In addition to the Croatian state and historic right, which were the source of unceasing and violent misunderstandings and conflicts, there were others where the Serbs and Croats clashed. One of these, which had given rise to public debates, misunderstandings and clashes throughout the second half of the 19th century, was the question of the attitude to Austria and Austria-Hungary. The historical development of the Serbs and Croats influenced their attitude to the Habsburg Monarchy and its role in the realisation of its own national liberation plans. In line with historical development, the majority of the Serbs in Croatia, like those in Serbia, southern Hungary, Bosnia and Hercegovina, were against the Monarchy and its interference in their national liberation plans. In contrast, the majority of the Croats were favouring the Monarchy. The Serbs built their entire national and political future on the foundations of the struggle against Austria and Austria-Hungary, whereas the Croats based their policy on cooperation with and assistance from Austria. Many documents are available showing that the claim about the attitude of the majority of the Croats to the Monarchy is correct. On this occasion I shall quote excerpts from two Strossmayer's letters which confirm this amply. Both of these letters were written by the Bishop to Franjo Racki. The first was written on December 11, 1885, directly after the Serbo-Bulgarian war, in which Strossmayer wrote: "I think God let the Bulgars prevail. What prevailed in their cause was honesty, Christian law and the Slav cause, while in the Serbian cause what was defeated was utter dishonesty, immorality and Hungarian hatred of the Slavdom. Bulgarian victories are also our victories... Before I received your reply, I had written to the Nuncio.90 My main thought was that it is high time for the dynasty and Monarchy to see clear. Events in the Balkans are warning both that Croatia should be cured, strengthened, raised and be given back its freedom and birthright. He who will not see this today is blind."91 The second letter was written on April 7, 1889, in which the Bishop says: "We the Croats for forty years now have tried hard to assure for the Croats their primacy in the action in the Balkan Peninsula. Those who should have supported us in their own interests, have refused and rejected us and have cast doubts on us."92 (Underlined by V.K.)

This very clear statement makes no doubt possible that Strossmayer and his followers built their policy on conviction that the Habsburgs and the Monarchy, for their own interests, would help the Croats to gain strength, to become an important factor in the Balkans, so that they could stay there to spread their own but also Austrian state territory. Because of this policy of the National Party, which gradually established collaboration with the Serbs, but only after they had lost hope of assistance from dynasty and Monarchy, there was otherwise no lasting agreement with them. The central moot question between their own and the Serbian political leadership was that of the affiliation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, which was equally claimed by both. Animosity grew over it through the press, brochures, Sabor debates, electoral speeches, etc. and spread to the broadest strata of both nations.

Conflict between the two dissonant policies was inevitable, especially since it was encouraged from the Vienna Ballplatz where Croatian pro-Austrian and pro-Habsburg ambitions were welcomed, because they perfectly fitted into the Monarchy's state policy vis-a-vis the Balkans. On the subject of the pro-Austrian and pro-Habsburg policy of the Croats, it should be pointed out that it is one of the long-lasting phenomenons. It came into being in the first half of the 16th century, and in the course of time it changed, weakened or took strength, but it always endured, acquiring over the last one hundred and more years clear, open and aggressive anti-Serbian features.

When the attitude of the Croatian political parties towards the Habsburg dynasty and the Monarchy is better analysed as well as their policy to Bosnia and Hercegovina, and compared with the standpoint of the Serbian political parties, not only within the Monarchy but also in the Principality, later the Kingdom of Serbia, it is then clear that we have there two different and incompatible political and state conceptions, because what ones found to be good and profitable for their nation and their development, the others saw in it a real catastrophe. For this reason, the struggle over these questions was violent, because the victory of the one idea meant the defeat of the other. With all this the fact should be stressed that in the context of the struggle over the mentioned questions between the Croatian and Serbian political leaderships, there was also the struggle over national political prestige. The contention between them was whether Zagreb or Belgrade, whether the Croats or the Serbs would head the action for the liberation and unification. Nationally aware and spiritually unified with the Serbs outside Croatia, the Serbs from the Triune Kingdom for the most part did not accept the basic national conceptions of the development of Croatia and Southern Slavs preferring to rely on the dynasty of Habsburg and Monarchy, but rather agreed with the ideas upheld by their politicians from Belgrade and Novi Sad. This was one more reason for new conflicts and for new hatreds, and the pretext for accusations that the Serbs from Croatia are traitors and must therefore receive an exemplary punishment. Such accusations, spread mostly by the so-called Franko-furtimists, were taken up here and there and caused a strong anti-Serbian feeling which in certain moments acquired genocidal aspects. The well-known Croatian politician Iso Krsnjavi wrote the following very characteristic words: "There was a time when it was written that all the Serbs should be killed by axe. This idea has something singular, something very important; namely, it openly and consistently states the only way in which the 'Croatian idea' can be carried out. It is another question whether the Serbs would allow themselves to be murdered so simply, like those good-natured seals in the Arctic seas. One could fairly accurately forecast that they would remember the popular saying that a stick has two ends."93 (Underlined by V.K.)

