Imperial sensitivity
Sir: Stuart Campbell's commendably sensi- tive appreciation of Franz Josef I is never- theless flawed.
To say that Austria's 'military occupation of Bosnia in 1878, and its [later] annexa- tion, was an attempt by Vienna to contain Serbian expansion' is a contradiction in terms. In other words, an expanding empire merely occupies and annexes whereas a small upstart that overthrows the Ottoman occupier and then resents the new Austrian one is dangerously expansionist. This abuse of language, originally concocted in Vien- na, was meant to divert attention from the rickety foundations of the Austro-Hungari- an Empire. Contemporary usage of the term 'Serbian expansion' similarly helps to draw a veil over the unutterable, such as the American-approved clearance of the Krajina Serbs from their ancestral lands and the wholly artificial nature of the inter- nationally recognised state of Bosnia- Hercegovina.
Yugo Kovach
38 Lebanon Park, Twickenham, Middlesex
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