Alexander Obrenovich

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