State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs

The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was a short-lived political entity created in October 1918, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated at the end of the First World War. It was constituted by the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs of the empire's southern provinces, the so-called Prečani, and was the first incarnation of a Yugoslav state. Its authority rested on the National Council in Zagreb, which claimed to represent the South Slav lands of the monarchy, including Croatia-Slavonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dalmatia and the Slovene lands. The state was never internationally recognised, and its borders were contested by Italy, Serbia and the new Austrian and Hungarian republics. Thirty-three days after its proclamation, on 1 December 1918, it joined the Kingdom of Serbia to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes under the Karađorđević dynasty. The brief episode marked the end of Habsburg rule in the region and the beginning of the Yugoslav experiment, but it also left unresolved the constitutional disputes between centralists and federalists that would trouble the new kingdom.