Creation of Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia was a state concept among the South Slavic intelligentsia and later popular masses from the 19th to early 20th centuries that culminated in its realization after the 1918 collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I and the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

It started gaining large momentum only at the end of the 19th century, mainly because of the Revolutions of 1848 and the policies against freedom movements of southern Slavs.

[citation needed] During the early period of World War I (which started in 1914), a number of prominent political figures, including Ante Trumbić, Ivan Meštrović, Nikola Stojadinović and others from South Slavic lands under the Habsburg Empire fled to London, where they began work on forming a committee to represent the South Slavs of Austria-Hungary, choosing London as their headquarters.

[citation needed] The Yugoslav Committee was formed on 30 April 1915 in London, and began to raise funds, especially among South Slavs living in the Americas.

Because of their stature, the members of the Yugoslav Committee were able to make their views known to the Allied governments, which began to take them more seriously as the fate of Austria-Hungary became more uncertain.

According to the secret Treaty of London, these included Istria and large parts of Dalmatia, which had mixed Italian and Slavic populations.

In 1916 the Serbian Parliament in exile decided in favor of the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia at a meeting inside the Municipal Theatre of Corfu.

The preamble stated that the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were "the same by blood, by language, by the feelings of their unity, by the continuity and integrity of the territory which they inhabit undividedly, and by the common vital interests of their national survival and manifold development of their moral and material life."

Svetozar Pribićević, a Croatian Serb, a leader of the Croatian-Serbian Coalition and vice-president of the state, wanted an immediate and unconditional union.

The leader of opponents was Stjepan Radić who demanded the creation of a South Slavs Confederacy in which there would be three heads of state: the Serbian king, the Croatian ban, and the president of the Slovenian national council.

[citation needed] With the acquiescence of the National Council achieved, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was declared on 1 December 1918 in Belgrade.

[citation needed] Serbian military forces quickly overran the territory of the Kingdom of Serbia (including the present-day North Macedonia) as well as that of the Kingdom of Montenegro, Banat, Bačka and Baranja and Syrmia, but stopped on the borders of the other Habsburg territories that would form the short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, anticipating an official union between them and Serbia.

On 5 November 1918 the town of Zemun invited the Serbian Royal Army to protect the city from the withdrawing forces of the Central Powers.

On 24 November 1918 as per the decision of self-determination, local parliamentary deputies from the Serb-inhabited parts of Syrmia which historically corresponded to the Serbian Voivodship constituted a National Council in Ruma.

The National Council, fearing that unification would not be achieved and concerned that the leadership in Zagreb was facing numerous difficulties and was slow to act, decided to join in the creation of a common state of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

The Council decided in addition that, in the event that such a project of unification went unrealized, it would join the state as a part of the Serbian people's land.

Fearing that the troops would be too weak to face the Central powers, on 5 October 1918 the Pančevo local administration sent a plea to Belgrade for the protection of the Serbian Royal Army.

The committee had previously formed rules to elect a National Council, which would decide about the self-determination of the majority people of the region, the Serbs (Slavs), as per the agreement with the provisional Hungarian government (which had broken off relations with Austria about a month before).

On 25 November 1918 the "Great People's Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs from Banat, Bačka and Baranja", with 757 representatives elected in 211 municipalities, was constituted.

Although government in Belgrade accepted the decision of unification of this region with Serbia, it never officially recognized newly formed provincial administration.

The Treaty of Trianon had assigned most of the Baranja region to Hungary, which led to massive protest and a group of people under painter Petar Dobrović to proclaim a Serb-Hungarian Baranya-Baja Republic.

[citation needed] Shortly after entering the war on the side of Serbia to support escape of Serbian army toward Greece, the Kingdom of Montenegro was occupied by Austro-Hungarian military forces in early 1916.

In the spring of 1916 the King proclaimed Andrija Radović as prime minister, but he resigned a few months after his proposal of union with Serbia was rejected.

[citation needed] The Podgorica Assembly elected a provisional executive body known as the "Montenegrin Committee for Unity with Serbia" under Marko Daković which oversaw Montenegro's integration, until the SCS's government took over on 23 April 1919.