Glory to King Alexander I of Yugoslavia

Milan Pavlovic (pavlovic@pantheon.yale.edu)
Thu, 9 Oct 1997 13:50:04 -0400 (EDT)


It was on this tragic day, October 9, in 1934, that one of the greatest
sons of Serbia and Serbdom, King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, lost his life
at the hands of a cowardly Skopjan-VMRO assassin. With all the remarkable
things that King Alexander did for his people during his rule, it is more
than necessary to reminisce a bit about his life and accomplishments.

King Alexander was with his Serbian Army in good times and in bad. He
led a strategic withdrawal of the Serbian army through the treacherous
mountains of Albania in 1915. When the French ships arrived to carry the
remnants of the Serbian Army from Albania to Corfu, Greece, King
Alexander, although deeply ill from malnutrition and freezing weather,
waited until the last Serbian soldier boarded the ships, and only then got
on himself.

He went on to lead the liberation of Serbian lands in 1918, taking part
in battles and heroically visiting the front line, day after day, not once
fearing for his life. A shining example to his people.

During the period of King Alexander's rule of Yugoslavia, 1918-1934, the
country prospered immensely. The economy was booming, factories were
built, whole new cities were built, and the country was a flourishing
democracy. Even during the 1929-1934 period, when King Alexander de jure
allowed only the existence of one political party in order to calm ethnic
tensions which had been provoked by the needless assassination of Stjepan
Radic, there was broad political freedom. Regrettably, members of the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia used this period to widen their ranks and
spread their lies about their "communist heaven". A stronger crackdown
against them in 1929 may have saved Yugoslavia of communist occupation and
vicious dictatorship which followed in 1945.

Even following the cowardly assassination of King Alexander in 1934, his
highly intelligent and good-intentioned wife, Queen Marie of Yugoslavia,
wanted to save the country from the imminent perils of WW II and Croatian
Ustashi collaborators of Nazi Germany. Alas, she was prevented from doing
so by the power hungry Prince Paul and his wife, who usurped power, sacked
the highly skillful Prime Minister Milan Stojadinovic, and made a
traitorous deal with Croatian nationalists in 1939 which ultimately doomed
Yugoslavia.

Glory to King Alexander, the man who might have saved Europe from
fascism and communism only had he not been assassinated by fascist
bastards.

Milan Pavlovic