Corfu Declaration

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Corfu Declaration
The Corfu Declaration
Created20 July 1917
LocationCorfu, Kingdom of Greece
Author(s)Nikola Pašić and Ante Trumbić
SignatoriesNikola Pašić for the Kingdom of Serbia and Ante Trumbić for the Yugoslav Committee

The Corfu Declaration (

First World War. Russia's decision to withdraw diplomatic support for Serbia following the February Revolution, as well as the Yugoslav Committee's sidelining by the trialist reform initiatives
launched in Austria-Hungary, motivated both sides to attempt to reach an agreement.

Pašić and Trumbić's positions were disparate. Pašić advocated for a

Karađorđević dynasty, deferring most questions to a future Constitutional Assembly. During the discussions, which lasted 35 days, Trumbić had little support for his view from the other members of the Yugoslav Committee, who were preoccupied with the threat posed by Italy, which had been promised territory under the 1915 Treaty of London
.

Background

Photograph of Ante Trumbić
Ante Trumbić led the Yugoslav Committee in the run-up to the creation of Yugoslavia.

During the

First World War, pressure developed in the parts of Austria-Hungary inhabited by its South Slavic population – the Croats, the Serbs, the Slovenes, and the Muslim Slavs (Bosniaks) – in support of a trialist reform,[1] or the establishment of a common state of South Slavs independent of the empire. This common state was meant to be achieved through the realisation of Yugoslavist ideas and unification with the Kingdom of Serbia.[2]

Serbia considered the war an opportunity for territorial expansion. A committee tasked with determining war aims produced a programme to establish a wider South Slavic state by adding the South Slav-inhabited parts of the

withdraw across Albania to be rescued by Triple Entente via the Adriatic Sea.[6]

In April 1915, the Yugoslav Committee was established as an ad hoc group with no official capacity.[7] Partially funded by the Serbian government, it consisted of intellectuals and politicians from Austria-Hungary claiming to represent the interests of South Slavs.[8] Ante Trumbić was the committee's president,[9] but Frano Supilo, the co-founder of the ruling Croat-Serb Coalition in Croatia-Slavonia, was its most prominent member. Supilo advocated for a federation consisting of Serbia (including Vojvodina), Croatia (encompassing Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro.[10]

On 30 May 1917, South Slavic members of the Vienna Imperial Council established the Yugoslav Club chaired by Slovene People's Party president Anton Korošec. The Yugoslav Club presented the council with the May Declaration – a manifesto demanding unification of Habsburg land inhabited by Croats, Slovenes, and Serbs into a democratic, free and independent state under Habsburg dynastic rule. The demand was made with reference to the principles of national self-determination and the Croatian state right.[11]

Discussions at Corfu

Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić negotiated the Corfu Declaration with the Yugoslav Committee
.

The May Declaration was issued while the Triple Entente was still looking for ways to achieve a separate peace with Austria-Hungary and thereby detach it from Germany. This presented a problem for the Serbian government exiled on the Greek island of Corfu. It increased the risk of a trialist solution for the Habsburg South Slavs if the separate peace treaty materialised, preventing fulfillment of the Serbian war objectives.[12] Lacking strong Russian diplomatic backing since the February Revolution, Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić felt compelled to come to an arrangement with the Yugoslav Committee.[13]

The Yugoslav Committee was also placed under pressure. It claimed to speak on behalf of South Slavs within Austria-Hungary, but it was openly looking after its own interests. The May Declaration presented a challenge to the Yugoslav Committee and the government of Serbia by depriving them of the initiative in the South Slavic unification process. This led them both to consider drafting a programme of unification of South Slavic lands in Austria-Hungary and outside it a priority.[14]

Despite being partially funded by the Serbian government, the Yugoslav Committee disagreed with it on the method of unification and the system of government. This conflict resulted from a disagreement between Pašić and Supilo. Pašić advocated a centralised government based in Belgrade, while Supilo wanted a federation and accused Pašić of championing a Greater Serbian agenda. When Pašić invited the Yugoslav Committee for talks in May 1917, Supilo warned against discussions without determining Serbian intentions first.[15]

Committee members learned that the Triple Entente had promised

Istria, and Dalmatia – under the Treaty of London to entice Italy to join the Entente.[15] Most of the committee members were from Dalmatia and saw the Treaty of London as a threat that could only be checked with help from Serbia,[10] prompting them to accept Pašić's invitation to Corfu. Supilo resigned his committee membership in protest.[16]

See caption
Participants of the June–July 1917 talks that resulted in the adoption of the Corfu Declaration

A series of meetings were held from 15 June to 20 July to reach consensus, despite radically different views on the system of government in the proposed common state. The negotiating parties mistrusted each other. The Yugoslav Committee based their positions on local autonomies, legal institutions, federalism and the Croatian State Right, but the Serbian government considered those positions vestiges of struggle against the "enemy" (meaning Austria-Hungary). On the other hand, Pašić touted universal suffrage and simple parliamentary democracy interpreted by Trumbić as a way to ensure the rule of the Serbs as the most populous ethnic group in the proposed state.

