ABSTRACT
When King Peter II and the nucleus of the Yugoslav government arrived in London at the end of June 1941,1 they were received as heroes who had sacrificed all to defy Hitler three months earlier, on 27 March. In spite of the rapid collapse of Yugoslavia’s defences, its government’s declaration, as soon as it had left the country, that it was still at war, followed by news of risings in the summer, boosted British public morale. The 18-year-old monarch became the symbol of Yugoslavia’s struggle to keep its freedom in alliance with Great Britain. The exiled cabinet was a coalition of parties that strove for a solution of the country’s problems in a parliamentary system. Assembled under General Dušan Simovic´, apparent leader of the coup, it symbolized a yearning for a fully representative leadership in an hour of need. The moral assets that the King and his ministers found in London rested
on weak foundations. Composed of the leaders of all the parties that had, at one time or another, been in opposition since King Alexander had suspended the original Constitution in 1929, the government had been legalized under the later Constitution of 1931 granted by Alexander and which made ministers responsible to the sovereign alone. The politicians subscribed to a theory formulated by the constitutional theorist, historian and deputy Prime Minister Slobodan Jovanovic´, according to which the coup had, in intention, restored parliament as a constitutional factor equal to the Crown. Until such time as it could be elected, its rights were deemed to be vested in the parties represented in government. Jovanovic´’s theory notwithstanding, constitutional legality was, for the time being, vested in the King alone. Theories could be advanced, for the Constitution of 1931 had, in fact, been
all but destroyed. As a result of the bargain (Sporazum) struck in August 1939 between Prince Paul and the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) leader Vladko Macˇek, an autonomous Province (banovina) of Croatia had been set up, parliament had been dissolved, and the restructured government empowered to prepare a new electoral law. Although they had in fact initiated a revision of the Constitution, these measures had been enacted on the basis of the Crown’s reserved emergency powers and were ultimately to be submitted to parliament. The new parliament, which would presumably have had a constituent role, was never to be. Peter II assumed the royal prerogative six
months before his statutory majority. Macˇek, who suspected that the coup had, in part, resulted from resentment against the Sporazum, had made a further extension of the Banovina’s competence a condition to his staying on in government. Accepted by Simovic´, not given formulation for lack of time, this was confirmed along with the Sporazum itself by a government declaration issued in Jerusalem in May. Simovic´’s government had been conceived as a representation of parties, but
it was a disparate collection. The whole political spectrum was there, except for the subversive fascist and communist extremes and the time-servers of the makeshift government Yugoslav Radical Union of the late 1930s: politicians of the HSS and of its Independent Democrat (SDS) allies, Slovenian Populists (SLS) and the Yugoslav Muslim Organization (JMO), Radicals (NRS) and Democrats (DS), Agrarians (SZ) and the Yugoslav National Party (JNS). There were some who had opposed the manner of the Sporazum and the Pact with the Axis Powers, and others who had been for the Sporazum but against the Pact; there were regional leaders, ethnic leaders, and parliamentary party leaders without a parliament; a couple of distinguished non-party personalities, and the generals who had emerged at the head of the coup. It claimed to be a revolutionary government, but had to be legalized under what remained of the existing Constitution. In their few days of effective power, the ministers had had no time to tackle any of the country’s problems. When the government reassembled in exile, the acknowledged spokesmen
for the Croats, the Slovenes and the Muslims were no longer with it. The JMO leader Džafer Kulenovic´ had gone over to the newly-proclaimed Independent State of Croatia (NDH), and there had been no one to take his place. Fran Kulovec of the SLS had been killed in the bombing of Belgrade, and had been replaced. Macˇek had decided to stay and share the ills of war with his own people in Croatia. He had delegated to the government the HSS secretary general Juraj Krnjevic´, who had only in 1939 returned from ten years of self-imposed exile.
