When the fortunes of war began to point to an Entente victory in 1918, it would have been possible to secure the recognition of a Jugoslav state, to be formed by the union of the Jugoslav portions of Austria and Hungary with Serbia. But the Serbian Government failed to recognize the barriers of which we have just spoken, and aimed to use the victory as a means of aggrandizing Serbia. The new territories were to come into the existing kingdom without conditions. Premier Pashitch tried to get the Entente Powers and the United States to agree to the annexation of Bosnia by Serbia when the Austro-Hungarian armies withdrew. In the summer of 1918, when the Czechoslovak National Council was officially recognized as trustee of the future Czechoslovak Government, it was intimated that a similar step would be taken on behalf of the Jugoslavs if only Serbia agreed to throw in her lot with the proposed Jugoslavia. Rumania and Greece joined the Entente Powers in urging this course upon the Belgrade Government. Premier Pashitch refused. The golden opportunity was lost; for in October Italy declared that she would countenance no such move. When, with the break-up of the Dual Monarchy, Agram proclaimed the independence of Croatia on October 28, 1918, it was too late to arrange what would have been feasible in the summer. On November 9 the Belgrade and Agram Governments issued at Geneva a joint declaration to work together until a constituent assembly, elected by universal suffrage, should adopt a constitution for the new states, whose boundaries were as yet indefinite. This _modus vivendi_, accepted at the eleventh hour by Pashitch, might have lasted throughout the Peace Conference had it not been for the fear of Italian aggression, which prompted the Agram Government to beg for the assistance of the Serbian army to save Laibach and Fiume from Italian occupation. In taking over the territories assigned to them by the armistice of November 3, the Italian armies acted with a high hand, suppressing the Jugoslav national movement promptly and ruthlessly. Italian nationalism was being worked up to fever heat by the propaganda to make the Adriatic an Italian lake. The Dalmatian League at Rome declared that Dalmatia was to be Italian. D’Annunzio issued an impassioned appeal for Fiume, the words of which he soon afterward proved himself able to translate into actions. The Agram National Council’s hand was forced. Instead of waiting to arrange on equal terms with the Belgrade Government the details of union, as the Declaration of Geneva had provided, the Council proclaimed, on November 23, the union of the territories under its control with the Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro. Three days later a national assembly at Podgoritza deposed King Nicholas and his dynasty and voted for the union of Montenegro with the new state. Prince Alexander, as regent, announced the birth of “free and united Jugoslavia” at Belgrade on December 1, 1918.