View source for Alexander I of Yugoslavia

{{Short description|King of Yugoslavia from 1921 to 1934}}
{{For|other people with similar names|Alexander of Yugoslavia (disambiguation)|Alexander of Serbia (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox royalty
| name         = Alexander I<br/>{{nobold|Aleksandar I Karađorđević}}<br/>{{nobold|Александар I Карађорђевић}}
| image        = Kralj aleksandar1.jpg
| caption      = Formal portrait, {{circa|1921–1934}}
| succession   = [[King of Yugoslavia]]{{efn|As King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes until 3 October 1929}}
| reign        = 16 August 1921 – 9 October 1934
| predecessor  = [[Peter I of Serbia|Peter I]]
| successor    = [[Peter II of Yugoslavia|Peter II]]
| succession2  = [[Prince Regent]] of Serbia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
| reign2       = 24 June 1914 – 16 August 1921
| reign-type2  = [[Tenure]]
| regent2      = [[Peter I of Serbia]]
| reg-type2    = Monarch
| birth_date   = {{OldStyleDateDY|16 December|1888|4 December}}
| birth_place  = [[Cetinje Royal Palace]], [[Cetinje]], [[Principality of Montenegro|Montenegro]]
| death_date   = {{death date and age|1934|10|9|1888|12|16|df=y}}
| death_place  = [[Marseille]], [[French Third Republic|France]]
| burial_date  = 
| burial_place = [[Oplenac]], [[Topola]], Serbia
| spouse       = {{marriage|[[Maria of Yugoslavia|Maria of Romania]]|8 June 1922}}
| issue        = {{Unbulleted list|[[Peter II of Yugoslavia|Peter II]]|[[Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia|Prince Tomislav]]|[[Prince Andrew of Yugoslavia|Prince Andrej]]}}
| full name    = Alexander Karađorđević
| house        = [[House of Karađorđević|Karađorđević]]
| father       = [[Peter I of Serbia]]
| mother       = [[Ljubica of Montenegro]]
| religion     = [[Serbian Orthodox]]
| signature    = Alexander I of Yugoslavia Signature.svg
| module       = {{Infobox military person | embed=yes
  | allegiance    = {{flagu|Kingdom of Serbia}}<br />{{flagu|Kingdom of Yugoslavia|state}}
  | branch        = 
  | serviceyears  = 1904–21 <br />(end of active service)
  | rank          = [[Field marshal (Serbia and Yugoslavia)|Field Marshal]]
  | servicenumber = 
  | unit          = [[Royal Yugoslav Army]]
  | commands      = 
  | battles_label = 
  | battles       = 
  | awards        =
  }}
}}

'''Alexander I Karađorđević''' ({{langx|sh|Александар I Карађорђевић|translit=Aleksandar I Karađorđević}}, {{IPA|sh|aleksǎːndar př̩viː karadʑǒːrdʑevitɕ|pron}};{{efn|Alternative pronunciations of ''Aleksandar'' and ''I'' are {{IPA|sh|alěksaːndar|}} and {{IPA|sh|pr̩̂ːviː|}}, respectively.}} {{OldStyleDateDY|16 December|1888|4 December}} – 9 October 1934), also known as '''Alexander the Unifier''' ({{lang|sh-Latn|Aleksandar Ujedinitelj}} / {{lang|sh-Cyrl|Александар Ујединитељ}} {{IPA|sh|aleksǎːndar ujedǐniteʎ|}}),<ref>{{harvnb|Passmore|2003|p=104}}</ref> was King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from 16 August 1921 to 3 October 1929 and [[King of Yugoslavia]] from 3 October 1929 until [[Alexander I of Yugoslavia#Assassination|his assassination]] in 1934. His reign of 13 years is the longest of the three monarchs of the [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia]].

Born in [[Cetinje]], [[Principality of Montenegro|Montenegro]], Alexander was the second son of [[Peter I of Serbia|Peter]] and [[Zorka Karađorđević]]. The [[House of Karađorđević]] had been removed from power in [[Principality of Serbia|Serbia]] 30 years prior, and Alexander spent his early life in exile with his father in Montenegro and then Switzerland. Afterwards he moved to [[Russian Empire|Russia]] and enrolled in the imperial [[Page Corps]]. Following [[May Coup (Serbia)|a coup d'état]] and the murder of [[Alexander I of Serbia|King Alexander I Obrenović]] in 1903, his father became [[King of Serbia]]. In 1909, Alexander's elder brother, [[George, Crown Prince of Serbia|George]], renounced his claim to the throne, making Alexander [[heir apparent]]. Alexander distinguished himself as a commander during the [[Balkan Wars]], leading the Serbian army to victory over the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman Turks]] and the [[Kingdom of Bulgaria|Bulgarians]]. In 1914, he became prince regent of [[Kingdom of Serbia|Serbia]]. During the [[First World War]], he held nominal command of the [[Royal Serbian Army]].

