The news of Greece's rapid defeat and its retreat to Crete was also a shock to the countries of Europe, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

In Belgrade, Prince Regent Paul is discussing Yugoslavia's foreign affairs with Prime Minister Svetkov.

"Now that Greece has been divided by Romania and Italy, we in Yugoslavia need to prepare early."

Prince Paul, the regent, voiced his concerns to the prime minister.

Prince Paul, the younger brother of Alexander, assumed the role of regent of Yugoslavia after his brother's assassination, and returned his power when his nephew, Peter II, came of age.

"I have spoken to the British and French ambassadors, and they have expressed their approval and understanding of our neutrality. It's just that now facing Italy and Romania, this makes my country completely unsure of how to deal with it. ”

Prime Minister Svetkov shared the same concerns. Because Yugoslavia had always maintained a close attitude towards Britain and France, it joined the small entente led by France. It was only after the Czech crisis that Yugoslavia discovered that Britain and France were somewhat unreliable, and gradually had the idea of alienating Anglo-French relations.

It's just that the pressure brought by Italy made Yugoslavia have to rely on the support of Britain and France to contend with it. Italy's ambitions for the coastal strip of Dalmatia, Yugoslavia, can be smelled across the Adriatic Sea.

For the words of the Prime Minister. Prince Paul couldn't help but say. "Yes, the situation in the kingdom is worrying now, and I don't know if we can still guarantee the integrity of the kingdom."

Yes, Prince Paul's biggest concern for Yugoslavia now is whether it can guarantee the integrity of the country. Because Yugoslavia not only had external troubles, but also internal troubles. Yugoslavia's internal troubles are the many ethnic problems in the country.

Like Romania, Serbia profited greatly from the First World War, not only Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also Croatia and Slovenia in Austria-Hungary, as well as the annexation of the Kingdom of Montenegro. The territory jumped from 110,000 square kilometers before World War I to 260,000 square kilometers, making it the second largest country in the Balkans.

However, the consequence of such a reckless annexation of territory is to make the national question in its country unusually complicated, and completely surpass the disintegration of Austria-Hungary. The question of nationalities alone in the country was a headache for the nascent kingdom of Lovenians-Croats-Serbs (yes, it is not called the Kingdom of Yugoslavia now).

The proportion of Serbs, the largest ethnic group in the country, is only 36.3%, followed by Croats (19.7%), Bosnia*** (8.9%), Slovenes (7.9%), Albanians (7.7%), Marston (6%), and Montenegrins (2.6%).

With such a multiplicity of nationalities, and the absence of a new kingdom in which one nation has the advantage of population, many problems are bound to arise. Among them, the new Croats and Slovenes also wondered whether the new kingdom would be able to treat them equally. Among the Croats, the second largest ethnic group, led by the Peasants' Party, and a number of other parties opposed the merger with Serbia, which led to a bitter conflict between the two ethnic groups.

In 1929, King Alexander of Serbia staged a coup d'état, abolished the constitution, imposed a dictatorship, and established the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In terms of the form of the state structure, the new kingdom imposed a centralized unitary system, did not practice a federal system, and did not practice regional ethnic autonomy.

The establishment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia brought all nationalities other than Serbs under its rule, which made the Yugoslav national question even more concentrated.

The most famous of these events was the assassination of the Croatian militant national organization Ustasha. King Alexander and French Foreign Minister Bardu, who was in the same car, were both shot and killed, as were three of his attachés in the same car (sharpshooters?). ）。

And the impact of this incident on Yugoslavia was very large, and the most direct impact was the loss of the ruler (the government was directly responsible to the king). It also brought the issue of Serbs and Croats to a sharp eruption, and the number of incidents between the two communities increased.

And this year, in order to appease the mood of the Croats, Prime Minister Svetkov and the leader of the Croatian Peasants' Party, Macek, signed an agreement to establish a Croatian province and grant some autonomy. Macek, on the other hand, joined the coalition government as deputy prime minister.

Although Yugoslavia temporarily pacified the Croats' revolt, as the saying goes, the gourd lifts the scoop, and the government's approach has aroused opposition within the Serbs.

Among them, the pro-Serbian Radical Party in Croatia has even proposed that the Serbs in Croatia be self-governing and merge with the Kraina Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina to form a new region.

And it also allows other nations to see opportunities. As the old saying goes, don't suffer from inequality, and if the Croats can govern themselves, then why can't they. So while the agreement temporarily appeased the Croats, other ethnic areas bred more discontent.

It's just that the current Yugoslav government has no time to deal with the national question. Now they must prioritize the issue of taking sides, and the horror of Greece has frightened them.

Prince Paul consulted with the Prime Minister this time because he had an idea that needed to be approved by the Prime Minister. I saw that he said with some hesitation. "Your Excellency, Prime Minister, you ...... Think...... Is there any other way to preserve the integrity of Yugoslavia than to seek neutrality, preferably to eliminate the threat from Italy and Romania? ”

Although Prince Paul's words were vague, how could Svetkov, as Prime Minister, not understand them. To be able to directly eliminate the threat, in addition to beating the two countries to the point where they dare not have this thought, the only way is to join.

Beat? Did Yugoslavia have that strength?

So the prime minister thought about it for a moment and replied. "Yes!"

I saw him continue to give reasons. "At present there is a territorial contradiction with our country between Italy and Romania, with which the problem is mainly with the coastal zone of Dalmatia, and with Romania it is with Macedonia. And if China joins, it will make Germany more comfortable in the alliance, but this method will also cause tears within our country. ”

That's right, it's tearing. At present, there are too many people in Yugoslavia who are close to Britain and France, and even after Britain was attacked by Alexander and most of the Mediterranean Fleet was lost, there were still many people who firmly believed that Britain and France would eventually win, just like in the last war.

So if they knew about the alliance with Germany, they would have done something bad.

Not to mention the Macedonian region, which is currently the most difficult problem in Yugoslavia. For this reason, Svetkov has not had a few good night's sleeps. The Macedonian separatists are now dancing too happily, and these people rely on the Kingdom of Romania behind them, and they are simply emboldened. And the government, in order to avoid angering Romania, cannot resort to forceful means.

Originally, there was no threat at all in Macedonia, but after the annexation of Bulgaria by Romania, everything changed. Yes, Svetkov seems to have been annexed, and although the Bulgarians in Romania all enjoyed the same rights, their national customs, language, and writing were deeply influenced by Romania.

Among other things, as far as he knew, there were 97 media outlets in Bulgaria before the merger, and now that they have been incorporated into Romania, there are 31 Bulgarian media outlets, including two media outlets that distributed Bulgarian in the former Romanian territory

The Romanians are paralyzing the Bulgarians with benefits, constantly weakening their national identity.

In fact, Svetkov also wanted to learn this, but this method requires rich countries to annex poor countries. Yugoslavia did not have such conditions for this. The Croatians and Slovenes of the former Austro-Hungarian territory were richer than Serbia.

Therefore, the prime minister is also very much in favor of this approach to the shaft. I became your ally, and naturally you can't do anything to your allies.

And at this time, Prince Paul spoke his inner thoughts. "So do you want Your Excellency the Prime Minister to make a trip yourself?"

Considering secrecy, as well as other reasons, Svetkov nodded. "That's fine."

So on November 20, 1939, Yugoslav Prime Minister Svetkov's visit to Germany began.

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