Carinthian Plebiscite

An Austrian propaganda poster (60 by 44 centimetres (24 × 17 in)) from 1920. The text reads: "Mother, don't vote for Yugoslavia, because I have to go to war for the King Peter". With such messages, the Austrian side tried to persuade voters that the military matters and bloodthirstiness were characteristic of Yugoslavs and Slovenes, whereas the Austrians and Germans were depicted as peace-loving.

A Yugoslav propaganda sticker. The text reads: "In Yugoslavia, a farmer is the prince. In the German Austria, Jews and barons are."

The plebscite committee of the Carinthian plebiscite, October 1920

The Carinthian Plebiscite (German: Kärntner Volksabstimmung, Slovene: Koroški plebiscit) on 10 October 1920 determined the final southern border between the Republic of Austria and the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) after World War I.

History

After the ruin of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Habsburg dynasty in World War I, new states arose in its former territory. Among these there was an internationally unrecognized State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, which was created on October 29, 1918, but was incorporated into the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on December 1, 1918.

Determination of borders between the new countries was complex and difficult, and not always peaceful. The "Carinthian question" became an issue in the closing days of World War I. The principle of self-determination, championed by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, was taken up by various nationalities that would people the successor states of the defunct Habsburg empire. Events in Carinthia developed rapidly, beginning with territorial claims by the Slovenian National Assembly on October 17, 1918. These claims were rejected by the Carinthian Provisional State Assembly on October 25, 1918. On November 11, 1918, the Carinthian Provisional State Assembly demanded self-determination, which in this case amounted to demanding a plebiscite for a region with a mixed population. The question was whether the considerable Slovene-speaking majority in the state's southern region, adjoining the Karawanken frontier, would carry the vote for union with Austria or whether that majority wished to join a newly created South Slavic state. This was to a large extent a consequence of rising national awareness under the multi-national Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy and dreams of autonomy, which Slovenes had not experienced since the Slavic principality of Carantania lost its autonomy in the ninth century. A common state with other southern Slavic peoples seemed the most acceptable compromise toward fulfillment of nationalist strivings.

With the occupation of Lower Carinthia by Yugoslav (that is, southern Slavic) troops in 1919, the confrontation evolved into armed clashes. A fight to preserve the Karawanken frontier began, alarming the Entente powers. A nine-day American commission, the "Miles mission," scouted the disputed region between river and mountains in January and February 1919 and made the crucial recommendation that the Karawanken frontier should be retained, thus opening the possibility of a plebiscite. Yugoslavs pressed for a border on the Drava; American delegates spoke in favor of preserving the unity of the Klagenfurt Basin and convinced the British and French delegations.

The Treaty of Saint-Germain with Austria in 1919 should have determined the border between Austria and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia). The treaty determined that parts of Carinthia—the Meža valley (in German, the Mießtal) and areas around Dravograd (Unterdrauburg) and Jezersko (Ober Seeland) -- should be annexed to the new Kingdom, with the status of the wider area around the Klagenfurt basin to be determined by a plebiscite.

Wanting to resolve the conflict peacefully, the Allied victors in World War I divided southeastern Carinthia into two zones, "A" in the south and "B" in the north. A two-stage referendum was to be held to determine annexation by either Austria or the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

The population of Zone A was predominantly Slovene-speaking: according to the Austrian census of 1910, people in this area who used Slovene as their primary language represented nearly 70% of the population; while the number of ethnic Slovenes was probably higher. German speakers were concentrated in Völkermarkt and certain smaller localities, especially Bleiburg (Pliberk, in Slovene) and Ferlach (Borovlje).

Before the plebiscite, both sides waged intensive propaganda campaigns. Austrian propaganda emphasized the economic benefits of maintaining the unity of the Klagenfurt Basin and appealed to feelings of Carinthian unity and brotherhood between the Slovene- and German-speaking peoples of Carinthia. Conducted in the local Slovene dialect, Austrian propaganda promised that the Slovene language would be equal to the German in Austria; it had an anti-Yugoslav tendency, picturing the conditions in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes as chaotic. Yugoslav propaganda almost exclusively used arguments emphasizing Slovene national awareness. It was extremely anti-German and turned to economic issues only in the last few weeks before the plebiscite but was not capable of using the political instability of the young Austrian republic and its then unenviable position in the international community for advantage.

Despite the six-month term determined by the Treaty of Saint-Germain, the referendum was not held in Zone A until October 10, 1920. In addition to changing the date of the plebiscite, other terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain allegedly were ignored or changed: an Austrian representative was accepted into the commission, and the plebiscite commission changed rules by not allowing the Yugoslav military to control the border between Zones A and B (8 June 1920). The Yugoslav army had to withdraw from Zone A in accord with the decision of the plebiscite commission (18 September 1920). Changes may also have been made in electoral registers which allowed people from northern zone B voting in zone A, which dramatically powered the German side.

The outcome of the plebiscite held on October 10, 1920, was 22,025 votes (59.1% of the total cast) in favor of adhesion to Austria and 15,279 (40.9%) in favor of annexation by the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Because the Austrian option gained a majority of votes in Slavic Zone A, the second stage of the referendum in northern Zone B, populated chiefly by German speakers, was not carried out.

The plebiscite determined the border between Austria and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The border remained unchanged after World War II, even as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia gave way to Josip Broz Tito's Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, though at the end of the war Yugoslav troops again briefly occupied the area, including the capital city of Klagenfurt. Since the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the border has separated Austria and Slovenia.

See also

• Rudolf Maister
• Romantic nationalism

Further reading

• (Slovene) Janko Pleterski, Koroški plebiscit 1920. Ljubljana: Zveza zgodovinskih društev Slovenije, 2008.
• Thomas M. Barker and Andreas Moritsch, The Slovene Minority of Carinthia. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

External links

• A hybrid map of the region on Google Maps