There is no evidence that A-H sought to deliberately stupefy the state of Bosnia, but the education in that state of A-H was poor. Conversely, the industrial output of Bosnia-Herzegovina averaged double digit annual growth for the three decades of A-H administration.
Education in Habsburg Bosnia was not just overlooked; plans and proposals to improve it were constantly rejected. For example, in 1894 the A-H governor vetoed a plan that would have nearly doubled the number of schools. A-H most certainly didn't lack the funds to improve the education in this province - I'm not sure how we can call its behavior anything other than deliberate neglect.
Surfdom was a hangover from the Ottoman administration and in 1914 there remained around 90,000 surfs in Bosnia (about 5% of the total Bosnia-Herzegovina population), with another 40,000 having been emancipated since the A-H occupation. This issue should be kept in perspective (i.e. scarcely material), but I guess that is probably ASB.
That's a mistake: around 90,000 was not the number of serfs in Bosnia. It was the approximate number of adult males of this class. The total number of serfs was 445,000 (as in, a quarter of the population).
(if you need a source for those numbers: Lampe, Jackson -
Balkan Economic History)
I have never heard of Bulgaria being a significant threat to A-H. Serbia, Romania and Italy all converted A-H territory sure, but I am not aware of any significant Bulgarian claims? Care to substantiate where you may have sourced these fears of Bulgaria?
There were numerous instances of Austro-Hungarian officials expressing fear over Bulgaria's potential strength and potential pull over A-H's south Slavs in the event of CP victory, and trying to reduce its share of the spoils. Burian, Tisza, and various other officials all subscribed to that fear and tried to limit Bulgaria's post-war power and influence in various ways: keeping it off the Adriatic, propping up a rump Romania as a buffer state to protect A-H from Bulgaria...Szilassy was one of the examples which directly and explicitly feared that A-H's Serbs might turn towards Bulgaria if it becomes strong enough.
For its part, Bulgaria didn't do
much to inflame those fears - they were based more on the Habsburg elites' acknowledgement of their own inability to win the loyalty of certain parts of the population. Although Bulgaria did lay claims to certain parts of western and north-eastern Serbia that A-H considered within her own sphere. And A-H and Bulgarian troops nearly came to blows over jurisdiction in occupied Kachanik.
I suspect the Bulgarian government was (ultimately) more anti Serb and anti Russian that pro German... and I would not describe Serbs as undesirable, that's kind of racist! I do however note Serbia kicked off contemporary atrocities in the Balkan wars...
It's nice to know that neither you nor me are, apparently, racist. Unfortunately the Habsburg monarchy did not shy away from massacring tens of thousands of Serb civilians, with the poor and racist justification of their alleged "cultural inferiority".
Aside from good timing in formalising its control over Bosnia-Herzegovina, which A-H had effectively (pun intended) administered for 3 decades, A-H had been more-or-less inert. If it had a expansionist bone in its metaphorical body, AH's military was more than capable of crushing its rivals (simultaneously) while the metaphorical bear (Russia) was hibernating (circa 1905-1910).
One can treat the 1908 annexation as a simple formality, but it still leaves the question of what A-H was doing in Bosnia in the first place. There was at least one unmistakeably expansionist bone in the Habsburg monarchy's body: the one with which it reached out and expanded into Bosnia.
I outlined some of the dubious outcomes of the Serbian administration above. No benefits identified...
Long-overdue land reform and at least a vaguely democratic system would be the first benefits that come to mind.
As an aside, I am in no way anti-Serb or anti-Russian, but believe the Serbian regime of that time was fundamentally toxic. Conversely, Tesla for example, was clearly one of the most gifted minds of his time - or any other time.
I guess we can at least agree about the unicorns...
Criticizing a government certainly doesn't make you or anyone else a racist, and there are more than a few valid criticisms that can be directed against the pre-WWI Serbian regime. Still, I think it's important to keep perspective - it was far from the only one or the worst one of its time.
I believe that the A-H regime was at least as toxic as those in Serbia and the other Balkan states, and probably even more in some ways.