Frankists and clericals (Franko-furtimists), for decades raised in the spirit of hatred towards the Serbs, supported by the Monarchy and goaded against them and the pro-Yugoslav Croats, were becoming more and more militant and brutal as years went by. The policy based upon the Croatian state right, with all its already mentioned consequences, particularly those which attended the Serbs, had begun gradually to harvest its first fruit. With numerous genocidal elements, this fruit was in fact preparation for the great showdown which was to happen during the 1941-1945 war.

The scathing verbal attacks against the Serbs in Croatia did not relieve the Franko-furtimists of their hatred. As time went by and the conflicts multiplied and became more brutal, diverse verbal assaults including those with pure genocidal messages like: "udri, udri in der stadt Srbom strik za vrat" (flog the Serbs, put the noose around their necks), "Srbe o vrbe" (hang the Serbs), "Srbom sjekirom za vrat" (chop the Serbs' heads off), and others, gave way more and more often to physical attacks which put the above catchwords into practice, to destroy the "vlaski nakot" (the Vlachs' brood) as the Serbs were often called. Physical clashes took part on several occasions during the mass anti-Serbian demonstrations. One such demonstrations happened on October 14 and 15, 1895, during the visit by Emperor Francis Joseph to the capital city of Croatia. The demonstrations were triggered off by the Serbian flags hoisted on the Orthodox church and the building of the Serbian diocese.101 In the conviction that "there can only be Croats in Croatia", and that the Serbs are only in Serbia, whereas in Croatia there are "Orthodox Croats",102 crowds recruited from different social strata of both sexes and various ages, which included Catholic priests, attacked the mentioned Serbian buildings. Yelling and screaming, the mob injured Serbian national feelings and Serbian priests, threw stones to break the windows on the church and the parish building and threw ink bottles upon them. On this occasion the sign on the Serbian bank in Zagreb, which was written out in the Cyrillic letters, was damaged and stained.103

This incident was a hard blow not only at the Serbs but also numerous Croats who regarded the anti-Serbian excesses, condemned in many countries of Europe as savagery, as a national shame.104 The Croatian opposition press justified the anti-Serbian riots by saying that they were provoked by the Serbs who hoisted the flag of a "foreign country". On the other hand, ban Khuen Hédervari, though he did condemn the riots in the Sabor, was not willing to impose a suitable punishment against transgressors for the riots which were a repetition of riots in Gospic three years before. As a matter of fact, the agents of the law and order stood by watching with the excuse that they had no orders to intervene.105

The multitude of outstanding questions which affected not only the national and political but also cultural, educational and religious life of the Serbs in Croatia and Slavonia, forced them at the end of 1898 and in the course of 1899 to apply to Sabor with requests to meet their demands. Judging by the number of those who sent their requests and the concern of the Serbian public opinion, it seemed that it was a real popular movement. The Serbs' demands were for a free hoisting of the Serbian flag, free use of the Cyrillic script, equality between the Serbian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches, modification of the School Law of 1888, public insight into the Serbian Teaching Colleges in Karlovac and Pakrac, correct appellation of the Serbian Orthodox Church, opening of the Department for the History of the Serbian People at the Philosophical Faculty in Zagreb, freedom of the press and gathering, prevention of the material impoverishment of the people and so forth.106

Holding on to the idea of the Croatian state right, and promoting the idea of the "Croatian political people", the oppositionist coalition did not want to debate in the Sabor the Serbian demands which were aimed at preserving the Serbian national individuality. For similar reasons the Serbian demands were also rejected by Frank's Pure Party of Right.107 The only opposition deputy who was in favour of meeting the Serbian demands was Franko Potocnjak. In view of the Serbian petitions, he concluded that relations in Croatia and Slavonia were sad, "actually miserable", because the Serbs were forced to fight for their survival, which served as a proof that they must fight against elementary injustices.108

The public refusal by the oppositionists and the Pure Party of Right to discuss the Serbian demands in the Sabor clearly showed that the clash between the Croat opposition and the Serbian population in Croatia was unbridgeable in existing conditions. Furthermore, the non-recognition of the Serbs and the constant attacks by the opposition, mostly by Frank's rightists, deepened even more the existing gap which after the riots of 1895 was more and more often transferred to the streets of Zagreb where they became really violent.

