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the international guarantee, their authorities seized Islamic endowment property, demolished mosques and launched military campaigns against Muslim villages, especially in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar and the Muslim regions of southern Yugoslavia.

To explain the causes of the massacres committed against the Bosnian Muslims after the fall of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia under German occupation in the spring of 1941, we mention, in addition to what has already been stated, the following facts:

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina made up three-quarters of the population. For various reasons that cannot be discussed here, at the beginning of the Austro-Hungarian occupation the population proportions were as follows:

Serbs: more than half. Muslims: less than half. Croats: less than one-fifth.

During the occupation from 1878 to 1918, extensive Muslim emigration from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Turkey and some Arab countries, including Palestine, reduced the number of Muslims to less than one-third. Because Muslims had a higher birth rate than others, their proportion improved considerably after the last war.

Serbian nationalism arose among the Orthodox population of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the nineteenth century, based on their affiliation with the Orthodox Church, like their fellow believers in Serbia and Montenegro east and south of Bosnia. Croatian nationalism likewise arose among the Catholic population in that century, based on their affiliation with the Catholic Church, like their fellow believers in Croatia west and north of Bosnia. The Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina remained Bosnians, as they had been.

National conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina crystallized before the end of Ottoman rule. One manifestation was that the Orthodox fought the Turks, supported by their Serbian brothers in Serbia and Montenegro. When they failed and Austro-Hungarian army legions advanced to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina, some units of that army being composed of Croats from Croatia, the Croats in Bosnia welcomed them warmly, while the Bosnians alone fought those legions to the death in defense of their freedom and homeland.

The wealth and geographic position of Bosnia and Herzegovina aroused the ambitions of the Serbian and Croatian national movements. The Serbs dreamed of taking them from Austria-Hungary. When this state declared