The Question of Yugoslav Union in 1918

Abstract

The question of the liberation of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes from Austro-Hungarian rule, and of their uniting with Serbia and Montenegro to form one state, was raised at the beginning of the first world war. It was submitted to the Entente powers by Croat, Serb, and Slovene politicians under the leadership of F. Supilo and A. Trumbic, who had fled to Italy at the beginning of the war and had later established the Yugoslav Committee.1 Their action was supported by the Serbian government, which had declared on 7 December 19I4 that the war forced on Serbia by AustriaHungary had now become a war of liberation and unification for all Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. But there were big hurdles to surmount, and the creation of a Yugoslav state remained uncertain right up to the end of the war. It was not only that the victory of the Allies still hung in the balance, but that Italy was decisively opposed to the union of the South Slavs. Moreover, the Allies for a long time were reluctant to adopt a definite policy on the disruption of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which was an essential condition for the creation of an independent Yugoslav state. When Italy entered the war on the side of the Entente, the Treaty of London of 26 April I915 stipulated not only that after the war she should get a bigger share of the territory on the eastern Adriatic inhabited predominantly by Croats and Slovenes (except for Gradisca and Trieste), but also that the remaining territory should be distributed between Montenegro, Serbia, and Croatia, which meant that the South Slavs would remain divided into petty states, thus excluding the creation of one Yugoslav state. Italian foreign policy as conducted by Sonnino held rigorously