In 1918, Alexander oversaw [[Creation of Yugoslavia|the unification]] of Serbia and the former Austrian provinces of [[Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia|Croatia-Slavonia]], [[Slovene Lands|Slovenia]], [[Serbian Vojvodina|Vojvodina]], [[Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia and Herzegovina]], and [[Kingdom of Dalmatia|Dalmatia]] into the [[Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes]] on the basis of the [[Corfu Declaration]].{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=66}} He ascended to the throne upon his father's death in 1921. An extended period of [[Croatian affairs in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia|political crisis]] followed, culminating in the assassination of [[Croats|Croat]] leader [[Stjepan Radić]]. In response, Alexander abrogated the [[Vidovdan Constitution]] in 1929, [[Prorogation|prorogued]] the parliament, changed the name of the country to Kingdom of Yugoslavia and established a [[6 January Dictatorship|royal dictatorship]]. The [[1931 Yugoslav Constitution|1931 Constitution]] formalised Alexander's personal rule and confirmed Yugoslavia's status as a [[unitary state]], further aggravating the non-[[Serbs|Serb]] population. Political and economic tensions escalated on the outbreak of the [[Great Depression]], which devastated the predominantly rural country. In foreign affairs, Alexander supported the [[Balkan Pact]] with [[Second Hellenic Republic|Greece]], [[Kingdom of Romania|Romania]], and [[History of the Republic of Turkey|Turkey]], and sought to improve [[Bulgaria–Yugoslavia relations|relations with Bulgaria]].

In 1934, Alexander embarked on a state visit to [[French Third Republic|France]] in order to secure support for the [[Little Entente]] against [[Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)|Hungarian]] [[Revanchism#Hungary|revanchism]] and [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]]'s [[Italian imperialism under fascism|imperialist designs]]. During a stop in [[Marseille]], he was assassinated by [[Vlado Chernozemski]], a member of the [[Bulgarophiles|pro-Bulgarian]] [[Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization]], which received assistance from the Croat [[Ustaše]] led by [[Ante Pavelić]]. [[Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (France)|French Foreign Minister]] [[Louis Barthou]] also died in the attack. Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son, [[Peter II of Yugoslavia|Peter II]], under the regency of his first cousin [[Prince Paul of Yugoslavia|Prince Paul]].

==Early life==
Alexander Karađorđević was born on {{OldStyleDateDY|16 December|1888|4 December}} in the [[Principality of Montenegro]] as the fourth child and second son of [[Peter I of Serbia|Peter Karađorđević]] and his wife, [[Princess Zorka|Princess Zorka of Montenegro]]. His paternal grandfather, also named [[Alexander Karađorđević, Prince of Serbia|Alexander]], had been forced to abdicate as [[prince of Serbia]] and surrender power to the rival [[House of Obrenović]]. Alexander's maternal grandfather was [[Nicholas I, Prince of Montenegro]]. Despite enjoying support from the [[Russian Empire]], at the time of Alexander's birth and early childhood, the [[House of Karađorđević]] was in political exile, with family members scattered all over Europe, unable to return to Serbia.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Foley |first=Liam |date=2021-10-09 |title=October 9, 1934: Assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia |url=https://europeanroyalhistory.wordpress.com/2021/10/09/october-9-1934-assassination-of-king-alexander-of-yugoslavia/ |access-date=2023-02-24 |website=European Royal History |language=en}}</ref>

Serbia had recently been transformed from a [[Principality of Serbia|principality]] into a [[Kingdom of Serbia|kingdom]] under the Obrenovićs, who ruled with strong support from the [[Austro-Hungarian Empire]]. The antagonism between the two rival royal houses was such, that, after the assassination of [[Mihailo Obrenović|Prince Mihailo Obrenović]] in 1868 (an event Karađorđevićs were suspected of taking part in), the Obrenovićs resorted to making constitutional changes, specifically proclaiming the Karađorđevićs banned from entering Serbia and stripping them of their civic rights.

