Its purpose was to establish the method of unifying a future common state of the South Slavs living in Serbia, Montenegro and Austria-Hungary after the First World War.

Russia's decision to withdraw diplomatic support for Serbia following the February Revolution, as well as the Yugoslav Committee's sidelining by the trialist reform initiatives launched in Austria-Hungary, motivated both sides to attempt to reach an agreement.

During the discussions, which lasted 35 days, Trumbić had little support for his view from the other members of the Yugoslav Committee, who were preoccupied with the threat posed by Italy, which had been promised territory under the 1915 Treaty of London.

Supilo advocated for a federation consisting of Serbia (including Vojvodina), Croatia (encompassing Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro.

[10] On 30 May 1917, South Slavic members of the Vienna Imperial Council established the Yugoslav Club chaired by Slovene People's Party president Anton Korošec.

It increased the risk of a trialist solution for the Habsburg South Slavs if a separate peace treaty materialised, preventing the fulfillment of Serbia's war objectives.

[12] Lacking strong Russian diplomatic backing since the February Revolution, Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić therefore felt compelled to come to an arrangement with the Yugoslav Committee.

[16] Despite radically different views on the system of government in the proposed common state, a series of meetings were held from 15 June to 20 July in order to reach a consensus.

On the other hand, Pašić touted universal suffrage and simple parliamentary democracy, interpreted by Trumbić as a way to ensure the rule of the Serbs as the most populous ethnic group in the proposed state.

[14] In response to Trumbić's demands, Pašić said that if the Croats insisted on a federation, the Serbian government would abandon the unification project in favour of the creation of Greater Serbia.

While Trumbić insisted on leaving the internal affairs, education, judiciary, and economy (other than customs, currency, credit and management of state property) to federal units and asked for veto powers for the "tribes" in the Constitutional Assembly to ensure decision-making by consensus, Pašić rejected his ideas.

That year, Russia sued for peace following the Russian Revolution while the United States, whose president, Woodrow Wilson, advocated the principle of self-determination, entered the war.

At the conference, the Yugoslav Committee and the National Council persuaded Pašić to sign the Geneva Declaration renouncing the unitarist concept of the future union.

[7] Pressed by the circumstances of Italian armed incursion, the National Council drew up instructions for its delegation to the Serbian prince regent Alexander, offering to proclaim the unification of the South Slavs and the creation of a new state.

[26] The delegation ignored their instructions and changed the address to Alexander from specifying a federalist system of government based on the Corfu Declaration to a display of loyalty and expression of wishes.