The first external result of Serbia's efforts was seen in 1905, when
forty young intellectuals of Croatia, Dalmatia and Istria met at Rieka
and, while accepting the union of Croatia with Hungary, called on the
Serbian political parties to join them. Twenty-six Serbian deputies
met at Zadar, endorsed this policy and formed with the Croats the
Serbo-Croat Coalition, to which the Slovenes also subscribed. Francis
Kossuth, the Magyar Opposition leader, welcomed with eloquent phrases
the idea of an alliance between his party and the new Coalition; but
when he came into power he forsook this attitude and exhibited the
ordinary Magyar ruthlessness--he himself introducing a bill to make
the Magyar language obligatory on Croatia's railways, and if a
prospective Croat passenger did not know what name the Magyars had
given to his old home and could not ask for a ticket in the Magyar
language, he was told to stop where he was until he had acquired the
necessary knowledge. In general, the Magyars had no reason to be
dissatisfied with the sort of knowledge that the world had of them. In
1907, when a funeral pall was spread over the liberties of the Croats,
Serbs, Slovaks and Roumanians in Hungary, Mr. Roosevelt, who was
making his famous tour, gave many bouquets to "immortal Hungary," the
"virtuous," the "chivalrous." The Serbo-Croats tried, by every
possible method, to hold out against Buda-Pest. A Ban--Baron
Rauch--was appointed with the special purpose of breaking the
Coalition; and when the Serbo-Croats obtained fifty-seven seats out
of eighty-eight, although one-half of the electorate consisted of
employees dependent on the Government, an order was issued proroguing
the new Diet.
In fact the Austro-Hungarian authorities had resolved to suppress any
Yugoslav union. To the Dalmatians, who were in need of schools, roads
and railways, they said, "Show us first that you are patriotic
subjects of the House of Habsburg." Necessities, as Hermann Bahr has
pointed out[65] were thus turned into rewards, which were to be the
fruit of years of toil....