Alexander was two when his mother, Princess Zorka, died in 1890 from complications while giving birth to his younger brother, Andrej, who died 23 days later. Alexander spent his childhood in Montenegro. In 1894, his widower father took the four children, including Alexander, to [[Geneva]], [[Switzerland]] where the young man completed his elementary education.{{citation needed|date= October 2020}} Alongside his older brother [[George, Crown Prince of Serbia|George]], he continued his schooling at the imperial [[Page Corps]] in [[Petrograd]], [[Russian Empire]]. The British historian [[Robert Seton-Watson]] described Alexander as becoming a Russophile during his time in Petrograd, feeling much gratitude for the willingness of the [[Emperor of Russia|Russian Emperor]] [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]] to give him a refuge, where he was treated with much honor and respect.{{sfn|Seton-Watson|1935|p=35}}

As a [[Page (servant)|page]], Alexander was described as hard-working and determined while also being a "loner" who kept to himself and rarely showed his feelings.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=55}} Being a Karađorđević led to Alexander being invited by the [[Emperor of Russia|Russian Emperor]] [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]] to dinner at the [[Winter Palace]], where he was the guest of honor at meals hosted by the [[House of Romanov|Russian imperial family]], which was a great honor for a prince from Serbia's deposed princely family.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=55}} During his time in Petrograd, Alexander visited the [[Alexander Nevsky Monastery]], where the abbot gave Alexander an icon of Prince [[Alexander Nevsky]] and guided him to the grave of Marshal [[Alexander Suvorov]].{{sfn|Farley|2007|pp=57–58}} After his visit to the monastery, Alexander expressed the wish to be a great general like Marshal Suvorov or Prince Alexander Nevsky, saying he wanted to be commanding either a great army or a great armada when he was a man.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=58}}

In 1903, while young George and Alexander were in school,{{citation needed|date= October 2020}} a slew of conspirators pulled off a bloody [[coup d'état]] in the Kingdom of Serbia, known as the [[May Overthrow]], in which [[Alexander I of Serbia|King Alexander]] and [[Queen Draga]] were murdered and dismembered. The [[House of Karađorđević]] thus retook the Serbian throne after forty-five years and Alexander's 58-year-old father became [[King of Serbia]], prompting George's and Alexander's return to Serbia to continue their studies. After Alexander's 15th birthday, King Peter had Alexander enlisted into the [[Royal Serbian Army]] as a private with instructions to his officers to only promote his son if he proved worthy.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=55}} On 25 March 1909, Alexander was suddenly recalled to Belgrade by his father with no explanation offered other than that he had an important announcement for his son.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=56}}

===Becoming crown prince===
[[File:Maria Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.JPG|thumb|[[Maria of Yugoslavia|Queen Maria]] with two of her children, Tomislav and Andrej]]
In 1909, a scandal broke when [[George, Crown Prince of Serbia|Crown Prince George]], Alexander's older brother, killed a servant by kicking him in the stomach.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=HM King Peter I of Serbia - Henry Poole & Co |url=https://henrypoole.com/individual/hm-king-peter-i-of-serbia/#:~:text=A%20wild,%20reckless%20man,%20Crown,favour%20of%20younger%20brother%20Alexander. |access-date=2024-08-17 |website=Henry Poole Savile Row |language=en}}</ref> Following pressure from powerful figures such as Prime Minister [[Nikola Pašić]] and high-ranking officers [[Dragutin Dimitrijević|Dragutin "Apis" Dimitrijević]] and [[Petar Živković]],{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}} George publicly renounced his claim to the throne in March of that year in favour of Alexander.<ref name=":0" />

In 1910, Alexander nearly died from stomach [[typhus]] and was left with stomach problems for the rest of his life.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Alexander I of Yugoslavia |url=https://www.1066.co.nz/Mosaic%20DVD/whoswho/text/Alexander_I_of_Yugoslavia%5B1%5D.htm |access-date=2024-08-17 |website=www.1066.co.nz}}</ref> In the run-up to the [[First Balkan War]], Alexander played the role of a diplomat, visiting [[Sofia]] to meet [[Tsar of Bulgaria|Tsar]] [[Ferdinand I of Bulgaria|Ferdinand of Bulgaria]] for secret talks for a [[Balkan League]] to drive the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman Turks]] out of the Balkans.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=57}} Both Bulgaria and Serbia had rival claims to the [[North Macedonia under the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman region]] of [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]], so Alexander, along with Ferdinand's son [[Boris III of Bulgaria|Crown Prince Boris]], traveled to [[Petrograd]] to see the [[Emperor of Russia|Russian Emperor]] [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]] to ask for Russian mediation.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=57}} In March 1912, Serbia and Bulgaria signed a defensive alliance that was later joined by [[Kingdom of Greece|Greece]] in May 1912.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=57}}

