168 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Lewis W. Iline 

 A STREET SCENE IN BELGRADE, CAPITAL OE THE NEWLY ORGANIZED KINGDOM OE 

 THE SERBS, CROATS, AND SLOVENES 



By the amalgamation of the South Slav populations and territories of Serbia, Montenegro, 

 Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, and other provinces, Jugo-Slavia becomes 

 a state three times the size of pre-war Serbia. 



Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, 

 and Maryland. If the new republic 

 should succeed in acquiring title to the 

 region to the northeast designated as the 

 "Pechenga District," 3,500 square miles 

 will be added to its domains. 



One of the most serious controversial 

 issues growing out of the establishment 

 of the Finnish Republic is the disposition 

 of the Aland Islands. Formerly the 

 property of Sweden, the 3,000 rocky 

 islands, of which perhaps 80 are inhab- 

 ited, were ceded with Finland to Russia 

 more than a hundred years ago. The 

 population, which was estimated at 20,000 

 before the World War, is mainly of Swe- 

 dish descent. 



Sweden has long fretted over Russian 

 ownership of the Aland Archipelago, 

 owing to its strategic command of the 



entrance to the capital city of Stockholm, 

 and in 1856, by the Treaty of Paris, 

 which brought the Crimean War to a 

 close, the Tsar was prohibited from for- 

 tifying the islands — a restriction which 

 was galling to Russia, but one enforced 

 by Great Britain and France at the behest 

 of the Swedes. 



It is maintained by Sweden that a pleb- 

 iscite has shown an overwhelming ma- 

 jority in favor of Swedish sovereignty. 

 Finland, on the other hand, argues that 

 the islands have been administered as 

 part of the Finnish province of Abo- 

 Bjorneborg for more than a century, and 

 that a majority of the islands lie nearer 

 to the Finnish coast than to the Swedish. 



The sovereignty of the islands is still 

 one of the moot points in the territorial 

 settlements of Europe. It has been 



