The Turks, the Bulgars, the Germans, the Greeks were all busily
purifying the ethnic composition of their lands. But it made the
King and the Serbs no friends.
The Serbs seemed to have been bent on isolating themselves from
within and on transforming their Yugo Slav brethren into sworn
adversaries. This was true in the economic sphere as well as in the
political realm. Serbia declared a "Danubian orientation" (in lieu
of the "Adriatic orientation") which benefited the economies of
central and northern Serbia at the expense of Croatia and Slovenia.
While Serbia was being industrialized and its agriculture reformed,
Croatia and Slovenia did not share in the spoils of war, the
reparations that Yugoslavia received from the Central Powers.
Yugoslavia was protectionist which went against the interest of its
trading compatriots. When war reparations ceased (1931) and
Germany's economy evaporated, Yugoslavia was hurled into the
economic crisis the world has been experiencing since 1929. The Nazi
induced recovery of Germany drew in Yugoslavia and its firms. It was
granted favourable export conditions by Hitler's Germany and many of
its companies participated in cartels established by German
corporate giants.
King Alexander I must have known he would be assassinated.
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