==Balkan Wars and World War I==
{{Main|Balkan Wars|Serbian Campaign of World War I}}
[[File:Serbian Crown Prince Alexander (HS85-10-34006).jpg|thumb|right|A wartime postcard of Alexander]]

In March 1912, Alexander had a meeting with ten senior military commanders. They all agreed to end all internal conflicts in the [[Royal Serbian Army]] and fully commit to realizing national goals, which allowed space for consolidation before the two successive [[Balkan Wars]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bakić|first=Dragan|date=2017|title=Regent Alexander Karadjordjević in the First World War|journal=Balcanica|issue=XLVIII|pages=193–194}}</ref>

In the [[First Balkan War]] in 1912, as commander of the First Army, Crown Prince Alexander fought victorious battles in [[Battle of Kumanovo|Kumanovo]] and [[Battle of Bitola|Bitola]]. One of Alexander's most cherished moments came when he drove the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman Turks]] out of [[History of Kosovo#Balkan Wars|Kosovo]] and on 28 October 1912 led the [[Royal Serbian Army]] on a review on the [[Field of Blackbirds]].{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=58}} The Field of Blackbirds was where the Serbs under [[Lazar of Serbia|Prince Lazar]] had been defeated in a [[Battle of Kosovo|legendary battle]] by the Ottoman sultan [[Murad I]] on 28 June 1389, and is regarded by the Serbs as holy ground. It was a great honor for him to pay his respects to the Serbs who had fallen in that earlier battle.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=58}} In the aftermath of the [[First Balkan War]], disputes emerged among the victors over control of [[History of North Macedonia#Karađorđević period (1912–1944)|Macedonia]], and [[Kingdom of Serbia|Serbia]] and [[Kingdom of Greece|Greece]] signed an alliance against the [[Tsardom of Bulgaria (1908–1946)|Kingdom of Bulgaria]].

After the [[Collapse of the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman defeat]] and withdrawal from [[Skopje]] (most of whom had left after the [[Albanian revolt of 1912]]), Prince Alexander was met with flowers by the local people. He stopped and asked a seven-year-old girl, Vaska Zoicheva, "What are you?" ({{lang|sh|Pa šta si ti?}}) When she replied "Bulgarian!" ({{lang|sh|Bugarka!}}), the prince slapped her. This news of the event spread quickly around [[Tsardom of Bulgaria (1908–1946)|Bulgaria]]. Later in 1913, during the [[Second Balkan War]], Alexander commanded the Serbian Army at the [[Battle of Bregalnica]] against the Bulgarians.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=59}} In 1920 and 1921, Serbian authorities searched for the girl's father, Danail Zoichev, and offered him money to renounce the event as fictional, but he refused.<ref>Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans: Nationalism and the Destruction of Tradition, Cathie Carmichael, Routledge, 2003, {{ISBN|1134479530}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ybORI4KWwdIC&dq=Aleksandar+Skopje+girl++Bulgarian+1912&pg=PT119 p. 138.]</ref><ref>''Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996'', Chris Kostov, Peter Lang, 2010, {{ISBN|3034301960}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=P-1m1FLtrvsC&dq=Alexander+Skopje+girl+Bulgarian&pg=PA77 p. 77.]</ref><ref>Igor Despot (2019) "The Balkan Wars: An Expected Opportunity for Ethnic Cleansing", ''Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs'', 39:3, 343–355, {{doi|10.1080/13602004.2019.1652410}}.</ref><ref>Y. Konstantinova, (2011) "Allies and Enemies: The Balkan Peoples in the Bulgarian Political Propaganda During the Balkan Wars", p. 130 in ''Études Balkaniques'', issue 1, pp. 109–148.</ref>

