hrvieic of Retiew). 1111106. 



Character Sketches. 



L— KING PETER I. OF SERVIA. 



By Alfred Stead. 



It is the irony of fate that the most constitu- 

 tional of Servian monarchs should have been sum- 

 moned to the throne as the result of a bloody 

 tragedy which wiped out a dynasty and recalled at 

 that was was farthest from constitutionalism. But 

 the assassination of King Alexander did not make 

 his successor the heir to the throne — he was that 

 bv prior right, even although there had been no 

 coup d'etat, and he had remained living in quiet 

 retreat in Geneva. King Peter was not like Oliver 

 Cromwell, the agent of his own destiny, who suc- 

 ceeded where he had removed, but was hailed by 

 the Servian people as the natural ruler for Servia 

 when the throne fell vacant. And yet the cmtp 

 d'etat of June, 1903, has cast a shade over the 

 early years of King Peter's reign in Belgrade, an 

 interested press unjustiv and cruelly stigmatising 

 him as being privy to the removal of his predeces- 

 sors, whereas he was always urging upon his friends 

 the necessity for a waiting policy and all avoidance 

 of force. Called unanimously to the throne by the 

 National Assembly, King Peter did not hesitate to 

 take up the heavy task. He arrived in Belgrade 

 after forty-five years of exile, determined to serve 

 his country and his people to the end of his days. 

 There is something heroic in this action of King 

 Peter, who did not fear to undertake the heaviest 

 responsibilities and to enter into an unequal struggle 

 at an age when most men think rather of rest and 

 repose than of undertaking new tasks. The crown 

 of Servia has never been a light one, and Servian 

 history, as well as the experience of the Kara- 

 george dynasty, left no illusions as to the extreme 

 difficultv and peril of the task to be undertaken 

 in accepting the national invitation. The Servian 

 prince, from his home in Geneva, knew well that 

 a refusal of the crown on his part meant in aU 

 probability the end of the separate existence of 

 Servia and the incorporation of the Servian people 

 in the Austrian Empire. The statesmen in Vienna 

 were only waiting a pretext to cross the Danube 

 and occupy Servia, as they have already occupied 

 the Servian provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

 Was King Peter to sacrifice his nation rather than 

 condemn himself to the ceaseless and too often 

 thankless toil of a monarch ? It would have been 

 strange for a descendant of Karageorge, the libera- 

 tor of Servia, to have decided otherwise than as he 

 did, when he determined to carrv on the work of 

 liberty so nobly begun, when his ancestor, the 

 founder of his dynasty, wrested the country from 

 the Turkish rule. King Peter came to Belgrade 



with a task ready to hand still greater than that 

 of Karageorge when he organised his bands, made 

 his wooden cannon, and struck the first stroke for 

 Servian freedom. King Peter came to a country 

 in the last stages of national despair and shame, 

 without credit and with but little dignity, owing 

 to the events of the closing years of the Obreno- 

 vitch dynasty. His coming marked a new" era, and 

 the promise of his arrival has been well sustained. 

 Servia has made progress ; the country is peaceful 

 and developing, and hope has again sprung up in 

 the breasts of the people. They feel that just as 

 by his acceptance of the crown King Peter check- 

 mated Austrian designs, so by his wise and con- 

 stitutional rule he is preventing the recurrence of 

 the ever present danger and enabling Servia to 

 stand all-square with Europe. 



The position of Servia geographically renders 

 that of the Servian monarch politically one of the 

 greatest danger and difficulty. Standing alone be- 

 tween Austria and Germany and European Turkey, 

 Servia has ever been the sport of the Great Powers 

 seeking influence and land in the Balkan peninsula. 

 The history of Servia is that of the struggles of 

 Austria or Russia. The fortunes of Servia have 

 been interwoven with those of the two dynasties of 

 Karageorge and Obrenovitch. Both of these dynas- 

 ties have struggled manfullv for the good of the 

 State, and the rise and fall of both have been 

 traceable to outside influences. Princes and kings 

 of Servia have fallen under the assassins knife, and 

 politicians in Vienna or elsewhere have not hesi- 

 tated at even more reprehensible methods than 

 straightforward murder. Servia has never enjoyed 

 a really national policy, and has been rather the 

 agent of Austrian or Russian policies. But the 

 Servian people, like the Swiss, whom they much 

 resemble in many ways, owning their own pieces of 

 land, and being of independent character, have 

 clung to their national ideals and have ever been 

 determined to achieve their national hopes and as- 

 pirations. It is the Servian people who have main- 

 tained Servia at all in the past, and it is by a 

 national policy that the country can alone hope to 

 progress. It has always been the aim of Austria 

 to ensure that Servia shall not enjoy repose ; a 

 state of unrest promised much more chance of pre- 

 texts for occupation than did a peaceful and pro- 

 gressive State. Although a constitutional country, 

 Servia was not governed bv the voice of the people, 

 and her policy was to be found in the foreign em- 

 bassies rather than in the palace or ministries of 



