16 (1877).] Matters came to a climax in the autumn of 1875 in Herzegovina, the southern part of Bosnia.

There after a bad harvest the farmers of taxes and the Mohammedan landlords insisted on having their full quota; for many years the peasants had suffered under agrarian wrongs, which cannot be described here; and now this long-suffering peasantry, mostly Christians, fled to the mountains, or into Montenegro, whose sturdy mountaineers had never bent beneath the Turkish yoke[91].

Thence they made forays against their oppressors until the whole of that part of the Balkans was aflame with the old religious and racial feuds.

The Slavs of Servia, Bulgaria, and of Austrian Dalmatia also gave secret aid to their kith and kin in the struggle against their Moslem overlords.
These peoples had been aroused by the sight of the triumph of the national cause in Italy, and felt that the time had come to strike for freedom in the Balkans.

Turkey therefore failed to stamp out the revolt in Herzegovina, fed as it was by the neighbouring Slav peoples; and it was clear to all the politicians of Europe that the Eastern Question was entering once more on an acute phase.
[Footnote 91: Efforts were made by the British Consul, Holmes, and other pro-Turks, to assign this revolt to Panslavonic intrigues.