When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Versailles #10: OTD 1 Dec 1918 - Birth of Yugoslavia

Added 2018-12-01 00:02:00 +0000 UTC

[PATRONS]

ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 1st December 1918 - The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is proclaimed by Prince Regent Alexander of Serbia
This kingdom, known to history as Yugoslavia, was to have a tumultuous birth, life cycle and death, but even its very name was contentious! Serbs wanted the state to indicate the greater Serb role in its administration and creation; non Serbs wanted to maintain the facade that all were equal under the new kingdom, and that it was more a union or federation than a unitary state. The facade was not maintained for long.
This fragile kingdom, which drew together so many Balkan states and tidied up the region a great deal, was not built to last, but in this episode we examine the circumstances surrounding its proclamation, in the context of a world which was struggling to get to grips with everything that had come pouring out of Pandora's Box...