The Slovenes became a part of the Austrian possessions of the Habsburgs;
the Croats fell under the dominion of the Hungarian crown and the republic
of Venice; and the Serbs succumbed to the Turks by the middle of the
fifteenth century. The loss of political independence brought with it
ultimately the loss of the native nobility, the sole guardians of the
constitutional and historical rights of the nations down into the
nineteenth century in central Europe. In addition, many towns were
Germanized and the middle class disappeared. The Jugo-Slavs, like the
Czecho-Slovaks, appeared in modern times as a nation which had lost its
native nobility and had been reduced to a disarmed, untutored, and enserfed
peasantry. In the absence of these leaders, the nation turned to its clergy
who in order to retain their hold on the peasantry must needs ever remain
national. But here again the misfortune which awaited the Jugo-Slavs was
that historically three religions had taken deep root, the Catholic among
the Slovenes and Croats, and the Mohammedan and Orthodox among the Serbs.
We may therefore conclude the first half of the historical evolution of
the Jugo-Slavs with the observation that political, economic, social, and
geographical divisions led to their downfall as a nation and that if they
ever desired to become one, each one of these chasms would have to be
bridged.
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