Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was the Yugoslav state of 1918 to 1929, colloquially Yugoslavia, the land of the South Slavs. It was formed in late 1918 by joining the previously independent Kingdom of Serbia with the Kingdom of Montenegro and the lands of the fallen Austro-Hungarian Empire, above all the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, which together make up present Bosnia and Herzegovina and most of present Croatia and Slovenia, with Banat, Backa and Baranja thrown in. The Serbian dynasty of Karadjordjevic ruled it: Peter I, who had ruled Serbia, became the first king and reigned until 1921, to be succeeded by his son Alexander, who had been his regent. The Vidovdan Constitution of 1921 kept power at Belgrade and set Croats and Slovenes against what they saw as Serb hegemony. Three-quarters of the people farmed, and manufacturing stayed in Belgrade and a few cities. Tensions never settled, and in 1929 Alexander set up the 6 January Dictatorship and renamed the kingdom Yugoslavia.