In the aftermath of the [[Second Balkan War]], the region of [[Vardar Macedonia]] was attributed to the [[Kingdom of Serbia]] by the [[Treaty of Bucharest (1913)|Treaty of Bucharest]] (1913). Prince Alexander took sides in the complicated power struggle over how Macedonia should be administered. In this, Alexander bested Colonel [[Dragutin Dimitrijević|Dragutin Dimitrijević "Apis"]] and in the wake of this, Alexander's father, King Peter, agreed to hand over royal powers to his son. Though Colonel Dimitrijević was the mastermind of the [[May Coup (Serbia)|1903 coup]] that had restored the House of Karađorđević to the Serbian throne, Alexander distrusted him, regarding his attempts to set himself up as a "kingmaker" and to have the Serbian Army be a "state within the state" existing outside of civilian control as a major threat.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=62}}

Additionally, Alexander saw Dimitrijević as an irresponsible intriguer who having betrayed one king might always betray another. In January 1914, the Serbian prime minister [[Nikola Pašić]] sent a letter to the [[Emperor of All Russia|Russian Emperor]] [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]] in which King Peter expressed a desire for his son to marry one of the daughters of Nicholas II.<ref name="AE">{{cite web |url=http://www.archives.org.rs/41443e43c |title=Draft letter to the Tsar, written by hand Pasic |access-date=21 September 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100614192718/http://www.archives.org.rs/41443e43c |archive-date=14 June 2010 |language=ru |work= Documents Nikola Pasic| publisher=Serbian Archive}}</ref><ref name="BE">[http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003175675] Živojinović, Dragoljub R., "''King Peter I Karadjordjević''," I–III, Belgrade, 1990. {{ISBN|86-13-00494-6}}</ref> Nicholas II in his reply stated that his daughters would not be forced into arranged marriages, but noted Alexander on his most recent trips to [[Petrograd]] had during dinners at the [[Winter Palace]] kept giving loving looks at the [[Grand Duchess of Russia|Grand Duchess]] [[Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia|Tatiana]], leading him to guess that it was her whom Alexander wanted to marry. On 24 June 1914, Alexander became [[regent]] of Serbia.

[[File:154 4 Alexandre dur les terres serbes reconquises.jpg|thumb|Prince Regent Alexander on the [[Macedonian front (World War I)|Macedonian Front]] in 1916.]]
On 24 July 1914, Alexander was one of the first Serbian officials to see the Austrian [[ultimatum of July 23, 1914]] as containing terms deliberately written to inspire rejection.{{sfn|Farley|2007|pp=59–60}} Turning to [[Russian Empire|Russia]] for help, Alexander was advised to help the ultimatum as much as he could.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=60}} Alexander was late to say he "went as far as an independent could" to accept the ultimatum, as Serbia accepted all of the terms except for the one demanding that Austrian police officers investigating the [[assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand]] could operate on Serbian soil with the powers of arrest, which would have been the effective end of Serbia as an independent state.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=60}} As expected, [[To my peoples|the Austrians declared war on Serbia]], and Alexander threw himself into preparing his nation's defense.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=60}} In a letter to [[Nicholas I of Montenegro|King Nicholas of Montenegro]], Alexander wrote: "God has willed yet again that the Serbian people should give their lives for Serbs everywhere&nbsp;... I pray for the support of my dear and wise forefathers".{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=61}}

At the outbreak of [[World War I]] he was the nominal supreme commander of the [[Royal Serbian Army]]; true command was in the hands of the Chief of Staff of Supreme Headquarters, a position held by [[Stepa Stepanović]] (during the mobilisation), [[Radomir Putnik]] (1914–1915), [[Petar Bojović]] (1916–1917) and [[Živojin Mišić]] (1918). The Serbian Army distinguished itself in the battles at [[Battle of Cer|Cer]] and at the [[Drina]] (the [[Battle of Kolubara]]) in 1914, scoring victories against the invading [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian forces]] and evicting them from the country.{{sfn|Hastings|2013|pp=141–142}}

The British historian [[Max Hastings]] described the [[Royal Serbian Army]] in 1914 as the toughest army in Europe and also the most [[Egalitarianism|egalitarian]], with none of the distinctions of rank that characterized the other European armies, exemplified by how the Serbian Army was the only army in Europe where officers would shake hands with the other ranks.{{sfn|Hastings|2013|pp=141–142}} However, the Serbian Army suffered major shortages of equipment with a third of the men called up in August 1914 having no rifles or ammunition, and new recruits being advised to bring their own boots and clothing as there were no uniforms for them.{{sfn|Hastings|2013|pp=141–142}} Alexander ordered the Serbian police to conduct searches of houses all over Serbia to see if there were any rifles and ammunition to be seized for the army.{{sfn|Hastings|2013|pp=141–142}}

