a broader trialism, that is, one that demands the unification of all Habsburg lands from Trieste to the Drina River. […] This is a different trialism than that advocated by the leader of the Christian Social Party and about which some very prominent leaders of the German Liberal Party are also passionate, namely, the narrower trialism, which is limited to Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. If trialism were carried out in this way, then there would be nothing good for us; on the contrary, it would be to our detriment because once again one part of the South Slavs, which is now strengthening and supporting us in Austria, would be alienated, torn away! ⁶⁰

Calculations of narrower trialism, without the Slovenians, or with only one part of them, were understandably the most difficult to digest for the Littoral Slovenians. In early 1909, articles criticizing the trialist idea started to appear more frequently in their newspapers in Trieste and Gorizia:

[…] what should come instead of dualism? Federalism, personal union, or something else?! There was talk of trialism: Austria–Hungary–Yugoslavia. But what should this trialism look like? Would trialism provide stability?! Isn’t the fear justified that in the case of trialism with three governments, three parliaments, and three delegations the number of problems would not decrease, but increase and be even more complicated?! […] Clearly, we can never count on this idea as being the solution. ⁶¹

The liberal Slovenians became especially critical of the concept of historical legal rights:

Let us set aside so-called historical rights and dusty parchments. On the basis of so-called historical rights, Italy might be able to prove its right to the whole Balkans, but so might France; and Germany. Turkey would have a ‘right’ to Hungary, and so on. In one word, from the historical perspective, anything and everything can be done. We must base our demands not on dusty parchments, but on life, not on historical but on national rights. ⁶²

The cause of this criticism of the concept of historical state rights was the fact that the ‘Pragmatic Sanction’ of the Croatian Parliament from 1712 was the only legal proof of a connection between the Croatian and Slovenian territories; yet, it only referred to Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, while Gorizia, Trieste and Istria were not mentioned. ⁶³ This implied that those lands cannot be placed under the umbrella of the Croatian state right and would therefore be left outside of the third unit. Hence, at the turn of the decade, the Littoral Slovenians began to openly reject the concept of a historical state right because the latter made them vulnerable in relation to the Italians.

The Slovenians in Trieste and Gorizia would most likely have been satisfied with Henrik Hanau's proposal from September 1909 that envisaged a South Slav unit made up of Croatia, Slavonia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Istria, Trieste, Gorizia, Carniola, Lower Carinthia and Lower Styria. The border in Carinthia and Styria would run along the Drava River. ⁶⁴ However, they were very sceptical:

If we were offered trialism, we would of course accept it with two hands. But we must not forget that at the same time as resolving the Yugoslav question, the Czechs would demand the revival of their state right […] and then probably the Poles would also demand the same position […] certainly the Hungarians would never agree to it.

In the same article, Trieste's Edinost proposes the following solution:

The Hungarians should be tamed by fire and sword, nations in Hungary should be allowed national autonomy under the control of a central parliament. [… Around such an Austria, the Balkan Danube states and Montenegro would gather in a few years to form a customs union and military alliance. Austrian industry would have its customers and the Monarchy could prepare for a march on Thessaloniki and Constantinople. Federalist Austria, which would be in a state union with Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania, would be so strong that it should not be feared when half of Europe rises up against it. On the contrary, dualism has brought it so far that it cannot even handle a small Serbia and an even smaller Montenegro. ⁶⁵

This article allows us to distinguish a new, much more revolutionary concept of state reorganization, which sought a solution in the creation of nation-states formed on the basis of national law, overseen by the central Vienna Assembly. Slovenian liberals often presented this as the only way to prevent the possibility of ceding Slovenian territory to the Italians and Germans:

What will happen in the south if the Croatian state right is implemented? Of the Slovenian lands, only Carniola with its border on the July Mountains and the Karavanke Mountains will belong to the unit of South Slavs; all other provinces, however, would be lost and be appropriated by the Italians and Germans. That is why ‘national autonomy’ holds greater value for us Slovenians than the right to a Croatian state’. ⁶⁶

