Why go
This chapter helps distinguish Serbia’s national history from the wider Yugoslav story encountered in museums and memorial narratives. The country entered the First World War as an independent kingdom and emerged within a larger South Slav state. That change of scale is essential when following accounts of the royal period.
The full story
The Balkan Wars of 1912–13 expanded Serbia’s territory after the defeat of Ottoman power and then Bulgaria. They also left the country weakened by losses immediately before another conflict. Relations with Austria-Hungary grew increasingly tense as Serbia’s regional ambitions gained strength. After Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The alliance system helped turn the confrontation into a European war. Serbian victories early in the conflict were followed by defeat in 1915. Much of the army withdrew through exile, regrouped in Greece and returned to the Macedonian front before the breakthrough of September 1918. The postwar settlement changed the political map. In December 1918, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was proclaimed under the Serbian royal dynasty. The new state brought together territories with different political experiences. King Alexander’s assassination in Marseille in 1934 and the creation of an autonomous Croatian banate in 1939 belong to its troubled later history.