Creation of Yugoslavia - State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs

State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs

As the Habsburg Empire dissolved, a pro-Entente National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs took power in Zagreb on 6 October 1918. On 29 October, a Yugoslavist Croatian Sabor (parliament) declared independence and vested its sovereignty in the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and two days later it declared its wish to enter state of union with Serbia and Montenegro. Soon afterward on 5 November the National Council in Zagreb asked the Serbian military for help in controlling anarchy in Croatia. Because help did not arrive before the end of November, the National Council again asked the Serbian army for help because: "The population is in revolt. We have total anarchy and only the Serbian army can restore order".

The Yugoslav Committee was given the task of representing the new state abroad. However, quarrels broke out immediately about the terms of the proposed union with Serbia. Svetozar Pribićević, a Croatian Serb, a leader of the Croatian-Serbian Coalition and vice-president of the state, wanted an immediate and unconditional union. Others (non-Serbs), who favoured a federal Yugoslavia, were more hesitant. 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. In his thinking, the confederacy was to have only ministers for foreign affairs, for defense and for the distribution of food. This proposition was rejected by the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs as an example of separatism. The National Council, whose authority was in fact limited, feared that Serbia would simply annex the former Habsburg territories; on the other hand, the Italians were moving to take more territory than they had been allotted in London Pact.

Political opinion was divided, and Serbian ministers said that if Croats insisted on their own republic or a sort of independence, then Serbia would simply take areas inhabited by the Serbs and already controlled by the Serbian Army. After much debate and after Syrmia, which was under control of the Serbian army, declared secession, the National Council agreed to a unification with Serbia, although its declaration stated that the final organization of the state should be left to the future Constituent Assembly which would make final decisions only with a two-thirds majority.

With the acquiescence of the National Council achieved, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was declared on 4 December 1918 in Belgrade.