Alexander I of Yugoslavia
:
The title Alexander of Yugoslavia
also has other uses. |
Aleksandar I Karađorđević |
King Alexander I of Yugoslavia also called
King Alexander Unificator (
Serbian Kralj Aleksandar I Karađorđević, in
Cyrillic Краљ Александар I Кара'ор'евић) (
Cetinje,
Montenegro,
16 December 1888 –
Marseille,
France,
9 October 1934) of the
Royal House of
Karađorđević was the first king of the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia (
1929"
34) and before that king of the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (
1921"
29).
Alexander Karađorđević was born in
Cetinje in
Montenegro in December 1888. His father was King
Peter I of Serbia and his mother
Zorka of Montenegro and his maternal grandfather was King
Nicholas of Montenegro. On
8 June 1922 he married HRH
Princess Maria of Romania and Hohenzollern, the daughter of
King Ferdinand of Romania. They had three sons:
Crown Prince Peter, Princes
Tomislav and
Andrej.
He spent his childhood in
Montenegro, and was educated in
Geneva. In 1910 he nearly died from stomach typhus and left with stomach problems for rest of his life. He continued his schooling at the Military School in
St. Petersburg Russia but had to quit due to his health problems, and then in Belgrade. Prince Alexander was not the first in line for the throne but his elder brother,
Crown Prince George (Đorđe) was considered unstable by most political forces in Serbia and after two notable scandals, (one of which occurred in 1909 when he kicked his servant to death in a fit of rage) Prince Đorđe was forced to renounce his claim to the throne.
In the First
Balkan War in 1912, as commander of the First Army, Crown Prince Alexander fought victorious battles in
Kumanovo and
Bitola, and later in 1913, during the second Balkan War, the battle in
Bregalnica. In the aftermath of the Second Balkan War Prince Alexander took sides in the complicated power struggle over how Macedonia should be administered. In this Alexander bested Col.
Dragutin Dimitrijević or "Apis" and in wake of this Alexander's father Peter agreed to hand over royal powers to his son. On
24 June 1914 Alexander became
Regent of Serbia.
He was the supreme commander of the Serbian army, with superb commanding officers Marshals
Radomir Putnik,
Živojin Mišić,
Stepa Stepanović and
Petar Bojović in
World War I in the battles at
Cer and at the
Drina (the
Battle of Kolubara) in 1914, when the Serbian troops were victorious against the Austro-Hungarian army.
In
1915 the Serbian army with the aged King
King Petar I and Crown Prince Alexander suffered many losses and withdrew through Albania to
Corfu, where it was reorganized. After the army was regrouped and reinforced, it achieved a decisive victory on the
Thessalonica Frontline, at Kajmakcalan. The Serbian army carried out the final operations of the Thessalonica breakthrough in the autumn of 1918.
On the
first of December 1918, in a prearranged set piece, Alexander, as Regent, received a delegation of the Peoples Council of the
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs an address was read out by one of the delegation and Alexander made an address in acceptance. This was considered to the birth of the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
In
1921, on the death of his father
King Peter he inherited the throne of the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
On account of the deaths of three members of his family on a Tuesday, Alexander refused to undertake any public functions on that day. On Tuesday
9 October 1934 he had no choice, as he was arriving in
Marseille to start a
state visit to the
Third French Republic, to strengthen the defensive alliance against Nazi Germany. When being driven in a car through the streets along with French Foreign Minister
Louis Barthou, a gunman,
Vlada Georgieff, stepped from the street and shot the King, the Minister and the chauffeur.
|
Assassination of Alexander I |
It was one of the first
assassinations captured on film; the shooting occurred straight in front of the cameraman, who was only feet away at the time. The cameraman captured not merely the assassination but the immediate aftermath; the body of the chauffeur (who had been killed instantly) became jammed against the brakes of the car, allowing the cameraman to continue filming from within inches of the King for a number of minutes afterwards.
The assassin
Vlada Georgieff — driver of the leader of the
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization,
Ivan Mihailov — was cut down by the sword of a mounted French policeman, then beaten by the crowd. By the time he was removed from the scene, he was already dead.
King Alexander I was buried in the Memorial Church of St. George, built by King Peter I. As his son
Peter II was still a minor, Alexander's cousin
Pavle Karadjordjevic took the
regency of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
The film record of Alexander I's assassination remains one of the most historic pieces of newsreel in existence, alongside the film of Tsar
Nicholas II of Russia's
coronation, the funerals of Queen
Victoria of the United Kingdom and Emperor
Franz Josef of Austria, and the assassination of
John F. Kennedy.
King Alexander was born in
Cetinje, Montenegrin capital, and considered himself Montenegrin. An anecdote says that once the members of parliament from
Montenegro approached him with a remark that there are very few ministers from Montenegro, to which Alexander replied: "Yes, but you have a king".