Filled with hatred against the Serbs, the Frankists looked for an opportunity to vent it in public. They were provoked by the Serbs' stubborn insistence on their demands, on defending themselves against all kinds of attacks and insults, by their intransigence in promoting the Serbian and rejecting the Croatian state idea which found its support in Austria-Hungary, by their national vitality and refusal to succumb to croatization, which in the existing climate appeared as provocation in the eyes of their political opponents.

That disagreements between the Serbian and Croatian political circles did find their outlet in the streets is borne witness by the riots which happened in June 1899 in Zagreb on the occasion of the celebration of 50 years of literary work by Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj. Zmaj at the time lived in Zagreb where he came in 1893 at the wish of "competent circles in Belgrade" to act "in a conciliatory spirit upon the Serbs and Croats" and also in order for the Serbs in Croatia to have an "authoritative person around whom they can rally".109 The Frankists staged demonstrations on the day of the celebration, and the object of their attacks were the Serbian church, the parish and the primary school which they soiled. To prevent the possibility of worse excesses against the Serbs which the city constables could not stop, Khuen just in case secured another two companies of soldiers. Riots were thus stopped, but new ones broke out in February 1900, after the end of debates in the Croatian Sabor about Serbian demands. Demonstrations were then staged by the Frankist students who shouted to the Serbs in the Zagreb streets: "Abzug Vlachs, Abzug petitions".110 All these street riots and many other minor anti-Serbian demonstrations which happened not only in the capital city of Croatia but also in smaller towns, were some kind of a prelude to the Zagreb demonstrations of September 1, 2 and 3, 1902, when "the mob of sinister elements, led by Frankist rabble-rousers, and to a certain extent protected by the authorities, for three days demolished Serbian shops, apartments and institutions in Zagreb, throwing out in the streets and burning their merchandise."111 Casualties included about a hundred persons, Serbs, policemen and rioters. Similar disorders, but on a smaller scale, happened at Karlovac and Slavonski Brod. In the hope of preventing a fratricide showdown, which was about to happen, Branik of Novi Sad, a consistent defender of accord and collaboration between the Croats and Serbs, called upon the disturbed Serbs from Lika, Banija and Srem not to take revenge on their Croat neighbours. Branik asked the Serbian priests, teachers and educated people to calm down the mob and to advise them to "suffer this heavy insult in dignity, and not to mistreat the Croats".112

Pretext to the Zagreb anti-Serbian riots was an article published in Srbobran, which was reprinted from Srpski knjizevni glasnik (Serbian Literary Gazette). The article was written in the spirit of extreme nationalist Serbian ideas which excluded and rejected nationalist ideas of the Croat opposition parties, calling for a struggle "to the final eradication, yours or ours".113

The Zagreb September events, which some contemporaries described as Bartholomean, were condemned by many people, particularly the Slavs from Austria, but also by numerous Croatian politicians and public figures, including young Stjepan Radic. He declared before a court that it was a "swinish business" which would cast shame upon the Croats before the whole world for the next one hundred years.114 In contrast to him, Josip Frank in the Sabor praised the rioters saying that they had "done a deserving deed for Croatia". As the spiritual mover of anti-Serbian riots, he did not try to hide that his Pure Party of Rights and its followers took part in the first ranks of the rioters. According to Frank's explanation, in the demonstration against the innocent Serbian citizens in the streets of Zagreb, two ideas had clashed, the Croatian and Serbian, and because "the Serbian idea wanted victory in the terrain where it did not belong", it was "bound to succumb".115

As opposed to Frank who tried to find in street riots a solution for the accumulated difficulties between the Croatian and Serbian societies which it was unable to resolve, Franko Potocnjak, Mihailo Polit-Desancic and other Serbian pro-Yugoslav politicians, saw behind the scenes of the September demonstrations Austria-Hungary and its tendency, with the assistance of certain social and political circles of Croatia, and with support from Vatican and the Catholic Church, to prepare ground for the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina and to further expand its boundaries in the Balkans.116