[[File:AlejandroDeSerbiaYPoincaré1916.jpeg|thumb|Regent Alexander and [[Raymond Poincaré]] in 1916]]
In 1915, the Serbian Army was attacked on several fronts by the [[Central Powers|allied forces]] of [[German Empire|Germany]] and [[Austria-Hungary]], suffering heavy losses. On 7 October 1915 an Austro-German army group under the command of Field Marshal [[August von Mackensen]] invaded Serbia and after encountering fierce resistance took Belgrade on 9 October.{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=153}} On 14 October 1915, Bulgaria invaded Serbia and on 16 October the Bulgarians took [[Niš]], severing the railroad that linked Serbia to [[Thessalonika]] in [[Kingdom of Greece|Greece]].{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=153}} Being attacked from the north by the Austrians and the Germans and from the south by the Bulgarians, the Serbs by 25 November 1915 had been forced into the [[Kosovo]] region.{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=153}}

The [[War crimes in World War I#Austro-Hungarian war crimes|massacres committed by the Austrians when they invaded Serbia in 1914]] twice caused enormous panic and hundreds of thousands of Serbs fled their homes to escape the Austrians, which greatly delayed the movement of the Serbian Army.{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=153}} Field Marshal Putnik persuaded Crown Prince Alexander and King Peter that it was better to keep the Serbian Army intact to one day liberate Serbia rather to stand and fight in Kosovo as many Serb officers wanted.{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=153}}

[[File:Prince Aleksandar with officers.jpg|thumb|Regent Alexander with high officers watching military positions during the [[battle of Kaymakchalan]] in 1916.]]
[[File:186 12Alexandre et médecin chef devant un amputé russe.jpg|thumb|Regent Alexander with a [[military doctor]] visits a [[World War I casualties|wounded Russian soldier]] on the [[Macedonian front (World War I)|Macedonian Front]] in 1917.]]
The Serbian Army withdrew through the [[Tara River Canyon|gorges of Montenegro]] and [[Northern Mountain Region (Albania)|northern Albania]] to the Greek island of [[Corfu]], where it was reorganized. The march across the [[Accursed Mountains|''Prokletije'' ("Accursed") Mountains]] was a harrowing one as the Serbian Army together with a mass of refugees had to cross mountains that rose to 3,000 feet high in the middle of winter, with the average daily temperature being −20° while battling the hostile [[Albanian tribes]] with the armies of Austria, Germany, and Bulgaria in pursuit.{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=154}} Many Serbs died along the way, as one Serbian soldier wrote in his diary how the refugees rested by the side of the road were: "Immobilized by the snow their heads rest to their breasts. The white snowflakes dance around them while the alpine winds whistle their songs of death. The heads of horses and oxen which have fallen protrude from the snow".{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=153}}

As the Serbs braved the icy winds and snowdrifts, the only consolation for Alexander was that the winter weather was also delaying the German, Austrian, and Bulgarian armies under the command of von Mackensen that were pursuing his army.{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=153}} Alexander repeatedly exposed himself to danger during the march to the sea while his health declined.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=61}} Upon reaching the sea, the surviving Serbs who numbered about 140,000 were rescued by British and French ships, which took them to Corfu.{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=154}}

In September 1915, the Royal Serbian Army was estimated to have the strength of about 420,000 men, of whom 94,000 had been killed or wounded while another 174,000 had been captured or were missing during the fall campaign in 1915 and the subsequent retreat to the sea.{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=154}} The losses taken by Serb civilians during the autumn campaign in 1915 together with the retreat to the sea have never been calculated, but are estimated to be massive.{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=154}} The situation was further worsened by the [[1915 typhus and relapsing fever epidemic in Serbia|outbreak of a typhus and relapsing fever epidemic]] which ravaged the country in 1915. Serb losses as a percentage of the population were the greatest of any belligerent in the war.{{sfn|Strachan|2006|p=154}}

