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Yugoslavia Early Development
Nomadic tribes sporadically invaded and conquered the
disparate peoples living in South Slav lands from Roman times
until the nineteenth century. The Serbs resisted but fell under
foreign domination for nearly 500 years after the Ottoman Empire
defeated them at the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389. Of the
peoples forming modern Yugoslavia, only the Montenegrins remained
independent through the centuries of foreign domination.
The South Slavs were intensely involved in the military
maneuvers, power politics, and alliances in Europe that
precipitated World War I. In 1912 Serbia joined its smaller
neighbors to drive the Ottoman Empire from Macedonia in the First
Balkan War. The following year, Serbia successfully contested
Bulgarian claims to that territory in the Second Balkan War.
During the world war that followed, Serbia was attacked by
Austria-Hungary and Germany on northern and southern fronts, and
it paid dearly for its earlier victories. In October 1915,
Serbian forces retreated from Belgrade to the Adriatic Sea.
Evacuated to Greece to fight under a French command, they
eventually participated in the defeat of the Central Powers and
liberation of Serbia.
Like other small states during the years between the world
wars, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes sought
protection in alliances and collective security arrangements. It
allied with Czechoslovakia and Romania and signed a treaty of
friendship with France. It joined the Little Entente with
Romania, Greece, and Turkey in 1933. This pact obligated each
signatory to defend existing borders in southeastern Europe
against aggression by revisionist powers. Nevertheless, for selfprotection , Yugoslavia gravitated toward Germany and Italy when
the major European powers failed to oppose Axis expansionism in
the late 1930s. Yugoslavia declined a belated French offer to
conclude a mutual assistance pact in 1937. The policy of
accommodation to the Axis powers culminated in Yugoslav accession
to the pro-Nazi Tripartite Pact on March 25, 1941.
Outraged at the government's cooperation with Nazi Germany,
air force general Dusan Simovic led a group of military officers
in a swift coup d'état. They declared their objections to, but
were careful not to abrogate, the Tripartite Pact. Despite their
caution, Germany leveled Belgrade with a massive air strike and
began a full-scale ground invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941,
without a formal declaration of war.
Data as of December 1990
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