Sir, - Nick Lowry (October 15th) is wrong when he states that "the artificial state of Yugoslavia had been set up by the victorious allies after 1918 as a reward to Serbia."
During the first World War, a Yugoslav committee was set up in London, headed by a Croat, Dr Trumbic, with the express purpose of lobbying the British government in favour of a united state of South Slavs after the war. This was the stand adopted by the British at the Versailles conference, while the French proposed an expanded Serbian kingdom, which would have incorporated all the Serbian lands in former Yugoslavia, leaving the Croats and the Slovenes to fend for themselves.
King Alexander of Serbia favoured the British option, against the advice of his Prime Minister, N. Pasic, who preferred the French solution. Most Croats were in favour of the union, as were the Slovenes. In Montenegro, which was an independent kingdom, the council of elders voted to join also, forcing King Nicholas to abdicate. History was to show that the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia, was hated by a section of the Croats, and was very costly indeed for the Serbs. - Yours, etc., Zivko Jaksic,
Serbian Information Bureau, Grange Road, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.