Alexander I (Serbian: Александар I Обреновић, romanized: Aleksandar I Obrenović; 14 August 1876 – 11 June 1903) was King of Serbia from 1889 until his death in 1903, when he and his wife, Draga Mašin, were assassinated by a group of army officers, led by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević.
| Alexander I Александар I Обреновић | |
|---|---|
Alexander in 1900 | |
| King of Serbia | |
| Reign | 6 March 1889 – 11 June 1903 |
| Coronation | 2 July 1889 |
| Predecessor | Milan I |
| Successor | Peter I |
| Prime ministers | Full list |
| Born | 14 August 1876 Belgrade, Serbia |
| Died | 11 June 1903 (aged 26) Belgrade, Serbia |
| Burial | St. Mark's Church, Belgrade |
| Spouse | Draga Mašin (m. 1900) |
| House | Obrenović |
| Father | Milan I of Serbia |
| Mother | Natalija Keşco |
| Religion | Serbian Orthodox |
| Styles of Alexander I of Serbia | |
|---|---|
| Reference style | His Majesty |
| Spoken style | Your Majesty |
Accession
Alexander was born on 14 August 1876 to King Milan and his wife, Queen Natalie of Serbia. By birth, he was member of the House of Obrenović, ruling dynasty of the Principality of Serbia and from 1882, the Kingdom of Serbia.
In 1889, King Milan unexpectedly abdicated and withdrew to private life, proclaiming Alexander king of Serbia. Since the king was only thirteen, Jovan Belimarković, Kosta Protić and Jovan Ristić were appointed as his regents. His mother also became his regent.
Alexander ordered the arrest of the regents on 13 April 1893, proclaiming himself of age and dissolving the national assembly. On 21 May, he abolished his father's liberal constitution of 1889 and restored the previous one. In 1894, the young King brought his father, Milan, back to Serbia and appointed him commander-in-chief of the army in 1898. During that time, Milan was regarded as the de facto ruler of the country. In 1898, penalties were brought down upon the Radical and the Russophil parties, which the court sought to tie to an attempted assassination of the former King Milan.
Alexander's attitude during the Greco-Turkish War (1897) was one of strict neutrality.
Marriage prospects
As had once been the case for Prince Milan, the Serbian side initially sought one of the many Russian princesses for King Alexander as well, on several occasions (1887, 1891, 1893), while Alexander was still a minor. The last significant attempt to obtain a favorable response from the Russian court was made during the government of Vladan Đorđević in the autumn of 1897. The Serbian Prime Minister, through the Bishop of Dalmatia, Nikodim—highly esteemed at the Russian court—inquired about a possible marriage for King Alexander. The request was rejected, as the Russian court did not wish even to consider an alliance with the son of the disgraced Austrophile Milan Obrenović and directed Serbian diplomacy toward the ruling families of Greece and Montenegro.
While King Alexander was still a fifteen-year-old, the Serbian envoy in Athens, was tasked in 1891 with gathering information about the daughters of the Greek King George I, a descendant of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, which ruled Denmark. King George I was married to a Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna of Russia, a granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I. As a result, the Greek royal couple had kinship ties with both the German dynasties and the House of Romanov. The information sought included details concerning the age and upbringing of the Greek princesses. An nevoy took particular note of Princess Maria of Greece, several months older than Alexander, who was regarded as educated, modest, and well-mannered. She even possessed a portrait of the Serbian king, but tore it up in 1891 upon learning that he had permitted the shameful expulsion of his mother, Queen Natalie, from Belgrade.
Since Alexander was still underage, his marriage was not pursued at the time. The issue resurfaced in 1896, during preparations for the king’s visit to Athens, when Serbian diplomacy appears to have arranged a first meeting between Alexander and Maria. Shortly before the visit, however, Maria’s engagement to the Russian Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia was announced, constituting a notable diplomatic embarrassment for the Serbian king. Serbian officials denied that the journey had been intended as a proposal. The episode underscored the need for far more careful preparation in future marriage negotiations.
