They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [10]
Knowing now that he had finally lost her, Balint had followed her slowly, his heart filled with sadness: and yet it had been a mild sadness and on his face had been the slight ironic smile of someone who had had to forgo a pleasure he had never really expected to be his.
What madness it had been to throw all that away!
Thinking back to the past Balint stamped his feet in momentary anger and quickened his pace. In a few moments he found himself in the square in front of the station, which was full of bustle and noise for the express from Budapest had just arrived. Several luggage-laden motors passed him on their way to the city centre and this sudden rush of activity brought Balint to a halt. For a moment he hesitated, trying to choose between continuing on the muddy pavement in front of some warehouses, or crossing the road which was even muddier. Neither seemed sensible.
As he stood there motionless for a moment newsboys ran forward offering the capital’s midday papers. Thinking that anything might be a distraction from his self-torment, Balint stopped one, took a paper at random, pressed a coin into the lad’s hand, stuffed the paper into one of his greatcoat pockets and, without waiting for the change, turned away and started to walk back to the city centre. I’ll go to a café and pass the rest of the time reading, he said to himself; but he had only gone a few steps before he had already forgotten what he had just decided.
At dinner on the last night of his stay at Jablanka they had discussed the problem of Croatia. The Friedjung trial had been brought before the Viennese courts at the beginning of the month, December, and the Austrian newspapers had arrived at the castle that afternoon. They had all written about the case, and almost everything that had been printed had been disagreeable and critical.
It had all started when Professor Friedjung had written a most controversial article, which had been published in the Neue Freie Presse at the end of March 1909. The subject had been the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in it the Professor had named some fifty Croatian politicians whom he had accused of belonging to a irredentist organization supported by the government of Serbia. It had been fairly obvious from the start that Friedjung’s revelations had been inspired by the Austrian Foreign Office, for the material for the article could only have been provided by the Ballplatz. That these accusations should have been broadcast to the world’s press in this way had shown the whole affair to have been part of a plot by which the Dual Monarchy was to be forced into sending an ultimatum, with impossible terms, to Belgrade and then, when Serbia inevitably refused to comply, declaring war.
Some trouble had been gone to in order to prepare the world diplomatically for these developments. Germany had already confirmed her solidarity with Vienna; Russia, though reluctantly and with a bad grace, would not intervene, and various other European powers had made it clear to Belgrade that Serbia would receive no support from abroad.
The article in the Neue Freie Presse had appeared on March 25th, which had also been the date planned for the ultimatum, though this had never materialized because on the same day the Grown Prince of Serbia, George Karageorgevitch, had resigned his post as head of the pro-war party. A few days later Serbia showed herself willing to accept any terms offered her. Nevertheless the incendiary article had appeared and events later showed that, no matter what had transpired in Belgrade, the Friedjung article was part of a far-reaching plan hatched in Vienna and would have been published anyhow. A month later the monarchy’s Prosecutor-General arraigned another group of fifty-four Croatians, all accused of treason. This had been brought about by Baron Rauch, the Coalition-nominated Ban of Croatia, who was as anxious to see irredentism wiped out in Zagreb as were the Austrian politicians to stop Serbian irredentist activities in Vienna. The Zagreb trial had lasted five months and had ended that