ALEXANDER (ALEXANDER OBRENOVICH) (1876-1903), king of
Servia, was born on the 14th of August 1876. On the 6th of
March 1889 his father, King Milan, abdicated and proclaimed
him king of Servia under a regency until he should attain his
majority at eighteen years of age. King Alexander, on the
13th of April 1893, being then in his seventeenth year, made
his notable first coup d'etat, 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
d'etat, abolished the liberal constitution of 1889 and
restored the conservative one of 1869. His attitude during
the Turco-Greek war of 1897 was one of strict neutrality. In
1898 he appointed his father commander-in-chief of the Servian
army, and from that time, or rather from his return to Servia
in 1894 until 1900, ex-king Milan was regarded as the de
facto ruler of the country. But while, during the summer of
1900, Milan was away from Servia taking waters in Carlsbad,
and making arrangements to secure the hand of a German princess
for his son, and while the premier, Dr Vladan Dyorevich,
was visiting the Paris Universal Exhibition, King Alexander
suddenly announced to the people of Servia his engagement to
Mme Draga Mashin, a widow, formerly a lady-in-waiting to Queen
Natalie. The projected union aroused great opposition at
first. Ex-King Milan resigned his post; so did the government;
and King Alexander had great difficulty in forming a new
cabinet. But the opposition subsided somewhat on the
publication of Tsar Nicholas's congratulations to the king on
his engagement and of his acceptance to act as the principal
witness at the wedding. The marriage was then duly celebrated
on the 5th of August 1900. Still this union was unpopular and
weakened the position of King Alexander in the army and the
country. He tried to reconcile political parties by granting
from his own initiative a liberal constitution (April 6,
1901), introducing for the first time in the constitutional
history of Servia the system of two chambers (skupshtina and
senate). This did in a certain measure reconcile the political
parties, but did not reconcile 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 Nicodiye, was to be proclaimed heir-
apparent to the throne. Meanwhile the independence of the
senate and of the council of state caused growing irritation
to King Alexander, which led him to another coup d'etat.
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. The general impression was that inasmuch as
the senate was packed with men devoted to the royal couple,
and inasmuch as 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. Apparently to prevent this, but in reality to replace
Alexander Obrenovich by Peter Karageorgevich, a military
conspiracy was organized. The conspirators penetrated into
the palace and savagely murdered King Alexander and Queen
Draga in the early morning of the 11th of June 1903. (C. MI.)
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed