It was reported that Serbian reservist soldiers on tramp steamers fired on Austro-Hungarian troops near Temes-Kubin in Hungary, on July 27. This report was false. However, together with the unsatisfactory Serbian reply to the Austrian Note and the fact that Serbia had mobilized its army before sending the reply, the report convinced the Austrian Foreign Minister, Berchtold, that the problem of Austro-Serbian tension could only be solved by war. War was formally declared on Serbia at noon on July 28, 1914, even though Serbia was not a signatory to the international convention which required this step. Serbia repulsed three Austro-Hungarian invasions (August, September and November–December 1914), in the last of which Belgrade was held temporarily by the enemy. But during 1915 an epidemic of typhus decimated the Serbian army, and renewed invasion in early October, this time involving also German and Bulgarian forces, resulted in the occupation of the whole country. The remnants of Serbia's armed forces retreated into Albania and Macedonia, where British and French forces had landed at Thessaloniki. Persecutions and deaths followed. The period of government exile in Macedonia was marked by a significant shift in the balance of political forces. Black Hand leaders were arrested, tried, convicted (confessing their roles in the assassination) and in three cases executed on false charges (overturned posthumously). Military circles would henceforth be dominated by the royalist "White Hand" faction of Gen. Petar Živković, later prime minister (1929–32) of an extra-constitutional monarchical regime. A successful Allied offensive in September 1918 secured first Bulgaria's surrender and then the liberation of the occupied territories (November 1918). On November 25, the Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci, and other nations of Vojvodina in Novi Sad voted to join the region to Serbia. Also, on November 29 the National Assembly of Montenegro voted for union with Serbia, and two days later an assembly of leaders of Austria-Hungary's southern Slav regions voted to join the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (see also History of Yugoslavia). Comparing to the other European countries Serbia had by far the greatest casualties in the war, having over 30% (1,3 million) of its total population perished. After the military victory over Austria-Hungary in the First World War, the Kingdom of Serbia was restored and was joined with other South Slavic lands formerly administered by Austria-Hungary into the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (which was renamed to Yugoslavia in 1929).