Alexander I of Serbia

Alexander I
King of Serbia
KraljAlexObrenovic.jpg
Reign March 6, 1889 – June 11, 1903
Coronation 2 July 1889
Born August 14, 1876 (1876-08-14)
Birthplace Belgrade
Died June 11, 1903 (1903-06-12) (aged 26)
Predecessor Milan I
Successor Peter I (Karađorđević)
Consort Draga Lunjevica
Royal House House of Obrenović
Father Milan I
Mother Natalija Keshko

  Not to be confused with Alexander I of Yugoslavia.

Alexander I or Aleksandar Obrenović (Cyrillic: Александар Обреновић; August 14, 1876 – June 11, 1903) was king of Serbia from 1889 to 1903 when he and his wife, Queen Draga were assassinated by a group of Army officers,[1] led by Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, who was in the pay of the Russians and the leader of the Black Hand secret society, which backed the assassination.

Contents

Accession

In 1889, his father, King Milan, unexpectedly abdicated and withdrew to private life, proclaiming Alexander king of Serbia under a regency until he should attain his majority at eighteen years of age. His mother Natalija Obrenović became his regent.

In 1893, King Alexander, aged seventeen, in a first coup d'état proclaimed himself of full age, dismissed the regents and their government, and took the royal authority into his own hands. His action was popular, and was rendered still more so by his appointment of a radical ministry.

In May 1894, King Alexander, by another coup, abolished the liberal constitution of 1889 and restored the conservative one of 1869. His attitude during the Greco-Turkish War (1897) was one of strict neutrality.

In the same year, the young King brought his father, Milan, back to Serbia and, in 1898, appointed him commander-in-chief of the Serbian army. During that time, Milan was regarded as the de facto ruler of the country.

Marriage

In the summer of 1900, King Alexander suddenly announced his engagement to the widowed Madame Draga Mašin, formerly a lady-in-waiting to his mother. The projected union initially aroused great opposition: he did not consult with his father, who had been on vacation in Karlovy Vary and making arrangements to secure the hand of a German princess for his son, or his prime minister Dr. Vladan Đorđević, who was visiting the Paris Universal Exhibition at the time of the announcement. Both immediately resigned from their respective offices and Alexander had difficulty in forming a new cabinet. Alexander's mother also opposed the marriage and was subsequently banished from the kingdom.

Opposition to the union seemed to subside somewhat for a time upon the publication of Tsar Nicholas II's congratulations to the king on his engagement and of his acceptance to act as the principal witness at the wedding. The marriage was duly celebrated in August 1900. Even so, the unpopularity of the union weakened the King's position in the eyes of the army and the country at large.

Political reconciliation

King Alexander and Queen Draga

King Alexander tried to reconcile political parties by unveiling a liberal constitution of his own initiative, introducing for the first time in the constitutional history of Serbia the system of two chambers (skupština and senate). This reconciled the political parties but did not reconcile the army which, already dissatisfied with the king's marriage, became still more so at the rumors that one of the two unpopular brothers of Queen Draga, Lieutenant Nikodije, was to be proclaimed heir-presumptive to the throne.

Meanwhile, the independence of the senate and of the council of state caused increasing irritation to King Alexander. In yet another coup d'état, he suspended (March 1903) the constitution for half an hour, time enough to publish the decrees by which the old senators and councillors of state were dismissed and replaced by new ones. This arbitrary act naturally increased the dissatisfaction in the country.

Assassination

The general impression was that, as much as the senate was packed with men devoted to the royal couple and the government obtained a large majority at the general elections, King Alexander would not hesitate any longer to proclaim Queen Draga's brother as the heir to the throne. In spite of this, it had been agreed with the Serbian Government that Prince Mirko of Montenegro, who was married to Natalija Konstantinovic, the granddaughter of Princess Anka Obrenovic, an aunt of King Milan, would be proclaimed Crown Prince of Serbia in the event that the marriage of King Alexander and Queen Draga was childless.[2]

Apparently to prevent Queen Draga's brother being named heir, but in reality to replace Alexander Obrenović with Peter Karađorđević, a conspiracy was organized by a group of Army officers headed by Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević also known as "Apis", who was in the pay of the Russians,[3] as well as the leader of the Black Hand secret society which would assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. Several politicians were also part of the conspiracy, and allegedly included Prime Minister, Nikola Pašić.[4] The royal couple's palace was invaded and they hid in a cupboard in the Queen's bedroom. There is another possibility, used in a Serbian history TV series "The End of the Obrenović Dynasty", in which the royal couple was hidden in a secret panic room hidden behind the mirror in a common bedroom. The room contained an entrance to a secret passage leading out of the palace, but the entrance was inaccessible due to the placement of the queen's wardrobe over it after the wedding.

The conspirators searched the palace and eventually discovered the royal couple and murdered them in the early morning of June 11, 1903. King Alexander and Queen Draga were shot and their bodies mutilated and disemboweled and, according to eyewitness accounts, thrown from a second floor window of the palace onto piles of garden manure.[4] The King was only 26 years old at the time of his death. King Alexander and Queen Draga were buried in the crypt of St. Mark's Church, Belgrade.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Dorich, William. Kosovo. 
  2. ↑ Leroy, Pierre Olivier (2004). "Biography of Prince Mihajlo Petrovic Njegos". The Njegoskij Fund Public Project. http://www.njegoskij.org/menu_history/subArts_2006/subArtHI_05006.php#footnotes. Retrieved September 28, 2007. 
  3. ↑ C. L. Sulzberger, The Fall of Eagles, p.202, Crown Publishers, New York, 1977
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sulzberger, p.202

Sources

  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
  • Dorich, William (October 1992). Kosovo. Alhambra, CA: Kosovo Charity Fund. ISBN 0317050745. 
  • Gilbert, Martin (1997). "1903". A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 75–77. ISBN 0-688-10064-3. 
Preceded by
Milan I		 King of Serbia
1889—1903		 Succeeded by
Peter I