Banus-Banat

Last week a royal decree of spectacled Dictator-King Alexander changed the name of his country from The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, to The Kingdom of Jugoslavia. More vital to most Jugoslavians was another decree issued by King Alexander almost simultaneously. It looked forward to an imminent end of the royal dictatorship established on Christmas Day, 1928 (TIME, Jan. 14) and a return to parliamentary government. It altered the entire map of Jugoslavia by dividing the country into nine Banats or states, each Banat governed by a Banus appointed by the King. Historic names like Croatia and Montenegro went by the board, the new Banats being named for Jugoslavia's chief rivers*:

Banat: Capital:

Sava Zagreb

Danube Novi Sad

Yardar Skoplje

Drina Sarajevo

Morava Nisch

Drava Ljubljana

Vihas Banjaluka

Coastal Banat Spalato

Zeta Cetinje

Croats and Slovenes looking carefully at the new map saw at once why King Alexander was willing to return to parliamentary government. Skillful jigsaw work had shaped the new states so as to split each of Jugoslavia's troublesome racial minorities. Six of the nine Banats contain a sizeable majority of Serbs. Especially vexed were the Croatians, noisiest and most troublesome of Jugoslavia's racial groups.

"Best of All"

The fact that romantic Montenegro is no longer an independent state (see above) does not prevent its royal princes, still filled with romance, from traveling under their oldtime royal titles.

Last week Prince Peter of Montenegro arrived in England with his fair wife Violet Emily Wagner, British-born music hall dancer whom he married five years ago. In London he smiled while she pushed through a crowd of welcoming potentates, to grab, hug and kiss her father, a onetime London detective sergeant. Said the prince, beaming upon his wife: "There is no woman who can equal the English blond, and I have chosen the best of all."

*The French Revolution wiped out the old district names of France: Brittany, Aquitaine, the Pays de Gen, Auvergne, redivided France into departments largely named for French Rivers: Seine, Oise, Dordogne, etc.