Nikola Pašić
Nikola Pašić was the dominant figure in Serbian politics for four decades, serving multiple terms as Prime Minister of Serbia and then of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. A founder of the People's Radical Party and a Pan-Slavic nationalist, he guided Serbia through the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 with extraordinary diplomatic skill, doubling Serbia's territory while managing the competing ambitions of the Great Powers. His relationship with the July Crisis of 1914 is one of history's most debated questions: he appears to have had advance knowledge of the assassination plot against Franz Ferdinand through Serbian intelligence channels, but issued only a vague diplomatic warning to Vienna. During the Great War he led Serbia's catastrophic retreat across Albania in the winter of 1915-1916 and ultimately achieved his life's goal — the creation of a unified South Slavic state — at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
- Lived: 1845 CE – 1926 CE
- Nationality: Serbian
- Roles: prime_minister, statesman, nationalist
