Versailles-Created Yugoslavia, 1921–1941

Abstract

In July 1917 Ante Trumbić, Croat leader of a Serb-leaning, Serbo-Croatian faction from Dalmatia, and Serb prime minister and nationalist, Nikola Pašić, met on Corfu and signed a pact calling for the establishment of a Yugoslav state following World War I. Pašić agreed to Croat demands for a constitutional monarchy responsible to a democratically elected national assembly as the governing framework for the state. He did so, however, only because of political circumstances: the Serbs lacked the usual Russian support for their Greater Serbia claims (the revolution had overthrown the tsar); the Americans, newly involved in the war, favored the Croat-inspired federalist Yugoslav idea; and Serbia was occupied by enemy Austrian and Bulgarian forces.