Beside the facts presented by Potocnjak and Polit-Desancic, the causes of anti-Serbian demonstrations were also to be found in the extremely restricted conditions of Croatia's economic development, whose trade barely subsisted, industries developed very slowly, manufactures faced ruin in competition with foreign industrial production, while landless and poor peasants were forced to emigrate en masse to America. In such restricted economic circumstances, the Croatian petty bourgeoisie, which rallied around Frank's Party of Right, saw the cause of all its economic ills in Serbian competitors, so it is by no means accidental that the target of their attacks were Serbian merchants, craftsmen, and their economic societies.117

Extremely important social and political events leading to the genocide against the Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, took part at the turn of the century. On the one hand, Catholic clericalism in Croatia had started spreading in various areas of Croatian society and its institutions. On the other hand, both the progressive Croat youth and the progressive strata of the Croat burghers, deeply dissatisfied with the conditions in Croatia, gradually abandoned the traditional roads of political development which were founded upon state right. As politics founded upon state right were being abandoned after causing many misunderstandings and conflicts with the Serbs, conditions were created for conciliation, cooperation and accord with them. Thus at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, differentiation took place within the Croat society. The Frankists and clericalists came closer together, finding themselves on same or similar positions on many national and political issues. They had an equally intolerant attitude to the Serbs, which was a natural consequence of their policies based upon the Croatian state right, which continued being their point of departure. Their ideal continued to be a great and nationally and confessionally pure Croatia, which would be created with the assistance of Catholic Habsburg Monarchy. They increasingly relied upon that powerful state, and the latter increasingly accepted them as allies and not only helped in anti-Serbian and anti-Yugoslav excesses but also instigated them. These excesses were increasingly frequent and violent in the beginning of the 20th century. Reasons for them lay in the mentioned fact that a considerable portion of the Croatian burgher society in their policies had abandoned the Croatian state right. Embracing new and more modern political principles than those taken over from the feudal society which for a long time poisoned relations between the Croats and Serbs, this portion of the Croat burghers not only acknowledged the national individuality of the Serbs in Croatia but also established with them close political relations and cooperation. The entire national policy of that portion of the Croatian society completely changed in relation to the previous period. With the change in the political course there were also changes in the contents and aims of the Yugoslav policy. As opposed to the earlier Yugoslavism, which was nothing other than a specific aspect of Croat nationalism, which the Serbs could not accept at all, now this Yugoslavism was such that it could be equally cultivated and nurtured by both the Croats and the Serbs. This change was possible because the mentioned portion of the Croatian burghers, which had broken away from the old policies, also cast away illusions about creating an ethnically pure greater Croatia with the help of Austria-Hungary. Because of the change in the content of Yugoslav policy, because of the abandonment of illusion about the support for and creation of a greater Croatia, the erstwhile ally had become, for the pro-Yugoslav Croats, an opponent. Serbia, which until then had been regarded as a competitor in the implementation of the Croatian nationalist and state ideas, was now accepted as the leader and executor of Yugoslav and even Croatian national aspirations and ideals. As a result, Serbia, including the Serbs in Croatia, entered the 20th century considerably strengthened. The national conceptions of Serbs about the solution of the South Slav questions started prevailing over the earlier conceptions of the Croats, and, which was particularly dangerous in the view of the anti-Serbian Franko-furtimist circles, to gain followers among the Croats. Because of all this, the ruling circles in the Monarchy and their exponents in Croatia, in the ranks of Franko-furtimists, had sufficient reason to be wary of the Serbs, to see in them their greatest and the most dangerous enemies, to look for pretexts for a quarrel, for a showdown and their destruction. A novelty was that Franko-furtimists, especially after the creation of the Croato-Serbian coalition, and in the course of the more and more frequent demonstrations, no longer attacked the Serbs only but also the serbianized Croats as they called those who were in favour of Yugoslavia. This is why after 1905, they launched a catchword having a genocidal content which said: "Death to all the traitors Serbs and serbianized Croats."118

From the above it is clear that the idea of genocide against the Serbs in Croatia had fully matured within Austria-Hungary, even before the outbreak of the First World War. Dr. Ivan Ribar, well-known politician, member of the progressive and pro-Yugoslav youth, supporter of the policy of the Croato-Serbian coalition, as an active participant in pre-war events in Croatia, noted that ban Paul Rauch and Josip Frank, with the approval of the highest military circles in Vienna, had concluded an agreement in the event of a war with Serbia following the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, calling for "a massacre and expulsion of all the Serbs from Croatia".119