While examining the causes for which genocide took place in Croatia during the 1941-1945 occupation, I must remind the reader of another question which has not been mentioned in historiography but is meriting attention because it has its own place within the context of different reasons which antagonised relations between the Croats and the Serbs. I have in mind a complex which had affected even the well meaning Croatian politicians agreeable to an understanding with the Serbs. It is a complex which oppressed the bourgeois and particularly petty-bourgeois circles among the Croats because the Serbs, after 1878, gained two independent states while the Croats, convinced that they were at a higher level of culture and civilisation, ambitious to create a greater Croatia, to take over the helm of liberation and unification, had a state more on paper than in reality. Since they viewed the Serbs only as their direct and most dangerous competitors, every success of the Serbs was seen as their defeat, and everyone of their defeats as their own victory. The fact that the Serbs had two states and the Croats none, not only gave them an inferiority complex but also made them envious as well as aggressive. Through excessive aggression they wanted to compensate, at the Serbs' expense, that which they did not have. For this reason mutual conflicts were inevitable and their outcomes were ruinous for both sides. How this fact embarrassed the mentioned Croatian circles is revealed in a letter by Sime Mazzura, written on February 6, 1893, to Bogdan Medakovic. Before I quote Mazzura's words, I must explain the reason why the letter was written, for then it will sound more convincing.

Correspondence between Medakovic and Mazzura happened following an incident which happened at a concert in Zagreb in 1893. The concert was attended by Bogdan Medakovic, one of the political leaders of the Serbs in Croatia, who was sitting next to Franjo Racki. When the official part of the concert ended, the one that was given in the programme, parts of the audience started spontaneously singing the Croatian anthem. At this moment some of the listeners rose from their seats, while others continued to sit. Among those who did not rise was Racki, and with him Medakovic and his wife. Seeing Medakovic and his wife not having risen, the poet Augustine Harambasic, otherwise a prominent member of the Party of Right, went to them and started shouting: "Vlachs!" and "he who is a true Croat, rise now". When Medakovic heard this he deliberately refused to rise, for it would then look as if was afraid and admitted being a Croat of Orthodox religion. The entire incident was observed from nearby by the son of Sime Mazzura, Lav, who was angry at Harambasic and, having returned home and talked to his father, he denounced the poet's rude behaviour. In the correspondence which ensued following this incident between Medakovic and Sime Mazzura, the latter did not approve of Harambasic's excess, but tried to explain why it had come about. Mazzura wrote: "My motto is peace with Serbs and reasons for it you will find in my first letter. Peace, because our motherland is the same; peace, because we are sons of the same people. Peace, because there are more of us in peace; because we are stronger in peace, against the enemy who is our common foe. Let your motto be: peace with the Croats. You can be more magnanimous than me, therefore more liberal. Your nation has two states; statelets may be, but states; my nation has no autonomous state, only one on a torn peace of paper. You can be more serene, free from attacks of fever, of which I cannot be immune when I think of the existence of my own people; of the attacks which hurt them more than the Serbian people, because its geographic position makes them more exposed than the Serbian people. But our weaknesses are also yours, because after us your turn will come.94 (Underlined by V.K.)

This sincere admission of Mazzura's reveals the complex suffered by a portion of the Croatian burgher society vis-a-vis the Serbs, so that no special comments are needed. However, the problem is in the fact that this complex resulted in aggression against the Serbs in Croatia, which was manifested in several ways, until it eventually assumed its clear genocidal forms. It assumed such forms because those who were not interested in accord, and such were on both sides, had empoisoned relations to such an extent that quite a number of Croats blamed the Serbs in Croatia for all the troubles which befell their country. Consequently, if the Serbs from Croatia did much to thwart the development of the Croatian state and its society, if they were the internal enemy, as they were usually represented in the rightist and Frankofurtimist press, then a showdown with them was inevitable. Inferiority complex in certain Croatian bourgeois circles vis-a-vis the Serbs who had succeeded in building two independent states, was so much greater as the Serbs as a whole were numerically superior to the Croats. Bearing in mind this numerical superiority, fear from possible absorption was noticeable among those Croats who were particularly active in attacks against the Serbs. This fear, which was defensive in character, gave rise to aggression which led to the genocide over the Serbs in Croatia.

