@inbook{
author = "Бакић, Драган",
year = "2021",
abstract = "Despite the voluminous literature on the Yugoslav question during the
First World War, the views and the role of Regent Alexander in the creation of
Yugoslavia have remained insufficiently known. This is, to a large extent, a result
of the lack of primary sources which would reveal in no uncertain terms the
attitude of Regent Alexander throughout the war, a circumstance which partly
stemmed from the nature of his constitutional role in Serbia. Nevertheless, it is
argued in this paper that Alexander’s handling of the Yugoslav unification was,
at least to certain degree, conditioned by power relations between the Regent,
Nikola Pašić, the Radical Prime Minister, and the secret officer organisation, the
Black Hand, headed by Dragutin Dimitrijević-Apis. Especially after the downfall
of Serbia in the winter of 1915, Alexander exhibited his autocratic ambitions,
trying to put both the army and the civilian government under his control. In
his attempts to remove Pašić and replace his cabinet by a politically neutral one
led by a prominent military commander, Alexander seems to have played with
the idea to utilise the Yugoslav programme as a political platform for promoting
the envisaged new cabinet. There were indications during his official visit to Great
Britain in March-April 1916 that this was the case. In particular, the remarks
made by Jovan Jovanović-Pižon, Pašić’s deputy in the Foreign Ministry, who was a
close friend of the Regent and a fervent supporter of Yugoslavism, and Alexander’s
efforts to cultivate Robert William Seton-Watson, the leading pro-Yugoslav public
figure in Britain, leave the impression that the Regent tried to present himself
as the main pillar of Yugoslav unification as opposed to the allegedly exclusive
Serbian approach advocated by Pašić. During the Corfu conference in the summer of 1917, Alexander made a good impression on the representatives of the émigreé Yugoslav Committee headed by Ante Trumbić, the leading Croat politician, and facilitated understanding between
the Serbian and Croatian point of view. However, after the adoption of the Corfu
declaration, Alexander strongly backed his Prime Minister in his conduct of
the Yugoslav policy. This stemmed from the new constelation arising from the
Salonica trial in which the Regent and Pašić joined forces to eliminate Apis and
his Black Hand. Since this notorious affair resulted in the break-up of the Serbian
coalition cabinet and the revision of the Salonica trial became the watchword of
the oppostion parties, Alexander supported Pašić in both his struggle against the
Yugoslav Committee, which endeavoured to impose itself as an equal partner to
the Serbian government, and his refusal to yield to the demands of the opposition
during the course of negotiations for the formation of a new coalition cabinet.
Finally, Alexander became the dominant political factor in the concluding phase
of the war when the success of the Serbian army effectively decided the matter
of Yugoslav unification. His view of the situation and Serbia’s leading role in the
creation of Yugoslavia was not different from that of Pašić. The Prime Minister
was forced for tactical reasons to give way to the representatives of the „Yugoslavs“
at the Geneva Conference in November 1918, but that was utterly distasteful to
him. The controversy surrounding Pašić’s shifiting of responsibility for the refusal
of the Serbian government to accept the Geneva agreement onto the Regent’s
shoulders had no real foundation; it seems to have sprung from later accusations
against Pašić and Alexander’s decision not to allow Pašić to become the first Prime
Minister of the newly-minted Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia).",
publisher = "Београд : Српска академија наука и уметности",
journal = "Крај рата, Срби и стварање Југославије: зборник радова са међународног научног скупа одржаног 29–30. новембра 2018.",
booktitle = "Регент Александар и стварање Југославије, Regent Alexander and the Creation of Yugoslavia",
pages = "449-468",
url = "https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_dais_12935"
}
