How Churchill Turned a Claridge’s Hotel Room Into Yugoslav Territory in 1945

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]For one night in 1945, a room in this hotel >> briefly belonged to another country.

[00:00:08]What you can see behind me is Claridge's. And during the Second World War, it became an unlikely refuge for exiled European royalty. Kings without kingdoms, queens without countries, all slumming it in Mayfair.

[00:00:24]When the Yugoslav royal family needed their heir born on home soil, someone had to get creative. Churchill allegedly made it happen with a single declaration.

[00:00:37]The suite became Yugoslavia for just long enough. It's a kind of story that may be more myth than fact, but Claridge's has never denied it.

[00:00:49]That's London.