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The kingdom was formed in 1918 under the name Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ( Serbo-Croatian Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, Slovenian Kraljevina Srbov, Hrvatov in Slovencev, short name Kraljevina SHS).
On December 1 1918 it was proclaimed by Alexander Karadordevic, Prince-Regent for his father King Petar (Peter), who was formerly King of Serbia. The new Kingdom was made up of the formerly independent kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, as well as a substantial amount of territory that was formerly part of Austria-Hungary, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. The lands previously in Austria-Hungary that formed the new state included CroatiaThe Republic of Croatia is a country in Europe bordering the Mediterranean, Central Europe and the Balkans. Its capital is Zagreb. In recent history, it was a republic of Yugoslavia. History Main article: History of Croatia The Croats are a largely Slavic, SlavoniaSlavonia is a region in eastern Croatia. It is a fertile agricultural and forested lowland bounded, in part, by the Drava river in the north and the Sava river in the south. Wheat and corn are the major crops, and the leading industry is food processing. and VojvodinaThe Autonomous Province of Vojvodina ( Serbian: Hungarian: Vajdasag Autonom Tartomany Slovak: Autonomna pokrajina Vojvodina Romanian: Provincia Autonoma Voivodina Croatian: Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina Rusyn: is the northern province of Serbia. Its capit from the HungarianThe Republic of Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. It is known locally as the Country of the Magyars or Magyarorszag''. Magyar Koztarsasag ( In Detail) ( Full s part of the Empire, CarniolaCarniola is the Latin name for the province Kranjska (German Krain (now central Slovenia). It was formerly part of the Roman province of Pannonia, and was settled by Slovenians around the 6th century. It was controlled by Austrian Habsburgs ( 1335 1918) a, part of StyriaStyria was a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806, and a crownland of Austria-Hungary until it dissolved in 1918. Called Steiermark in German, for it formed the Marches of Carantania, this mountainous and scenic region, which becam and most of DalmatiaDalmatia ( Croatian Dalmacija Italian Dalmazia Serbian ) is a region of Croatia on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, spreading between the island of Pag in the northwest and the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The inner Dalmatia Dalmatinska Zagora str from the Austrian part, and the Crown province of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
A plebiscite was also held in the Province of Carinthia, which opted to remain in Austria. The Dalmatian port city of Zadar and a few of the Dalmatian islands were given to Italy. The city of Rijeka was declared a free city-state, but it was soon occupied, and in 1924 annexed, by Italy. Tensions over the border with Italy continued, with Italy claiming more of the Dalmatian coast, and Yugoslavia claiming Istria, part of the former Austrian coastal province which had been annexed to Italy, but which contained a considerable population of Croats and Slovenes.
The new government tried to integrate the new country politically as well as economically, a task made difficult because of the great diversity of languages, nationalities, and religions in the new state, the different history of the regions, and great differences in economic development among regions.
In 1921, the Constitution was passed, which established a unitary monarchy. Serb politicians regarded Serbia as the standardbearer of Yugoslav unity, as the state of Piedmont had been for Italy, and the nation of Prussia for the German empire. Over the following years, Croat resistance against a Serbocentric policy increased. In 1928, Stjepan Radic, head of the Croatian Peasant Party, was shot in parliament by Punisa Racic, an ethnic Serbian nationalist leader from Montenegro.
Not long after that, on January 6, 1929, King Alexander abolished the Constitution, prorogued the Parliament and introduced personal dictatorship (the so-called January 6th Dictatorship, Šestojanuarska diktatura). He also changed the name of the country to Kingdom of Yugoslavia and changed the internal divisions to use banovinas on October 3.
It was only in 1931 that the King passed a new Constitution and allowed de jure elections, so tensions grew. On October 9 1934, the king was assassinated in Marseille, France by Yugoslav exiles, radical members of the political parties that he banned five years earlier (primarily the VMRO). He was succeeded by his son Pavle (Paul), who served as Prince-Regent.
In 1941 the Axis powers invaded the state and divided it. In 1945, the Soviet Russia-backed Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia came into being, covering roughly the same teritory as the Kingdom had.