About Croatia

History

Long in conflict with Rome, the region of Dalmatia was definitively subdued by Augustus (35 BC-33 BC) and was incorporated with part of Illyria as a Roman province. Century and half after fall of Roman Empire Croats settled in the Western Balkan Peninsula, Dalmatian coast as a part of the greater populace of Southern Slavs. The establishment of the Trpimirovic dynasty, circa 850, strengthened the Dalmatian Croat Duchy, which together with the Pannonian principality became a Kingdom in 925 under King Tomislav I.

In 1102, Croatia entered into a personal union with the Hungarian Kingdom. After several centuries of struggle, chiefly between Venice and the crowns of Hungary and Croatia, the coastal islands and most of Dalmatia, except Dubrovnik, were under Venetian control by 1420. After the 1526 Battle of Mohács Croatian nobles voted to become a part of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1527. This was a vote for continuation of personal union with the Hungarian Kingdom. Most of Croatia was managed by the Ottoman Empire between 1527-1699.

By the secret Treaty of London (1915) the Allies promised Dalmatia to Italy in return for Italian support in World War I. In end of October 1918 Croatian parliament has voted to abolish union with Hungary and in december 1918, Croatia has become part of the newly established kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (after 1929 Yugoslavia), but Italy continued to claim Dalmatia. The Treaty of Rapallo (1920) gave Dalmatia to Yugoslavia, except for Zadar and several islands, which subsequently passed to Italy. During World War II, Germany has established Independent State of Croatia which will fall together with 3rd Reich in 1945. After the victory of the Yugoslav Partisans led by Josip Broz Tito, a half-Croatian, half-Slovenian, Croatia became a republic within Yugoslavia. The Italian peace treaty of 1947 gave Yugoslavia the islands that had been ceded to Italy after World War I.

In 1991 Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia and a bitter and costly war was fought by the Croatian government against the Miloševic - led Yugoslav People's Army, Serbian paramilitary forces and rebel Serbs from Croatia who wanted to create "Greater Serbia" from Croatian and Bosnian and Herzegovian territory. Later, the war turned into a conflict between the Republic of Croatia and the rebel Serbs who lived in Croatia. The war came to an end with a Croatian victory, liberating the lost territory and its constitution to the state before war started, which made possible signing of the Dayton Agreement in 1995 by all war sides, that gave peace in the neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina.