The Serbian victory in the First World War was supposed to serve as compensation to this situation and there was an open debate between the followers of the Greater Serbia doctrine, that defended the incorporation of the parts of the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire where Serbs lived to Serbia, opposed by the ones that supported an idea of uniting not only all the Serbian lands, but also to include other South Slav nations into a new country. Among other reasons, but also because of the fear of the creation of a bigger and stronger Orthodox Serbia, that could eventually become a Russian ally, the decision was made to create an ethnically mixed South Slav state, where other nationalities would balance the Serb hegemony.