An interesting testimony about this kind of fear was left by Iso Krsnjavi. When Franjo Ksaver Kuhac, Croatian composer and musicologist, brought in 1892 the manuscript of a book against Vuk Karadzic to Iso Krsnjavi, as the head of the Department for Religion and Education, Krsnjavi "reprimanded him for it and told him that entire political agitation against the Serbs by the Starcevic followers has no sense because the Serbs cannot be a danger for the Croats".

Kuhac's manuscript against Vuk Karadzic was pretext for a talk on the same theme between the rightist leader Frane Folnegovic and Iso Krsnjavi. Krsnjavi told Folnegovic that "the attitude towards the Serbs by the Starcevic followers seems to be unreasonable because, in my opinion, the Serbs are not culturally stronger than the Croats and so there is no danger that the Serbs could ever absorb the Croats".95 This makes it obvious that the rightists' attacks against the Serbs, their non-recognition and struggle against them, beside a number of other reasons, were also due to the fact that the Starcevic followers were ridden by fear that the Serbs, numerically stronger and with two established independent states, would assimilate them.

The Croatian complex because the Serbs had two independent states while the Croats had only one, on paper only, and the fear of being assimilated by the Serbs, was politically and ideologically crystallised by the earlier mentioned Dr. Ivan Pilar, i.e. Dr. Juricic. In his brochure Svjetski rat i Hrvati. Pokus orijentacije hrvatskoga naroda jos prije svrsetka rata (The World War and the Croats), published in 1915 and 1917, Dr. Juricic wrote: "The Croato-Serbian popular unity is only possible on the basis of a full equality between the Croats and the Serbs. But this equality is in practice absolutely unfeasible, not only because the Serbs have two independent countries, and are therefore stronger, but also because the Serbs are not just a popular magnitude,96 like us the Croats, but a popular-confessional magnitude. They are a priori stronger than we the Croats. Every one of our demands which is based on popular egoism shall be faced with the Serbian popular and confessional egoism. Therefore, even if we were numerically superior, we should succumb with a ninety-nine percent probability. Thus the Croato-Serbian popular unity is for us an a priori societas leonina, and furthermore the true unity is impossible unless we the Croats should convert to Orthodoxy - but by then we shall have become Serbs.

"Unity on the basis of equality among the Croats is not even possible, for it is only a catchword for a complete amalgamation with Serbs. The Serbs are aware of it and that is why they are today so enthusiastic about this unity."97

Disagreements and clashes between the Croats and the Serbs increased at the moment when the Military March, having a numerous Serb population, after demilitarisation in 1881, became part of Croatia. The Serbs then became an important factor in Croatian politics. Since their national and political aspirations were in conflict with the Croatian opposition policies, confrontation could not be avoided. It was so strong, varied and long-lasting that Iso Krsnjavi, a few months after the anti-Serbian demonstrations which took place in Zagreb in September 1902, having found out about some plans on the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, wrote as follows at the end of that year: "We (the Croats - V.K.) have not altogether digested the Military March and the Serbs whom we received with it, so what are we going to do with the Serbs in Bosnia?"98 (Underlined by V.K.)

On examination of the controversial issues between the Croats and the Serbs, which had led to disagreements and conflicts and even genocide, mention must be made of the many abuses of Serbs by the Croats, numerous repeals of agreements, treaties and decisions, even those which had been passed by the Sabor of Croatia. Willing to act in common with the Croats for the defence of Croatian state interests, on condition that the rights and obligations are equitably shared with them, the Serbs have never betrayed the Croats and in fighting they often took advance. It happened during the revolution and war with the Hungarians in 1848-49, forcible imposition of the Nagodba and dualism in 1867-68, dismissal of ban Levine Rauch and the struggle to revise the Nagodba in 1869-1873, in the years of popular movements in 1883 and 1903, and several times later, until the days close to our times. Whenever the Serbs were needed, and for as long as they were needed, the Croats were good with them, distributed promises and not only did not raise the question of equality and acknowledgement of the Serbian political individuality, but the Sabor also declared solemnly that "the Triune Kingdom recognises the Serbian people living in it as a people identical and equal with the Croatian people". The moment the danger was over, or the job was successfully done, those very same people who made generous promises to the Serbs turned against them and continued as before, as if nothing had happened in the meantime, as if they had no obligation whatever towards the Serbs. Many times exploited and then betrayed and rejected, the Serbs made good note of the Croat treachery. Hence they did not believe them much, but despite all the bitter disappointments, forced by the circumstances of life, permitted them to continue deceiving them, using them and short-changing them, in the vain hope that their deceptions would not be repeated.

