Editing Yugoslav Committee (section)

===Florence meeting===
[[File:Map_Europe_alliances_1914-en.svg|thumb|Military alliances in Europe in 1914 {{legend|#83be58|[[Triple Entente]]}}{{legend|#b0a336|[[Triple Alliance (1882)|Triple Alliance]]}}]]

In October 1914, Serbian Prime Minister [[Nikola Pašić]] learnt the [[Government of the United Kingdom]] was considering expanding the alliance against the [[Central Powers]], which at that time consisted of the [[German Empire]] and [[Austria-Hungary]]. The UK intended to persuade Hungary to secede from Austria-Hungary and to persuade the [[Kingdom of Italy]] to abandon its neutrality so both countries could join the alliance of the UK, France, and Russia that was known as the [[Entente Powers]]. Pašić discovered the UK was considering guaranteeing Hungarian access to the [[Adriatic Sea]] through the [[Port of Rijeka]] and overland access to Rijeka over Croatian soil, and resolving the [[Adriatic Question]] satisfactorily for Italy. Pašić thought these developments, coupled with a potential UK–[[Kingdom of Romania|Romanian]] alliance, would threaten Serbia and jeopardise the Serbian objective of gaining access to the Adriatic.{{sfn|Boban|2019|p=17}}

In response, Pašić directed two [[Bosnian Serb]] members of the Austro-Hungarian [[Diet of Bosnia]],  [[Nikola Stojanović (politician, born 1880)|Nikola Stojanović]] and Dušan Vasiljević, to contact the émigré Croatian politicians and lawyers [[Ante Trumbić]] and [[Julije Gazzari]], in order to resist the pro-Hungarian British proposals and to create a Slavic alternative. Pašić proposed the establishment of a body that would cooperate with the Government of Serbia on the unification of South Slavs in a state that would be created through the expansion of Serbia. The policy of expansion was to be set and controlled entirely by Serbia, and the proposed body would carry out propaganda activities on its behalf.{{sfn|Boban|2019|p=17}} The four men met in [[Florence]], Italy, on 22 November 1914.{{sfn|Banac|1984|p=118}} In January 1915, [[Frano Supilo]], who was once a leading figure in the [[Croat-Serb Coalition]], the ruling political party of the Austro-Hungarian realm of [[Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia|Croatia-Slavonia]],{{efn|Supilo co-founded the Croat-Serb Coalition with [[Svetozar Pribićević]] but left it following the [[Agram Trial]] and especially the {{ill|Friedjung Trial|hr|Friedjungov proces}} initiated by the coalition and Supilo was disappointed in a lack of support from the coalition. He was replaced by [[Ivan Lorković]] as co-chairman of the coalition. The move left Pribićević in effective control of the coalition.{{sfn|Boban|2019|p=9}}}} met with British foreign secretary [[Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon|Sir Edward Grey]] and Prime Minister [[H. H. Asquith]], providing them with the manifesto of the nascent Yugoslav Committee and discussing the benefits of South Slavic unification.{{sfn|Boban|2019|p=18}} The manifesto was co-written by Supilo and British political activist and historian [[Robert Seton-Watson]].{{sfn|Evans|2008|pp=159–160}}