From Bitter Enemies to Political Partners: Shifting Viewpoints of Slovenian Clericals and Liberals during World War I

Abstract

The article examines Slovenian liberal and clerical magazines to analyse the adaptations of the political narratives of the two main Slovenian political parties from the assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 until early in the final stage of World War I in March 1918. Slovenian clericals, who gathered together in the Slovenian People's Party, reacted to the killings in Sarajevo by adopting a strong pro-Habsburg and anti-Serbian position. Their magazines even called for a military invasion of Serbia. In comparison, their primary political competitors on Slovenian soil, the Slovenian liberals congregated in the National Progressive Party and condemned the act of assassination, yet they were critical of the Austrian anti-Serbian policy for having escalated the war. These two Slovenian political parties were also divided on the issue of the future envisioned for the Slovenian nation within South Slavic state formations. The clericals pressed for realization of the trialist idea, which forecast a Croatian–Slovenian state unit within the Habsburg Monarchy with its centre in Zagreb. The liberals, in contrast, dreamed of a larger South Slavic state that would bring all South Slavs together and have its centre in Serbia. The development of the war, chiefly the Entente's foreseeable victory, the threat of implementation of the London Pact, and the fact that Austrian Germans characterized all emancipatory Slovenian political movements as an anti-state element, all worked to force Slovenian clericals to cooperate with their pre-war enemies. The overriding aim was for them to retain their leading position among Slovenians by formally cooperating with the liberal stream, including taking over part of the liberal political strategy, in order to ensure that it was in the best possible position in the South Slavic state at end of the war.