Italian governorate of Montenegro
The Italian governorate of Montenegro () existed from October 1941 to September 1943 as an occupied territory under military government of Fascist Italy during World War II. Although the Italians had intended to establish a quasi-independent Montenegrin kingdom, these plans were permanently shelved after a popular uprising in July 1941. Following the Italian surrender in September 1943, the territory of Montenegro was occupied by German forces which withdrew in December 1944. Background Prior to the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (KSCS, later renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), Montenegro had been recognised as an independent state for forty years. Immediately prior to the creation of the KSCS in December 1918, the Kingdom of Montenegro was unified with the Kingdom of Serbia and ceased to exist as an independent state. From 1922 onward, as part of the KSCS and then Yugoslavia, Montenegro was not a subdivision of the state. A period of agrarian reform immediately after the First World War resulted in some transfer of population from mountainous areas of Montenegro to other areas of Yugoslavia, including the Macedonian and Kosovo regions. This population movement also achieved a political goal of increasing the Serb population in those areas.