5. Different strategies of conservative and liberal Slovenians

The Slovenians’ fears were justified. The demands made by German liberals for Austria to have access to the Adriatic Sea were supported by the German Christian Socialists, for whom geopolitical priorities were more important than any ideological alliance with their Slovenian counterparts. ⁶⁷ With the formation of the German group, which wanted the majority of the Austrian Littoral to remain in the Austrian part of the Empire, a diplomatic struggle of Slovenian deputies began both inside and outside the Central Assembly. All eyes were on Ivan Šusteršič. His strategy of attaching Slovenian territory to the third unit had two parts. First, he tried to create a South Slavic bloc or an association of South Slavic political parties that would work together in the Vienna Parliament. In January 1909, the Slavic Centre (Slovanski centrum) was formed around SLS, and then around the wider Slavic Union, which became the largest group in the National Assembly. The leadership of this group indeed increased Šusteršič's power and his influence on the most important political decisions in the Monarchy. He was even elected president of the annexation section, giving the trialist movement an opportunity to actively participate in resolving the South Slavic issue. The second part of the political strategy consisted of the expectation that the ageing Franz Joseph would be replaced in the position of Emperor by Franz Ferdinand. Šusteršič therefore lobbied the Archduke intensively, repeatedly trying to show that the Habsburgs indeed had strong interests in establishing the third unit. ⁶⁸ When corresponding with the Austrian side, the leader of SLS, as expected, avoided mentioning the third unit's separation function between German and Slovenian territory and shifted the focus of the discussion over to the reduction of Hungarian, Italian and Serbian power. Knowing the Archduke's sympathies for the Croats, he stressed the right of Croatia to its own state as a fundamental element of the trialist idea. He confirmed this at a meeting held in Ljubljana in 1909:

The Croats and us are in fact brothers, we are one nation and, my gentlemen, the last months of our parliamentary activity show that we Slovenians feel like a branch of the Croatian nation. We fought for the Croatian right because we are aware that if the Slovenians wish to play a role in world history, it is only possible hand in hand, side by side with the Croatian fraternal nation. Our ideal is, as you all know, that in close association with the Croats, we form a large Yugoslav state from the Soča to the Drina, and from the Mura and the Drava to the Adriatic Sea under the mighty sceptre of the Habsburg ruling family. That's what our fight is all about! ⁶⁹

Recognition of the Croatian historical state right and the inclusion of BiH and Slovenians in this framework within the Habsburg Monarchy was a constant in Šusteršič's strategy for resolving the South Slav issue. No one in SLS was opposed to that position in the period before the Balkan wars. According to Šusteršič's concept, the border of the future South Slav state should be set at the Drina River. In the long run, it might also attract Serbia, but, for the Slovenian conservatives, this would only be possible if the Serbs accepted Catholic leadership. After geopolitical changes had already taken place in the Balkans, on 4 October 1912, Straža, a newspaper under the influence of Anton Korošec, a prominent member of SLS and its future leader, wrote about the potentially wider Yugoslavia:

The path to Thessaloniki is not just of huge importance for Austria as a whole, it is foremost important for us, Austrian Yugoslavs. […] just as it is a necessary precondition for all our aspirations under the auspices of the Habsburg Eagle, so is the path from Ljubljana to Thessaloniki a precondition for the development of a strong Austrian Yugoslavia. ⁷⁰

However, SLS newspapers never mentioned Trieste, Gorizia and Istria on their pages. They only focused on the Slovenian lands mentioned by the Croatian ‘Pragmatic Sanction’, which created an even bigger gap between the two Slovenian political poles.

The perception that SLS was willing to leave Trieste and Gorizia outside of the South Slavic unit in exchange for Austrian and Italian support for trialism had a strong negative impact on the Littoral Slovenians. From then on, enormous energy was invested in criticizing trialism:

Let's just think! Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, with all three not even having three million inhabitants all together, are supposed to have as many representatives in the common parliament as all of Austria with its 30 million inhabitants! […] in any case, it will be necessary to go one step further – to federalism. Let us be clear: When the authoritative circles undertake the reorganization of the Monarchy, the new formations will not be determined exclusively by Croatian, Slovenian or the entire Yugoslav interests, but be decided by (…) primarily dynastic interests. … We think that this trialism was thrown at the South Slavs like a bone for them to gnaw on, while the others are enjoying a roast. […] Even if we incorporate all of the South Slav lands within the Monarchy into a single administrative unit, it would be too small to be considered as a unit equal to the others. […] And how do the Croats themselves think to achieve this unit with reduced trialism?! We must not forget that, when deciding on new forms of the Monarchy, the northern Slavs will also present their views […] Then the Croats will be able to achieve all that […] but not in the trialist, but in the federalist Habsburg Monarchy. ⁷¹

The Slovenians in Trieste also strongly protested when the predominantly Croatian journal Trializam published an article in July 1912 which predicted a South Slav unit with Gorizia and Rijeka and omitted Trieste: ‘So! Rijeka yes and Trieste no! Of course, because the Croatian Rijeka must not be left out! And Trieste […] can be taken by the devil! […] Gentlemen of ’Trializam’, keep your fingers off our national property, our Trieste!’ ⁷²