Permanently obsessed with genocidal ideas, Franko-furtimists welcomed the outbreak of the First World War with joy and the conviction that the moment had come when they would free themselves of the "Vlach brood" and "serbianized Croats". Ivan Ribar wrote the following in his notes which have not yet been published: "The Croatian Sabor was to be dissolved immediately in 1914, as soon as the First World War had started following the Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia, because the dissolution was demanded by the military command in Vienna and the proposal for the dissolution was presented by the Frankists, a minority in the Sabor, which after the ultimatum, and even before, following the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne in Sarajevo, took control of the streets with the assistance of the army, policy and gendarmes. Something similar, but only on a larger scale, in 1908 before the annexation of Bosnia and from the day of annexation. The Frankist programme in 1914 provided for the extermination of the Serbs, breaking of unity and of the Croato-Serbian coalition, the latter as representative of popular unity and majority in the Sabor. Among those Frankists who in those days of 1914 terrorized and lorded it over the misled Croat masses, one of the fiercest was Ante Pavelic, then still unknown to the public." Ribar went on to say in his notes: "If the Sabor was dissolved in 1914 and a commissariat appointed, headed by an Austrian imperial general, in which the Frankists would rule the roost, unfortunately aided and abetted by the leadership of the Croatian Peasant Party, which after the Sarajevo assassination merged with the Frankist leadership against the coalition and Sabor majority, accusing the latter for the Sarajevo crime and treason and consequently, that the Sabor needed to be dissolved and the leadership and all the deputies in the Sabor arrested and tried and hanged by the so-called court martial - the programme designed by the Frankists on Pavelic's proposal, according to which the Serbs and coalition Croats should be dealt with most radically, the programme would have been completed in full. The massacre of the Serbs would have been carried out in 1914. Because the Frankists could not do it then, they did it during the Second World War, when Frankists, or rather their ustasha followers, with the support of the occupying forces, gained power headed by Poglavnik Pavelic."120 (Underlined By V.K.) Dr. Ribar's conclusion is that in 1914 the Serbs were saved from the massacre thanks to the coalition, its opportunist policy and the fact that in the course of the war, the Sabor in which the coalition had majority was maintained.121

Dr. Ribar's precious testimony on the theme of genocide is also interesting because his writings supplied information on the social composition of the followers of Josip Frank, those, as he said, representatives of the "social disease and perversion".122 "Frank's ringleaders, comprising mostly deputies and the most corrupt elements from among the bourgeoisie and peasantry, but unfortunately also some young workers and students, were the members of the Frankist bands, prepared to carry out the order to exterminate the Serbs if it is in the interest of the holy Croatian cause and for the glory of the Habsburg dynasty."123 (Underlined by V.K.)

Consequently, it may be said that the Franko-furtimist circles, nurtured on the traditions of the Croatian state right, with illusions about the creation of an ethnically pure and enlarged Catholic Croatia with the help of the Habsburg Monarchy, imbued with an inhuman hatred of the Serbs, were convinced that the war, which they expected to break out at the time of the annexation crisis and which did break out in 1914, would be a suitable moment when all their dreams would come true, when they could forever be rid of the Serbs in a most horrible manner - by massacres, hangings, shootings, starving, conversion, resettlement, etc. Since they were unable to carry it out during the First World War, they patiently waited for the Second. The opportunity which they had then they used to the greatest possible extent. Their crimes, so variegated and impossible of understanding for a sane mind, was not the result of just one system, of this or that party, of this or that society, or this or that person, but of congruence of a number of circumstances over a long period of time. Genocide against the Serbs in the ustasha NDH was a phenomenon resulting from their life in common with the Croats over a number of centuries. The long genesis of the genocidal idea in certain sections of the Croat society which, as witnessed by Dr. Ribar, did have quite a broad basis, was deeply rooted in the consciousness of many generations. The phenomena risen by long duration as a rule disappear slowly and tend to last a long time.