The German Empire, unified under Prussian leadership and the Hohenzollern dynasty in 1871, was a true mosaic of kingdoms, principalities, and landgraviates. With the creation of the modern German state, ruling and noble houses did not lose their prestige within the framework of European aristocracy. King Milan was particularly keen for his son Sasha to marry a German princess.
Milan’s first choice for a daughter-in-law was Princess Sibylle of Hesse-Kassel (1877-1952), daughter of Prince Frederick William of Hesse-Kassel by his second wife, Princess Anna of Prussia. Such a marriage would have secured dynastic ties with the Prussian, Danish, Russian, and British royal houses. However, the marriage negotiations were never brought to completion. The German press prematurely reported an engagement, and the subsequent denials created the unfavorable impression that the Serbian suitor had been rejected by the House of Hesse.
Nevertheless, what seemed an even better opportunity soon emerged in the person of Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen, a niece of the German Emperor Wilhelm II. At the beginning of 1896, the emperor gave his preliminary consent and advised the Serbian side to open negotiations with Feodora’s parents. Yet, as noted, by the end of 1897 the Serbian court had unsuccessfully pursued prospective brides in Greece, Montenegro, and Russia.
In spring 1897, arrangements were made for Alexander to wed Princess Xenia of Montenegro. However, when Alexander went to the royal court at Cetinje to claim his soon-to-be wife, Princess Xenia professed such "disgust and horror" at his appearance and manners that despite her father's entreaties, she refused to marry him, humiliating and angering him so much that diplomatic relations between Serbia and Montenegro were severed. Alexander also claimed that she had behaved childishly during his visit, while Prince Nicholas now said that Xenia was still a child and that he had no intention of marrying her off yet, apparently seeking an excuse. He reportedly preferred her elder sister Anna, who, shortly before his arrival, had been betrothed to the Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg.
Milan never abandoned the hope of finding his son “a suitable German girl who would, within a few years, fill the court with children,” and in 1898 he secretly made inquiries about a Habsburg archduchcess. As Russian intelligence agents in Vienna learned, this was Archduchess Elisabeth Amalie of Austria, a niece of Emperor Franz Joseph I and the half-sister of the Austro-Hungarian heir presumptive, Franz Ferdinand. The negotiations were conducted through the Serbian envoy in Paris, Milutin Garašanin, with the mediation of the Belgian Royal Court. Garašanin’s sudden death effectively brought the talks to an end.
With other options exhausted, Prime Minister V. Đorđević sought assistance from Baron Ludwig von Wäcker-Gotter, the German envoy in Belgrade, and soon received a list of German princesses. He then forwarded this list to Alexander and his father Milan, hoping that the father would compel his son to choose a bride.
This time, the choice fell on Princess Alexandra Karoline of Schaumburg-Lippe (1879–1949), who was recommended by Wäcker-Gotter as being supported by both the Austrian Habsburgs and the Prussian Hohenzollerns. Although she was without a dowry, her familial connections were considered very satisfactory. Vladan Đorđević, who had made his continuation in government conditional upon the king’s marriage, was relieved when he received Alexander’s promise to marry in 1900. Mediation with the House of Schaumburg-Lippe was undertaken by Count Agenor Maria Gołuchowski, the Austro-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, while in the spring Chlodwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, the German chancellor, officially expressed interest in King Alexander’s marriage.
In 1900, before publicly announcing his engagement to Draga Mašin, Alexander did not consult his father, Milan, who was on vacation in Karlsbad and arranging a dynastic marriage for his son with Princess Alexandra of Schaumburg-Lippe, a member of an ancient House of Lippe and sister of the Queen of Württemberg. Before the conclusion of the proposed marriage, the governments of Germany and Austria promised Serbia a dowry of one million dollars ($1,000,000), contingent upon the king’s marriage to the German princess and his subsequent signing of a military treaty aligning Serbia with the Triple Alliance. Alexander neither consulted his Prime Minister Dr. Vladan Đorđević, who was visiting the Universal Exhibition in Paris at the time of the announcement. Both of them immediately resigned, and he had difficulty in forming a new cabinet. Queen Natalie also opposed the marriage and was subsequently banished from the kingdom, again.
