Carinthian Plebiscite - Background

Background

After the defeat of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the ruling Habsburg dynasty in World War I, new states arose in its former territory. Among these there was an internationally unrecognized State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, which was created in the final days of the war according to the 1917 Corfu Declaration, and merged with the Kingdom of Serbia to form the new South Slavic Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on December 1, 1918.

Determination of borders between the new countries was complex and difficult, and not always peaceful: While the northeastern border with the Kingdom of Italy along the "Julian March" was already determined by the 1915 Treaty of London, the demarcation line between Yugoslavia and the rump state of German-Austria was a difficult and highly disputed matter. The principle of self-determination, championed by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, was taken up by both Slovenes and German–Austrians in the Carinthian, Styrian and Carniolan lands of the defunct Habsburg empire. The rising tensions culminated in clashes of arms, as on Marburg's Bloody Sunday in Lower Styria and the continued fighting of paramilitary groups in southeastern Carinthia.

In particular the "Carinthian question" had become an issue in the closing days of World War I, when events developed rapidly, beginning with territorial claims by the Slovenian National Assembly on October 17, 1918. These claims were rejected by the Carinthian provisional Landtag assembly on 25 October 1918, declaring the state's accession to German-Austria. From November 5, Yugoslav forces moved into the settlement area of the Carinthian Slovenes from the Karavanke mountain range down to the Drava River and beyond. The Landtag assembly fled from Klagenfurt to the northwestern town of Spittal an der Drau and on 11 November officially demanded self-determination, which in this case amounted to demanding a plebiscite for a region with a mixed population.

With the occupation of southeastern Carinthia by Yugoslav troops, the confrontation evolved into armed clashes. The provisional Carinthian government under Governor Arthur Lemisch decided to lead off the armed struggle in order to preserve the southern Carinthian border on the Karavanke range. Bitter fighting of paramilitary groups around Arnoldstein and Ferlach alarmed the Entente powers. They arbitrated a ceasefire, whereafter a nine-day U.S. Army commission under Lt.Col. Sherman Miles scouted the disputed region between river and mountains in January and February 1919 and made the crucial recommendation that the Karavanke frontier should be retained, thus opening the possibility of a plebiscite. Yugoslav representatives urged for a border on the Drava; American delegates however spoke in favor of preserving the unity of the Klagenfurt Basin and convinced the British and French delegations. Until May 7, all occupied Carinthian territories were vacated. When Yugoslav forces under General Rudolf Maister made an attempt to re-enter the region on 28 May 1919, they were forced to withdraw by the Entente authorities.

The question was whether the considerable Slovene-speaking majority in the state's southeastern region, adjoining the Karavanke range, would carry the vote for union with Austria or whether that majority wished to join a newly created South Slavic state. This was to a large extent a consequence of rising romantic nationalism under the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy and the idea of an autonomy of the "Slovene lands", referring to the early medieval Slavic principality of Carantania, which had perished in the ninth century. A common state with other southern Slavic peoples seemed the most acceptable compromise toward fulfillment of nationalist strivings.