The rejection of trialism without Trieste led to efforts to find an alternative concept acceptable primarily to all Slovenians and then to all Slavic parties in the Habsburg Monarchy. The strategy of gaining Czech, Slovak and Polish support was based on a federalist model of state organization in which each nation would obtain its own federal unit based on natural law. On 20 June 1912, the Slovenian liberal politician Otokar Rybar even called for ‘the unification of Yugoslav lands in the Monarchy […] into an autonomous administrative district. As a result, the Monarchy should be reorganized on a federalist basis. For common affairs, a central parliament should be set up’. ⁷³ The latter should include all matters concerning the common army, customs, common finances and foreign affairs, while provincial assemblies would be completely autonomous for all other matters. The liberal advocacy of such a federalist arrangement with at least four federal units persisted virtually until the end of World War I: ‘If this trialism is to take place, then one must ask: why not the federal states of Austria: Austria, Hungary. Poland – Czech Republic, Yugoslavia? Such a solution would be something huge for the Habsburg dynasty’. ⁷⁴

The change in attitude to trialism among the Littoral Slovenians revealed another ideological dispute between NNS and SLS. This referred to the attitude towards the relationship between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and indirectly to the attitude regarding the disputes between the Croats and the Serbs. The liberal Slovenians were disturbed by the Catholic domination of the planned South Slavic unit. However, they initially criticized the Serbian autonomous policy in BiH:

Serbs voted not only against the Croat-proposed protest against the current regime in Croatia, but made a special statement. They spoke out against trialism and for the autonomy of Bosnia. […] the fact is that the Serbs in the Bosnian Provincial Assembly […] harmed our common Yugoslav aspirations. […] if the Bosnian Serbs demand autonomy for their country, they are, of course, opponents of the unification of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the other Yugoslav countries, and here they are on the wrong path. Perhaps they still secretly hope that they will succeed in achieving the unification of Bosnia and Herzegovina with Serbia. […] We wish the Serbian brothers in Bosnia and Herzegovina just a little more political wisdom and understanding of the spirit of the time. ⁷⁵

The criticism continued two days later:

The Serb deputies in Bosnia, who are so strongly against trialism, do not see how they are propagating trialism with their views on the full autonomy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, if only it were not Austro-Hungarian-Croatian nor Austro-Croatian-Serbian, but Austro-Hungarian-Bosnian! This would be the most unfortunate form of trialism because the Croats and Serbs as a national whole might achieve equality with Austria and Hungary more easily than Bosnia alone. ⁷⁶

Nevertheless, Slovenian liberals in the Littoral soon began to reveal a growing understanding of the Serbian concerns about the idea of a third unit under Catholic domination:

(The conservative newspaper) Slovenec stresses the association of Catholics far too much, instead of emphasizing the association of Yugoslavs, regardless of religion. The Serbs see the aspirations of these Catholics, they see the Croats in Bosnia who act against them in parliament, and they understandably are not receptive to what they and the Slovenian clericals are so passionate about. Clericalism is dividing and creating a growing gap in the Serbo-Croatian nation. […] Clericals dream of a great Yugoslav state which would be arranged according to them. That is why they speak only about Catholics and at the same time are raising their fists to the Orthodox Serbs. Of course, the Serbs cannot be interested in this and are pushed into the dream of a Greater Serbia with Peter Karađorđević on the throne. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Serbs declare they want autonomy for Bosnia […] because they know that, if they do not, they will be putting their heads under the axe of their Catholic executioners. ⁷⁷

Despite their relatively less favourable position, the Bosnian Serbs successfully manoeuvred and exploited the Croatian–Hungarian conflicts to preserve the status quo. Edinost wrote about that Serbian strategy:

The Bosnian-Herzegovinian issue is becoming hotter […] Due to the efforts of the non-Hungarian majority of the population for national autonomy, an independent Hungarian nation-state is as impossible as Greater Croatia is impossible due to the Croatian–Serbian antagonism. Consequently, the Bosnian Serbs are against trialism because they demand their national autonomy within the Monarchy. The Bosnian Serbs only accept dualism so long as there is no danger of uniting with Hungary. The Serbs would stand in solidarity with the Croats and the other nations in Austria against joining Hungary, and they would form a front together with the Hungarians against the incorporation (of BiH) into the other half of the state. ⁷⁸

Besides exposing the federalist idea of gaining the support of the Czechs and the Poles, Slovenian liberals joined to Serbian criticisms of trialism. ⁷⁹ They tried to find an ally among the South Slavs and, due to their geographically peripheral position and liberal-pan-Slavic orientation, were pushed into Serbia's lap. Evidently, the Yugoslav concepts of the Slovenian liberals and the Catholics within SLS varied considerably. SLS saw the key to South Slavic unity in the Slovenian–Croatian alliance, which was based on both belonging to Western culture and Roman Catholicism, while the Liberals placed Slavism at the forefront as a fundamental element of South Slavic political integration.