Marriage
In the summer of 1900, King Alexander suddenly announced his engagement to Draga Mašin, a disreputable widow of an obscure engineer. Alexander had met Draga in 1897 when she was serving as a maid of honor to his mother. Draga was nine years older than the king, unpopular within Belgrade society, well known for her allegedly numerous sexual liaisons, and widely believed to be infertile. Since Alexander was an only child, it was imperative to secure the succession by producing an heir. So intense was the opposition to Mašin among the political classes that the king found it impossible for a time to recruit suitable candidates for senior posts.
Opposition to the union seemed to subside somewhat for a time upon the publication of congratulations of Nicholas II of Russia to the king on his engagement and of his agreement to act as the principal witness at the wedding. The marriage duly took place 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.
Politics and the constitution
King Alexander tried to reconcile political parties by unveiling a liberal constitution of his own initiative in 1901, 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 placate the army which, already dissatisfied with the king's marriage, became still more so at the rumours that one of the two unpopular brothers of Queen Draga, Lieutenant Nikodije, was to be proclaimed heir presumptive to the throne.
Alexander's good relations and the country's growing dependence on Austria-Hungary were detested by the Serbian public. According to Heinrich Berghaus, more than two million Serbs lived in Austria-Hungary, with another million in the Ottoman Empire, although many migrated to Serbia.
Meanwhile, the independence of the senate and of the council of state caused increasing irritation to King Alexander. In March 1903, the king suspended the constitution for half an hour, time enough to publish decrees dismissing and replacing the old senators and Councillors of state. This arbitrary act increased dissatisfaction in the country.
Attempting to appease the opposition, King Alexander granted an amnesty to the persecuted Radicals, and in 1901 issued a moderately liberal constitution. A Council of State and a second chamber to parliament were instituted.
In 1902 Alexander's rival Peter Кarađorđević was proclaimed king by followers at Šabac, and Alexander responded by organizing a military cabinet and suspending the constitution. Radicals began to plot the King's assassination.
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 presumptive to the throne. In spite of this, it had been agreed with the Serbian government that Prince Mirko of Montenegro, member of the Petrović-Njegoš dynasty, who was married to Natalija Konstantinović, the granddaughter of Princess Anka Obrenović, an aunt of King Milan, would be proclaimed heir presumptive in the event that the marriage of King Alexander and Queen Draga was childless.
Apparently to prevent Queen Draga's brother being named heir presumptive, but in reality, to replace Alexander Obrenović with Prince Peter Karađorđević, a conspiracy was organized by a group of army officers headed by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević, also known as "Apis", and Novak Perišić, a young Serbian Orthodox militant who was in the pay of the Russian Empire, as well as the leader of the Black Hand secret society which would assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. Several politicians were also members of the conspiracy and allegedly included former Prime Minister Nikola Pašić. The royal couple's palace was invaded and they hid in a wardrobe in the queen's bedroom.
The conspirators searched the palace and eventually discovered the royal couple and murdered them in the early morning of 11 June 1903 (O.S. 29 May 1903). They were shot and their bodies mutilated and disembowelled, after which, according to eyewitness accounts, they were thrown from a second-floor window of the palace onto piles of garden manure. King Alexander and Queen Draga were buried in the crypt of St. Mark's Church, Belgrade.
Honours
- Kingdom of Serbia:
- Founder of the Order of St. Prince Lazar, 28 June 1889
- Founder of the Order of Miloš the Great, 1898
- Austria-Hungary: Grand Cross of the Order of St. Stephen, 1891
- Baden:
- Knight of the House Order of Fidelity, 1894
- Knight of the Order of Berthold the First, 1894
- Kingdom of Italy: Knight of the Order of the Annunciation, 25 November 1896
- Kingdom of Portugal: Grand Cross of the Sash of the Three Orders, 5 August 1893
- Russian Empire: Knight of the Order of St. Andrew
- Spain: Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III, with Collar, 24 September 1897
Gallery
- Young Alexander with his father King Milan in 1888, less than a year before Milan abdicated the throne in favour of his underage son
- King Alexander and Queen Draga
- Portrait of King Alexander by Vlaho Bukovac, 1900
- The Obrenović Villa, summer residence of King Alexander in Smederevo
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