page_title: Peter II of Yugoslavia
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: Peter II of Yugoslavia / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: Slovenščina: Kralj Peter II. na Triglavu
context_page_description: Peter II was the last King of Yugoslavia, reigning from 1934 to 1945. He was the last reigning member of the Karađorđević dynasty which came to prominence in the early 19th century.
context_section_description: Prince Regent Paul declared that the kingdom of Yugoslavia would join the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941. Two days later, King Peter, at age 17, was proclaimed of age after a pro-British coup d'état. The initially bloodless coup was led by General Dušan Simović on 27 March 1941 in the name of Peter. As General Simović led his men toward the Royal Compound, which was surrounded by guards loyal to the Regent, Peter climbed down a drain-pipe to greet the rebels. As the Regent's guards surrendered without fighting, Simović arrived to tell Peter: "Your Majesty, I salute you as King of Yugoslavia. From this moment you will exercise your full sovereign power". The coup was very popular in Belgrade and Peter was well received by the crowds. The people who had come out in Belgrade to show their support for the coup had a very pro-Allied character, many of the protesters waving British and French flags. The crowds in Belgrade cheered Peter wildly as the 17-year-old king drove his car down the streets without his bodyguards to be greeted by his subjects. The new government that Peter swore in on 27 March 1941 was headed by General Simović and comprised members of the People's Radical Party, the Croatian Peasant Party, the Democratic Party, the Croatian Independent Democrats, the Slovene People's Party, the Yugoslav Muslim Organization, the Agrarian Party and the Yugoslav National Party. With the exception of the Yugoslav Radical Alliance and the banned Yugoslav Communist Party and the Ustashe, all of the main political parties were represented in the new government.
  Postponing Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany simultaneously attacked Yugoslavia and Greece on 6 April 1941, Orthodox Easter Sunday. The Luftwaffe bombed Belgrade, killing between 3,000 and 4,000 people. Within a week, Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy invaded Yugoslavia, and the government was forced to surrender on 17 April. Parts of Yugoslavia were annexed by Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Germany. The remaining parts were governed by two German-controlled puppet governments, the Independent State of Croatia and the Serbian Government of National Salvation. 
  Peter left the country with the Royal Yugoslav Government's ministers following the Axis invasion. Initially the Yugoslav king and his government ministers went to Greece where they refuelled at a British airfield in rural Greece where locals did not at first believe that he was king of Yugoslavia. They then went to British-ruled Jerusalem in Mandatory Palestine, and Cairo in Egypt. In Athens on 16 April 1941, Peter issued a press statement saying he would fight until victory before fleeing Greece. In Jerusalem on 4 May 1941, Peter affirmed in a press statement the Cvetković–Maček agreement of 23 August 1939, which turned Yugoslavia into a semi-federation as the basis of the post-war political system he was planning to introduce once his nation was liberated. Of the 22 men Peter had sworn in as ministers on 27 March 1941, two were killed during the German invasion and another five chose not to go into exile. Džafer Kulenović of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization switched sides and went over to the Ustashe, urging Bosnian Muslims to join the Croats in killing Serbs; Father Franc Kulovec of the Slovene People's Party was killed during the bombing of Belgrade; and Vladko Maček of the Croatian Peasant Party decided not to go into exile. As a result, the Yugoslav government-in-exile was dominated by Serb ministers. The constitutional basis of the government-in-exile was always murky as the government had come into power as a result of a coup d'etat yet it professed to be based on the 1931 constitution which made the king the chief executive officer of the state with ministers only responsible to the Crown. The politicians took the view that the 1941 coup d'etat had been a popular revolution which had restored democracy, but as long as the 1931 constitution was technically still in effect, King Peter had very broad executive powers.
  In June 1941, King Peter arrived in London, where he joined other governments in exile
caption: 15-year-old King Peter II on the peak Triglav near Yugoslav-Italian-German border on 12 August 1939
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