6. Reactions to the Balkan Wars

Serbia's successes in the Balkan wars aroused mixed feelings. In Croatia, some celebrated the victories of the Serbian army, ⁸⁰ while others rejected the idea of unification with Serbia, especially after the start of the second round of Balkan Wars, which was perceived as a manifestation of aggressive Serbian expansionism. ⁸¹ In BiH, the Serbian war victories were only greeted with enthusiasm by the Serbs, while the majority of Croats and Muslims watched the defeats of the Ottomans with trepidation. ⁸² Among Slovenians, however, the Balkan wars brought a spark of discord in SLS. The Slovenec newspaper initially expressed sympathy for the Slavic-Greek coalition and glorified the Serbian and Montenegrin armies. Such writings reflected Krek's views, which were opposed by Šusteršič who had remained loyal to the Habsburgs. On 20 October 1912, a resolution was adopted, stating that the Slovenians and the Croats formed one nation and wished to act in the spirit and direction of the Party of Rights’ program for the unity, rights and development of a Croatian-Slovenian nation within the Habsburg Monarchy. Even Krek did not oppose the views concerning a unified Croatian-Slovenian political nation as he was still telling his students in lectures that the Slovenians were in fact ‘mountain Croats’. ⁸³ Yet, he was ready to make concessions to the Serbs on religious autonomy, but only if the Serbs would recognize the concept of the right to a Croatian state. On the other side, Šusteršič did not completely deny Serbia's rights to access the Adriatic Sea:

We must not prevent Serbia from getting a reward for its famous victorious army. We should not close the route to the Adriatic through Albania either because Serbia would otherwise be looking for these routes through Bosnia. […] We do not have the power in the Balkans due to our internal weakness caused by dualism. […] What have we done with Bosnia and Herzegovina? Dissatisfied country and people! … And how is it going in Croatia? […] In these momentous times, Croatia is enslaved such that it cannot pursue its most vital of interests. In this way, sympathies cannot be gained from the Yugoslavs. ⁸⁴

Due to the apparent collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Šusteršič even suggested entering into negotiations with Serbia. According to him, a partnership with Serbia and support for the Serbian acquisition of Albanian territory could ensure not just stability for Austria-Hungary along its south-eastern borders but also the accession of BiH to the Croatian-Slovenian unit. Evidently, there were no significant geopolitical differences between Krek and Šusteršič. Their fundamental demand was to ‘give the Croats and the Slovenians a homeland’ within the Habsburg framework. ⁸⁵ Accordingly, only one month before the assassination in Sarajevo, Krek stated: ‘Solve the Yugoslav question by bringing the Catholic Croats and Slovenians together under the Austrian Empire, and then the country will be so strong that you (Austrians) will always have a free way to the sea’. ⁸⁶ Both Šusteršič and Krek placed their hopes in Franz Ferdinand even though he had also flirted with ‘narrow trialism’, which was not entirely in line with Slovenian wishes. The concept, whereby Vojvodina would remain under Hungary while the whole of Styria, Carinthia, Gorizia and Trieste would remain under Austria, apparently seemed the most realistic from the SLS perspective.

Slovenian liberals were at first more united in celebrating the success of the Balkan coalition, while liberals in Trieste were convinced that it was just an introduction to Slavic unification in South-East Europe: ‘The struggle of the Christians in the Balkans is in the last stage […] these nations are members of the great Slavic family, joined by all of us to whom God gave Slavic birth and a Slavic soul … this gigantic struggle of the Balkan people is a Slavic epoch’. ⁸⁷ At that time, the Slovenian liberal newspapers had presented Serbia as the ideal of the struggle for Yugoslav freedom, and Vienna's anti-Serbian policy was implicitly equated with anti-Slavism. The euphoria triggered by the first round of the Balkan Wars then led to a tremendous rise of anti-German and anti-Italian articles as well as radical demands to federalize the Habsburg Monarchy appearing in the Littoral Slovenian newspapers:

(our) fundamental requirement is: the elimination of dualism; positive request: recognition of the annexation of almost the entire European part of the Ottoman Empire by Balkan countries. National government or home rule and, until this becomes possible, administrative concentration of all Yugoslavs in a real political entity instead of dividing them into many smaller historic-political entities; we demand an independent Croatia that would only be tied to Hungary to the extent that Hungary is tied to Austria; we then demand economic and political union with the Balkan Federation. ⁸⁸

Euphoria could be felt in Trieste and Gorizia as well. Slovenian liberals from the Northern Austrian Littoral not only rejected trialism and called for federalization, but also demanded the integration of the Habsburg South Slavs with other Slavs in the Balkans:

Why we do not like trialism. It might be useful for us if we were selfish. But if Austria becomes a trialist monarchy, the issue of a Great Germany would be raised […] this would not only be a new problem on the European level, but also an action against the Czechs. Notwithstanding this, the Greater Germany is likely to become a more serious problem for us […] and thus Yugoslavs would be subject to two imperialist tendencies, of Germans and Russians. […] We are for cultural contacts among all Slavs, we demand the autonomy and independence of the Balkans, all of this in such a state-legal form that would enable Austria to merge with the Balkan Union. ⁸⁹

After the second round of the Balkan Wars, frustration over South Slavic rivalry replaced the enthusiasm of the Slovenian liberals, as seen in what they wrote in their newspapers:

This is how our brothers in the Balkans fight with each other in line with the old Slavic custom. It would be better for an unfortunate land to be imprisoned by a foreigner than to come into the possession of a brother […] The book of history, written in blood and with indescribable suffering is unfolding in front of the Slavs, and all for nothing; […] The Balkan Slavs will see their compatriots when Old Serbia and Macedonia fall into the hands of a foreigner; […] Then the brothers and neighbours will try to shake hands, break the chains, shake off the leeches, and it will be difficult or impossible to tear down the bridge built by the Germans over the Balkan provinces, over the souls of the Balkan nations to Thessaloniki and the Orient. ⁹⁰

From that moment on, the pan-Slavic Slovenians narrowed down the ‘Yugoslav nation’ to the Slovenians, Croats and Serbs, and excluded the Bulgarians. Slovenian proponents of the broadest Yugoslav concept thus moved away from their ideals and accepted the political reality. However, some of Slovenian liberals from Gorizia perceived the danger that would arise should the geopolitical centre of the future Yugoslav state move further to the East: ‘Events in Italy show the latest trends in Italian politics. This policy is directed against us, Slovenians and Croats. […] Italy is nowadays preparing for war and to acquire the whole coast from the source of the Soča River to the Bay of Kotor. […] What is even more interesting, Italy is counting on the support of Serbia’. ⁹¹

7. Conclusion

Many Austrian politicians were aware of non-functional dualistic system and the meaning of a changed balance of power in the Balkans, and therefore warned against the passivity of Austrian diplomacy. The situation was described by Professor Josef Redlich:

The danger of a war with Russia and the Balkan countries is increasing. […] It is clear that, if we stay inactive, the Balkan Alliance will continue to arm itself, it will also gain Romania […] and, in order to completely destroy us, it will also connect with Russia, which will then be fully prepared. At the same time, I do not have to emphasize that Italy will simply occupy the rest of the coast and Southern Tyrol’. ⁹²

From this aspect, the reorganization of the Habsburg Monarchy should allow Austria easier decision-making and thus a more effective foreign policy. However, despite awareness of the situation, there was no consensus in Austria on how to resolve the problem. Some suggested a preventive war, others warned and advised Austria to pursue a positive policy with respect to Serbia and bring it into a position of economic dependence. Yet, at the time, the Habsburg Monarchy did not have international support for a military intervention, meaning that Franz Joseph and Franz Ferdinand were not in support of war. ⁹³

In that context, it seemed that there was some manoeuvring space for creating a third unit within the monarchy, but, knowing the strength of the Hungarian, Italian and German opposition, one may question whether Franz Ferdinand truly counted on it being implemented. In addition, there was the lack of a coordinated Slavic policy as well; insisting on a special Croatian-Slovenian status soon isolated SLS and its Croatian partners in the central political institution of the Monarchy. One unexpected blow to trialism was the lack of Czech support, as they perceived a danger of being the sole Slavic nation in the Austrian part of the Monarchy. ⁹⁴ Not only were the South Slavs insufficiently strong, but a considerable number of them even worked against trialism, including part of Slovenian liberals. Their mixed reactions reflect their wandering in search for a solution to the extremely difficult situation facing the Littoral Slovenians. However, their political attempts were unsuccessful; they failed to attract significant support even among Slovenians. Therefore, although the non-realization of trialism was in line with their program, we cannot attribute much influence for this to them as their actions mostly remained on the margins of the political scene.