Abstract: Drawing on archival materials, press accounts, and relevant literature, this paper investigates the establishment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia’s first regular subsidized trans-oceanic steamship line to South America. In 1930, the Yugoslav state contracted the domestic company Yugoslav Lloyd to maintain this line for ten years. Delays in decision-making, disagreements within the government, competing offers, primarily by the British Cunard Line, public opinion, and other influencing factors reveal key aspects of the Kingdom’s transport, trade, financial, foreign policy and emigration strategies.

Keywords: steamship line, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, South America, Yugoslav Lloyd, Cunard Line

Summary

In the early 1920s, Yugoslav shipowners proposed the idea of establishing a regular steamship line to the distant lands of South America. These countries were important to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia due to various emigration, trade, and indirectly political issues. Domestic companies transported goods between Yugoslavia and the countries of this continent. However, they were unable to organize passenger (emigrant) transport, which left Yugoslav emigrants reliant on foreign companies for transportation. In 1926, the British company Yugoslav Express Agency submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Transportation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes to establish a domestic steamship company to launch a regular passenger and freight line to South America. Initially, Yugoslav authorities welcomed this offer. However, some domestic shipowners, aware that the proposed company would not be truly domestic and due to their own plans to launch such a line, strongly opposed the proposal. The Аgency, behind which actually stood the British company Cunard Line, persistently took steps to secure this project. It has also entered into cooperation with certain domestic companies. Nevertheless, the approval of the Agency’s request was ultimately unsuccessful, despite its efforts towards the government and the fact that the Kingdom of SCS was attempting to secure a loan from the United Kingdom during this period. The creation of the large domestic company Yugoslav Lloyd, the launch of a regular freight line to South America by domestic companies, and other factors played a decisive role in the Yugoslav state's decision to grant the subsidy for the South American line to Yugoslav Lloyd in 1930. This company operated the route under a contract with the state until the contract expired in 1940. The route in question was a freight service. A regular passenger (emigrant) service was never established, and Yugoslav emigrants continued to be transported by foreign companies.