[[File:Krsmanovićeva kuća u Beogradu - 0028.JPG|thumb|[[Krsmanović House, Terazije|Krsmanović House]], residence of Regent Alexander (1918–1922)]]
The surviving Serb soldiers were ultimately taken to [[Thessalonika]] to join the [[Allied Army of the Orient|''Armées alliées en Orient'']]. In the fall of 1916, Alexander's long-standing dispute with the secret military society of the [[Black Hand (Serbia)|Black Hand]] came to ahead, when [[Dragutin Dimitrijević|Colonel Dimitrijević]] began to openly criticize his leadership.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=62}} Suspecting a threat to the throne, Alexander promptly had officers who were members of the Black Hand arrested in December 1916 and tried for insubordination; after their convictions, Dimitrijević and several other Black Hand leaders were executed by firing squad on 23 June 1917.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=62}}

[[File:1919 Alexander I.jpg|thumb|Alexander I, [[King of Yugoslavia]]. 1919 [[autochrome]] by [[Auguste Léon]].]]
At the same time, the Serbian government-in-exile led by Prime Minister [[Nikola Pašić]] was in contact with the [[Yugoslav Committee]], a group of anti-Habsburg [[Croats|Croat]], [[Slovenes|Slovene]], and [[Bosnian Serbs|Bosnian Serb]] politicians and political activists led by [[Ante Trumbić]] who aimed to [[Creation of Yugoslavia|create a new nation to be called ''Yugoslavia'']] which would unite all of the [[South Slavs|South Slavic peoples]] into one unitary state.{{sfn|Farley|2007|pp=62–63}} In June 1917, the [[Corfu Declaration]] was signed by Pašić and Trumbić promising Yugoslavia after the war.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=63}} Alexander seems to have been dubious about the plans for Yugoslavia, as throughout the war, he spoke in terms of liberating Serbia.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=63}} The introduction of the [[Fourteen Points|14 Points]] by [[President of the United States|U.S. President]] [[Woodrow Wilson]] in January 1918 increased Alexander's doubts about Yugoslavia as Point 10 spoke of "substantial autonomy" in the [[Austrian Empire]] after the war, not breaking it up.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=64}} Not willing to antagonise Wilson, Alexander favored a "[[greater Serbia]]" that saw the Serbs annex South Slav-inhabited parts of the [[Habsburg lands]].{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=63}} Though the Crown Prince declared in a speech during a visit to Britain that he was "fighting for Yugoslav unity in a Yugoslav state", when he addressed his own soldiers he stated he was fighting for "the reestablishment of Serbia, our dear homeland".{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=64}}

In a sign of the trouble to come, Trumbić demanded to have the right to speak for the [[South Slavs]] living under Austrian rule, a demand that Alexander rejected under the grounds that the Serbian government represented the South Slavs.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=64}} After the army was regrouped and reinforced, it achieved a decisive victory on the [[Macedonian front (World War I)|Macedonian Front]], at [[Battle of Kajmakchalan|Kajmakchalan]]. The Serbian army carried out a major part in the final Allied breakthrough on the Macedonian Front in the autumn of 1918. The debate whatever the Serbian Army was fighting for Yugoslavia or Serbia resolved itself in October–November 1918 as [[Dissolution of Austria-Hungary|the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed]], leaving the Royal Serbian Army to move into the vacuum.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=65}}

The [[Kingdom of Italy]] had ambitions to annex [[Dalmatia]], [[Istria]], and much of [[History of Slovenia#Merging into the Yugoslav state and struggle for the border areas|Slovenia]], leading the Croats and the Slovenes to prefer living with their fellow Slavs.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=66}} On 1 December 1918, the National Council asked Alexander to declare Serbia united with the former Austrian provinces of [[Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia|Croatia-Slavonia]], [[Slovene Lands|Slovenia]], [[Serbian Vojvodina|Vojvodina]], [[Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia and Herzegovina]], and [[Kingdom of Dalmatia|Dalmatia]] on the basis of the [[Corfu Declaration]].{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=66}} Serbia had been devastated by the war, and 1 out of every 5 Serbs who were alive in 1914 were dead by 1918.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=131}} Much of Alexander's time in the immediate [[Interwar period|post-war years]] was to be taken up with reconstruction.

