The year when the First World War ended, 1918, is the year ending an epoch. The era of world colonialism ended; the period when a few powerful countries exploited the resources of many countries all over the world. Powerful monarchies fell – Austro-Hungary and Russia – by that time the dominating powers in the European politics.
One of the countries that came out victorious from the First World War was Serbia. The foreign policy agenda of the Serbian kingdom was the unity of South Slavs into one country. It was agreed in the years when the Serbian Parliament was in exile on the island of Corfu, when the Corfu Declaration on creating one common state was signed with the Yugoslav Committee, consisting mostly of the Croats. A new country was created, called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later on to be renamed into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
GEOGRAPHY
When the First World War ended, new centres of world power were established. Russia and the great number of neighbouring countries formed a huge revolutionary state under communism – the Soviet Union. In eastern and Central Europe new countries were formed – Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, independent Poland and independent Hungary.