In this type of game that went on for a hundred years, the Serbs were always the losers and the Croats the winners in the political field. However, morally speaking, the Serbs were those who won the battles and the Croats lost them. This relationship bore one more fruit: mutual contempt, intolerance and hatred, a pathological hatred, equally unbridled and equally dangerous for both sides and for both peoples.

When in the middle of the last century the Eastern Question was raised and in this context the South Slav question, new problems arose in relations between the Serbs and Croats. Although on both sides there were those who believed that such important questions should be dealt with in common and with joint forces, the forces which prevailed were those which wanted to have it out with one another. Convinced that in many aspects, particularly in culture, they had advantages over the Serbs and that being more cultured, they might also be more attractive to all the Southern Slavs, the Croats believed that they should claim the leading role in the national liberation and unification actions and that Zagreb rather than Belgrade should be the rallying point. In these plans the Croats, as has already been said, have always counted on assistance from Vienna and the dynasty, who gave them hopes in this sense. Mindful of the fact that they had two, first semi-independent and as from 1878 fully independent states, that they had an army and all other important advantages for the conduct of an independent national and state policy which the Croats lacked, the Serbs did not give much thought about the Croats' fancied high culture but held that they rather than Croats are called upon to play the role of Piedmont among the Southern Slavs and that Belgrade rather than Zagreb should be the focal point.

The rivalry about the leading role smouldered and turned into a struggle between two hostile policies, a fight between two centres, one of which was bound to give in. After the successfully ended Balkan wars, Belgrade, Serbia and the Serbs imposed themselves as a truly leading factor in the rallying of the Southern Slavs. After the First World War the unification was carried out under the leadership of the Serbs, with the centre in Belgrade. This victory of the Serbian conception of the solution of the South Slav question was received in many Croat circles, particularly among the extreme nationalists who did not disappear from the scene at the end of either the First or the Second World War, as a heavy defeat deserving a ruthless revenge. Not only the creation but also the method of creating the common state in 1918 served the above-mentioned circles in Croatia as a constant source of dissatisfaction, a reason for undermining the state which was not created according to the model they wanted. As a result, its real creators, the Serbs, became even more hated than heretofore and became the butt of those who saw the advent of Yugoslavia as a defeat for the Croatian state and political idea.

In embittered national and political relations at the turn of the 20th century, at the time when the Croatian Catholic Church had embraced the greater-Croatian programme of Josip Frank and his Pure Party of Right, when Catholic clericalism began to imbue all the pores of life and to acquire the recognisable anti-Serbian and anti-Orthodox features, Serbs in Croatia and Slavonia attained several important results. They had succeeded in the best possible way of organising their economy, particularly their finances, of creating a powerful political party, of rallying and unifying the Serbian society in various branches of activity, and of making significant advances in culture. The attained successes were such that it was Zagreb that had gradually begun taking over the role of Novi Sad, the former "Serbian Athens". Petty- bourgeois, nationally bigoted and ultra-Catholic circles in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, who wanted to create a large, ethnically pure and catholically unified Croatian state, could not reconcile themselves to the fact that the Serbs in Croatia were becoming economically and politically and even culturally stronger. Not good enough to enter into a healthy competition with the Serbs, to counter them with their own successes, the petty- bourgeois Franko-furtimist circles of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia compensated for their incompetence with a destructive hatred which was on several occasions expressed in anti-Serbian demonstrations staged in Zagreb and other cities in Croatia. In the field of the merciless capitalist competition, which had acquired the aspect of a struggle between two nations, the Serbs were seen as a permanently upsetting factor which stood in the way of the development of the Croatian economy, society and politics, and which is particularly important, in the way of the creation of a centuries-long aspiration - the building of an independent Croatian state.

