CROATIA: MYTH AND REALITY
C. Michael McAdams
Zagreb's brief jubilation quickly changed to the
sober realization that Croatia would again be ruled
from a foreign capital as Italian, French and French
African forces invaded from the west and Serbian
troops invaded from the east. On December 1, 1918,
Serbian Prince Alexander announced the formation of
the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, with a
Serbian King ruling from the Serbian capital of
Belgrade. Despite the neutral sounding name, the
country was called Yugoslavia by the diplomatic
community almost from the beginning. Ironically, at
the Paris Peace Conference the Yugoslav delegation
openly insisted that it be known as the "Serbian
Delegation."
The Paris Peace Conference
At the Peace Conference itself, the Croatians
submitted a petition to President Wilson calling for
an independent Croatia. With over 150,000 signatures
and the notation that another 450,000 signatures had
been seized by the Serbian Army, the document
specifically asked:
- That Mr. Wilson and the representatives of the great
Powers should recognize the independence of the
Croatian people;
- That an international Commission should be sent to
Croatia to inquire;
- That a Constituent Assembly should be formed that the
Croatian people be free to decide their fate;
- That Army be withdrawn;
- That the Sabor, should be respected as being alone
authorized to the making of laws in Croatia; to-day,
they are being dictated by Serbia and executed in the
most brutal manner by the military.
The petition was submitted to the Paris Peace
Conference on May 4th, 1919, but the objections of
the Croatian people were noted and then ignored by
the United States and other so-called "Great Powers."
President Wilson's famed Fourteen Points for which
America had fought a World War were undergoing a
metamorphosis at the Conference. Point X originally
called for "...the freest opportunity of autonomous
development" for the nations of Austria-Hungary and
Point XI stipulated that "relations of the several
Balkan states to one another be determined by
friendly counsel along historically established lines
of allegiance and nationality; and for international
guarantees of the political and economic independence
and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states."
The American delegation's commentary on the revision
of Wilson's famous Fourteen Points noted that "An
internal problem arises out of the refusal of the
Croats to accept the domination of the Serbs of the
Serbian Kingdom." In a classic example of diplomatic
double-speak the delegation wrote:
The United States
is clearly committed to the programme of national
unity and independence. It must stipulate, however,
for the protection of national minorities...it
supports a programme aiming at a Confederation of
Southeastern Europe.
Thus, in the eyes of the victorious Allies, in order
to protect the Croatian nation, it was necessary to
destroy it. There was no vote of the Croatian people
about their future. By decree, Prince Alexander
dissolved the Croatian National Council, convened a
Parliament composed primarily of members of the
Serbian Skupstina or Parliament and declared that all
laws of the Serbian Constitution of 1903 were in
effect throughout the land.
Despite the fact that the purpose of the new
Yugoslavia was supposed to be the unification of all
South Slavs into one state, Serbia, making good on a
secret pact with Italy made in 1915, handed over a
large part of the land and population of Croatian
Dalmatia to Italy, including the strategic cities of
Rijeka and Zadar. For the first time in thirteen
centuries the ancient Croatian institutions of Ban or
Viceroy and Sabor or Parliament were abolished by the
Serbian King. The long process of "Serbianization" had begun.
