Agram. While in Hungary proper the royal imperial united 
monarchy is being shaken in its very foundations by the victorious 
Magyar armies, the national separatist movement in the South-Slav 
countries is continually creating new difficulties for the Austrian 
Government. The Croats have now conceived the idea of a 
Croatian-Slavonian-Dalmatian triune kingdom, to serve as the focal 
point for pan-Slav aspirations in the south. This trinity of Pandours, 
Serezhans and Haiduks, this kingdom of red-coats, was at once 
“taken in hand”, to use the Austrian Croat-German phraseology, by 
the Croatian-Slavonian Committee of the Diet, and the appropriate 
Bill produced by the Committee is available in print.7** The 
document is remarkable.’ There is not a trace in it of hatred for the 
Magyars or of any precautions against Magyar transgressions. But it 
plainly bears the marks of hatred for the Germans, of safeguards 
against German transgressions and of the pan-Slav alliance against the 
Germans. That is what our constitutional-patriotic wailers of the Holy 
Roman Empire have got for their enthusiasm for the Croats.74° We 
have already earlier informed our readers that the same hatred and 
the same mistrust of the Germans is prevalent in the Serbian 
Voivodina.° 

The trinity of red-coated cut-throats begins its existence at once 
with conquests. Apart from the fact that it tears from Hungary the 
whole of Croatia and Slavonia, it demands the Mur Island, i.e. the 

* Published in the report “Wien, 16. April”, Ost-Deutsche Post No. 75, April 17, 
1849.— Ed. 

> See this volume, p. 294.— Ed. 

corner of the comitat of Zala lying between the Drava and the Mur, 
and the Quarnero islands of the district of Istria and Trieste, i.e. a 
small fragment of Germany as well as one of Hungary. 

In addition it demands the following rights: (1) the internal 
relations of Croatia-Slavonia with Dalmatia are to be decided by their 
respective Diets; (2) their relations with the Serbian Voivodina are to 
be decided by mutual agreement; (3) also, 

“closer political union is to be established with the remaining neighbouring Slav pro- 
vinces of the Austrian Empire on the basis of mutual agreement”, 

i.e. a pan-Slav separatist union**© to be formed against the Germans 
and the Magyars within the royal imperial united monarchy. And this 
right of separatism is, according to the Pandour-Serezhan way of 
thinking, the first right of man: 

“This natural (!) right of union cannot under any pretext be either denied or 
hindered in either the triune kingdom or in the Austro-Slav areas which wish to unite 
with the kingdom by reason of” (Croat German!) “the same or related nationality.” 

That is, our first, “natural” right of man is the revival of the Prague 
Slav Congress**’ as the legislative authority. How naive a demand to 
put to a Schwarzenberg-Stadion Government! 

These conquests and pan-Slav alliances are followed by a solemn 
declaration: 

“The triune kingdom has never been a German country” (Dieu merci), “nor does it 
wish to become such or even a part or member of the German Empire, and 
consequently the triune kingdom cannot in future be drawn, without its express 
consent, into any kind of union with Germany which Austria may enter into either now 
or in the future.” 

Such solemn declarations vis-a-vis the Germans are considered to 
be urgently necessary, although to our knowledge no one has ever 
regarded Croatia and other areas inhabited by cut-throats as a 
“German country”, and although Germany at the moment has not 
the slightest wish to incorporate the Otocac™ and Serezhan 
gentlemen into the German Empire. 

There is not a single mention of the Magyars in the whole 
document, not a single paragraph designed to safeguard the desired ‘ 
triune robber state against the much-lamented Magyar oppression! 

But the object of the whole thing is quite clear: the united, 
- centralised Austria for which the Government is striving and in 
which the Germans as the most civilised nation will in the long run 
certainly be morally dominant, frightens the pan-Slav trinity a 
thousand times more than the Magyars, whom they consider to be 

The New Croatian-Slavonian-Dalmatian Robber State 309 

defeated. Moreover, it is clear that among these petty robber nations 
hatred of the Germans far exceeds their hatred of the Magyars. And 
yet these petty robber nations are the allies of the Kélnische Zeitung, 
that German patriot! 

These general principles are then followed by a long series of 
stipulations with which the South-Slav robber states seek to 
safeguard themselves against Austrian centralisation, i.e. against 
German oppression. 

Thus the document proposes that all functions which this law does 
not expressly assign to the central government shall remain the 
prerogative of the provincial government. The authority of the 
central government, however, is only recognised in the following 
fields: (1) foreign affairs, with the exception of the above proviso 
regarding relations with Germany, changes in which require a 
two-thirds majority in the Diet; (2) financial administration, insofar 
as this is absolutely necessary; (3) military affairs, but only insofar as 
they concern the standing army; (4) commercial affairs; (5) roads 
and waterways. 

Furthermore, in addition to representation in the Imperial Diet, 
the trinity of robber states demands 

“consideration for the sons of the triune kingdom in appointments to relevant 

central government posts on the basis of the population proportions and the necessary 
qualifications” 

(elegant Croat German again!), dealings with the central govern- 
ment to be conducted in the official language, a separate robber-state 
Minister in the central government, and a separate administrative 
section for the robber states in every relevant ministry. 

Apart from that, the robber states will be governed by a “State 
Council of the Triune Kingdom”, and the armed forces, the army as 
well as the Banderial units,“ the levy in mass and the National 
Guard will be under the command of the Ban. But the Ban may 
command only the army according to the orders of the Central 
Authority; for his command of the remaining sections of the armed 
forces he is responsible to “the nation”. 

In internal affairs, the following changes are demanded: (1) the 
triune robber state shall provide contingents of troops no larger than 
any other Austrian province in relation to the size of its population; 
and (2) in civil matters the Military Border is to be subject to the 
ordinary civil administration and jurisdiction; the military administ- 
ration and military jurisdiction operate only for those borderers who 
are actually under arms. But with that the whole of the royal imperial 
Military Border will automatically cease to be. We shall return to this. 

This is the draft plan for the new triune Otocac-Pandour- 
Croat robber state which they want to set up on the south-eastern 
borders of Germany if the revolution and the Magyars permit it.