Mussolini called Pavelic his "Balkan Pawn" but in
that he was mistaken. There are good reasons to believe that he was
shocked by the murder of King Alexander. In any event, the free
movement of Pavelic and the Ustasha was afterwards severely
restricted.
On March 1941, the Crown Council of Yugoslavia decided to accede to
the Tripartite Pact of the Axis, though in a watered down form.
Yugoslavia maintained the prerogative to refuse the right of passage
in its territory to foreign powers.
Yet, no one believed this would be the case if confronted with such
a predicament. This decision - to give up Yugoslavia's main asset
and only protection - its neutrality - was taken under pressure from
the Croats in power at the time. The Pact was already joined by
Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. Two days after the Yugoslav Prime
Minister (Dragisa Cvetkovic) and his foreign minister signed the
Pact in Vienna - they were deposed together with the Regent Paul.
The precocious Peter was made King of Yugoslavia by the rebellious
officers, headed by General Dusan Simovic. The generals now in
charge reverted to Yugoslavia's neutrality and refused to join the
British-Greek naval treaty, for example. But what appeared to be
spontaneous demonstrations in favour of the conspirators and against
the Tripartite Pact erupted all over Serbia.
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