The New Kingdom of Jugoslavia

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ON October 3 one of the states of Europe changed its name: the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes became the Kingdom of Jugoslavia. The event passed without notice from the American press, along with the equally important action taken simultaneously by the Jugoslav Government, namely the abolition of the administrative system in existence since 1924. Since the war the official Jugoslav map has not borne the historic names of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Herzegovina or Montenegro; and now the thirty-three administrative divisions, or departments, which were decreed in 1922 to supplant the old pre-war divisions have been replaced by nine provinces, or "banovines." Eight of the banovines have been named for historic rivers, the ninth being called the "Littoral Province." The influence of King Alexander is seen not only in the division of the state into larger units, each possessed of considerable local autonomy, but even in the names given them; for the Serbian army divisions were always called after the river valleys where they were recruited, and it was probably in that way that the King (a soldier before he was a statesman) got his idea for the new provincial nomenclature...