Serbian king.[13] According to the scholar Dejan Medaković, Trumbić claimed he had to sign the Declaration as the only way for his people to be on the war's winning side.[18]

The Declaration stated that Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were one "tri-named" people, and that the

Karađorđević dynasty would reign in the new unified state, which would be organised as a parliamentary, constitutional monarchy. Finally, the Declaration stated that the new government would respect the equality of "religion and alphabets", voting rights, and so forth. Trumbić proposed to establish a provisional government of the new state, but Pašić declined in order to avoid undermining the diplomatic advantage enjoyed by Serbia in the unification process as a recognised state.[16]

Impact

See also: Creation of Yugoslavia
Photograph of the delegates of the National Council of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs
Address of the delegation of the National Council of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to the Prince Regent Alexander

In essence, the Corfu Declaration was a political manifesto disregarded by the Serbian government with respect to the qualified majority needed to adopt a constitution, but upheld when its provisions coincided with Serbian interests.

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes – following Serbian objections against the name of "Yugoslavia" as a Western invention designed to stamp out the name "Serbia".[20]

Trumbić was largely isolated in opposition to the centralism championed by Pašić; most of the Yugoslav Committee sided with Pašić on the issue. While Trumbić insisted on leaving the internal affairs, education, judiciary, and economy (other than customs, currency, credit and management of state property) to federal units and asked for veto powers for the "tribes" in the Constitutional Assembly to ensure decision-making by consensus, Pašić rejected the ideas. Pašić favoured granting a degree of autonomy to local governments but advocated the abolition of historical lands in favour of new administrative units. Pašić let it be known that Croatian federalists may only exert some influence in

Fiume (Rijeka) to Italy) as a fair territorial compromise threatened by the imperialistic thinking of the Yugoslav Committee.[23]

International support only gradually began shifting away from the preservation of Austria-Hungary in 1917. That year, Russia sued for peace following the Russian Revolution while the United States, whose president, Woodrow Wilson, advocated the principle of self-determination, entered the war.[10] Nonetheless, in the Fourteen Points speech, Wilson only promised autonomy for the peoples of Austria-Hungary. Preservation of the dual monarchy was not abandoned before the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. By then, the Allies became convinced that it could not resist Communist revolution.[24] As Austria-Hungary disintegrated, representatives of the Serbian government and opposition, the Yugoslav Committee, and representatives of the National Council of the newly proclaimed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs in the former Habsburg lands, met for another round of negotiations in Geneva on 6–9 November 1918. At the conference, the Yugoslav Committee and the National Council persuaded Pašić to sign the Geneva Declaration renouncing the unitarist concept of the future union. However, the Serbian government quickly repudiated the Declaration.[7] Pressed by the circumstances of Italian armed incursion, the National Council drew up instructions for its delegation to Serbian prince regent, Alexander, offering to declare the unification of the new state. The instructions were drawn up by relying on the Corfu Declaration and National Council's federalist ideas.[25]

The delegation ignored their instructions and changed the address to Alexander from specifying a federalist system of government based on the Corfu Declaration to a display of loyalty and expression of wishes. On 1 December, Prince Regent Alexander accepted the offer to declare the unification – with no constraints imposed.[26]

See also

References

  1. ^ Ramet 2006, pp. 40–41.
  2. ^ Pavlowitch 2003a, pp. 27–28.
  3. ^ Pavlowitch 2003a, p. 29.
  4. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 40.
  5. ^ Pavlowitch 2003a, pp. 33–35.
  6. ^ Pavlowitch 2003b, pp. 60–61.
  7. ^ a b Ramet 2006, p. 43.
  8. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 41.
  9. ^ Glenny 2012, p. 368.
  10. ^ a b c Pavlowitch 2003a, p. 31.
  11. ^ Pavlowitch 2003a, p. 32.
  12. ^ Pavlowitch 2003a, p. 33.
  13. ^ a b Banac 1984, p. 123.
  14. ^ a b c Pavlowitch 2003a, pp. 33–34.
  15. ^ a b Ramet 2006, pp. 41–42.
  16. ^ a b c Ramet 2006, p. 42.
  17. ^ Šepić 1968, p. 38.
  18. ^ Medaković 1997, p. 225.
  19. ^ Repe 2017, pp. 191–192.
  20. ^ a b Banac 1984, pp. 123–125.
  21. ^ Merlicco 2021, p. 124.
  22. ^ Bucarelli 2019, pp. 286–287.
  23. ^ Bucarelli 2019, pp. 287–291.
  24. ^ Banac 1984, p. 126.
  25. ^ Banac 1984, pp. 136–138.
  26. ^ Banac 1984, p. 138.

Sources

External links
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