In the Vidovdan Constitution of 1921, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes had established 33 administrative districts, each headed by a government-appointed prefect.

Both the Vidovdan Constitution in general and the administrative districts in particular were part of the design of Nikola Pašić and Svetozar Pribićević to maximize the power of the ethnic Serb population within the new state.

This provoked the withdrawal of the HRSS from the assembly, forged an anti-Belgrade mindset in Croatia and ultimately led to the collapse of the constitutional system of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

[8] Over the course of the next ten years, the royal dictatorship grew in strength and ruled with authoritarian decrees,[9] climaxing in the tenure of Milan Stojadinović as Prime Minister between 1936 and 1939.

Stojadinović, who had adopted fascist symbolism, gestures and titles from Benito Mussolini in his aspirations to be Yugoslavia's strongman,[10] ultimately fell from grace because he lost the faith of minority representatives in February of 1939.

[11] He was replaced by Dragiša Cvetković, who, in an effort to win Croat support for his government, opened talks with Radić's successor as leader of the Croatian regionalists, Vladko Maček.

Some of the coastal areas from Split to Zadar and near the Gulf of Kotor were annexed by Fascist Italy but the remainder was added to the Independent State of Croatia.

[18] Croatia men's national ice hockey team played its first friendly game against Slovakia on February 9, 1941 in Bratislava and lost 6-1.