Economically strengthened, socially well organised and in main political aims like-minded and united, relying on Serbia whose prestige had been mounting ever since 1903, the Serbs as a whole were attractive for a section of Croats who were sympathetic to a true conciliation, accord and cooperation. In this situation, the Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, who wanted conciliation and cooperation on an equal footing, had become dangerous in the minds of the Franko-furtimist extremists. They found danger in the fact that the Serbs as a whole, particularly the so-called Croatian Serbs, were offering different roads and methods of resolving the Croatian and Serbian questions than those which the greater-Croatian extremists wanted, and behind which stood the official circles of Vienna and Budapest. Instead of a great, ethnically pure and religiously unified Croatia, the Croats and Serbs wanting conciliation, accord and cooperation showed readiness to live together on an equal footing in a new and independent state. The Croat extremists did not want to live with Serbs in a common state. Furthermore, they believed that pro-Yugoslav option of Croats and Serbs not only stood in the way of their national conceptions but also dangerously corroded the unity of the Croatian people. Therefore, from the earliest years of the 20th century, as soon as the Yugoslav idea had begun striking deeper roots, the pro-Yugoslav Serbian Croats as well as the Yugoslav idea were continually at the receiving end of all kinds of attacks by Croatian nationalist extremists.

In my attempt to come to the bottom of the basis controversial questions between the Serbs and the Croats and the causes of genocide, I must touch upon the major differences in their respective attitudes towards Yugoslavia. Having lost their state early and having fallen under the dominion of first Hungary then Austria, the Croats for more than 800 years lived under foreign administration and dreamed about the renewal of their statehood. Being unable to realise these dreams in practice, they spent an enormous amount of energy in trying to maintain a tenuous continuity of their statehood in formal acts, various treaties, sanctions, nagodbas, diplomas, patents, king's bonds, Sabor decisions and other acts. The 800 years of legalistic compromises left deep traces on the Croatian mentality. Just as they behaved within the framework of Hungary and Austria, and subsequently of Austria-Hungary, they also behaved within the first and the second Yugoslavia. Both Yugoslavias were for them transitory. Their ideal, as we have already said, was an independent Croatia. Therefore, they did not accept Yugoslavia such as they found it, nor did they feel it was theirs. At any rate, they invested into its genesis just so much as they were prepared to defend and call their own.

The legalistic behaviour of Croats towards Hungary and Austria was less harmful for those states and people in those states than towards Yugoslavia. Within the boundaries of Hungary and Austria, Croats with their numbers, strength and influence were of no major significance. However, within Yugoslavia they were a partner without whom such a state was difficult to imagine. Knowing that, and conscious of the fact that the Serbs were keen on Yugoslavia, the Croats made excellent use of their legalistic experience, selfishly and inconsiderately forcing concessions with the aim of obtaining greatest possible advantages for themselves. So it transpired that Yugoslavia could exist only for as long as the demands of the Croats have been met, for as long as it suited them to live in a community to which they were not prepared to contribute much but wanted to take out as much as possible. When we bear this in mind, it is clear why both the first and the second Yugoslavia were shaken by heavy crises and why they disintegrated according to scenarios in which the Croats had the chief role of the breakers.

Because the Croatian bourgeois opposition parties did not admit the national individuality of the Serbs in Croatia, because they wanted to croatize them, the leading Serbian politicians linked up with the ruling National Party, which far from denying the Serbs, made them various minor concessions. As a result, particularly during the rule of ban Khuen Hedervari, the Serbs were attacked as supporters of a regime which took more account of Hungarian than of Croatian national interests. Admittedly, among the so-called Khuen's Serbs there were a lot of careerists, as there were proportionally many more among the Croats.99 However, "Khuen's Serbs" had support in that part of the Serbian society which was in favour of the National Party not for opportunist reasons but out of necessity. Namely, unrecognised, under a strong Croatian pressure which threatened their very national existence, the Serbs could hardly permit finding themselves between the millstones of the Croatian opposition and the Croatian government, behind which was the government in Budapest. For this reason, out of necessity, forced by the aggressive behaviour from Croatian opposition bourgeois parties, in order to defend and preserve themselves, chose from two evils the one which for them was lesser.100 Although the Serbian option was its own fault, because they had thrown them into the bosom of the Hungarians and their collaborators from Croatia, the Croat opposition attacked them mercilessly and stigmatised them as traitors. This stigma, which remained attached for decades, was taken up by the numerous followers of the Croat opposition parties, and this widespread opinion remained to this day in the political journalism and in the interpretations of the common past, which, taken together, did have its consequences insofar as genocide is concerned.