==King of Yugoslavia==
[[File:1920 Alexander I of Yugoslavia.png|thumb|right|King Alexander I visiting [[Sarajevo]] for the first time in 1920.]]
On 1 December 1918, in a prearranged set piece, Alexander, as Prince Regent, received a delegation of the [[People's Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs]], an address was read out by one of the delegation, and Alexander made an address in acceptance. This was considered to be the birth of the [[Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes]]. One of Alexander's first acts as Prince Regent of the new kingdom was to declare his support for the widespread demand for land reform, stating: "In our free state there can and will be only free landowners".{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=130}}

On 25 February 1919, Alexander signed a land reform decree breaking up all [[Feudalism|feudal estates]] over the size of 100 cadastral ''yokes'' with compensation to be paid for the former landowners except for those who belonged to the House of Habsburg and the other ruling families of enemy states in the Great War.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=130}} Under the land reform decree some two million hectares of land was handed over to a half million peasant households, though the implementation was very slow, taking 15 years before land reform was complete.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=130}}

In both Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the majority of the landlords who lost land were Muslims while the majority of their former tenants who received the land were Christians, and in both places land reform was seen as an attack on the political and economic power of the Muslim gentry.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=130}} In Croatia, Slovenia, and Vojvodina, the majority of the landlords who lost their land were Austrian or Hungarian nobility who usually did not reside in those places, meaning that however much they might have resented the loss of their land it did not have the sort of political repercussions it did in Macedonia and in Bosnia where the Albanian and Bosnian Muslim landlords lived.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=130}}

[[File:Kralj Aleksander I. Zedinitelj otvarja Ljubljanski velesejem 1920.jpg|thumb|King Alexander I at the opening ceremony of the first [[Ljubljana]] Fair in [[Slovenia#Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia)|Slovenia]] in 1920.]]
On August 16, 1921, upon the death of his father, Alexander ascended to the throne of the ''Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes'', which from its inception was colloquially known both in the Kingdom and the rest of Europe alike as ''Yugoslavia''. The historian Brigit Farley described Alexander as something of a cipher to historians as he was a taciturn and reserved man who loathed to express his feelings either in person or in writing.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=83}} As Alexander kept no diary or wrote no memoirs, Farley wrote that any biography of Alexander could easily be titled "In search of King Alexander" as he remains an elusive and enigmatic figure.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=83}}

The British historian [[Robert William Seton-Watson|R. W. Seton-Watson]], who knew Alexander well, called him a soldiery man most comfortable in a military milieu who was very quiet and surprisingly modest for a king.{{sfn|Seton-Watson|1935|pp=20–22}} Seton-Watson described Alexander as having an "autocratic" personality, a man who was first and foremost a soldier who spent "six of his formative years" in the Serbian Army, which left him with a "military outlook which unfitted him to deal with the delicate problems of constitutional government and which made compromise hard for him".{{sfn|Seton-Watson|1935|pp=21–22}}

Seton-Watson wrote that Alexander "...was very courageous, though not ever a man of strong physique or robust health. He had a strong fixity of purpose, great devotion to duty, powers of sustained work. He had great charm and simplicity of manner. He was accessible and very open to opinions-though he rarely acted on them, and though occasionally he reacted with positive violence, as in the case of the Slovene Zerjav who fainted in his presence."{{sfn|Seton-Watson|1935|p=20}}

One of the things that historians can be certain about Alexander was his belief in keeping Yugoslavia as an unitary state and his consistent opposition to federalism, which he believed would lead to the break-up of Yugoslavia and perhaps his own assassination.{{sfn|Farley|2007|pp=84–85}} In turn, Alexander's opposition to federalism related to his belief that in a federalised Yugoslavia, the [[Prečani (Serbs)|''prečani'' Serbs]] would be discriminated against by the Croats and Bosnian Muslims, once telling a Serb Orthodox priest that federalism would be "stabbing the Serbs in the back".{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=85}}

[[File:Svadba Kralja Aleksandra i Kraljice Marije 8.jpg|thumb|The wedding of King Alexander I and [[Maria of Yugoslavia|Princess Maria of Romania]] in 1922.]]
As a Karađorđević, Alexander was very conscious of the long blood-feud between the Houses of Obrenović and Karađorđević that had disfigured Serb politics in the 19th century and that the 1903 coup d'état that finally brought down the Obrenovićs and led to the Karađorđevićs regaining the throne had happened because the last Obrenović king, Alexander, was widely viewed as too subservient to Austria-Hungary and as having betrayed Serb interests.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=84}} Because of the frequent changes in loyalty in the Royal Serbian Army in the 19th century between the feuding royal families, Alexander was never entirely convinced that the Serb-dominated officer corps of the Royal Yugoslav Army were completely loyal to him, and always had the fear if he was seen to be betraying Serbdom as the last Obrenović king was, he too might be overthrown and killed.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=84}}

[[File:Le Roi Alexandre de Yougoslavie reçu à l'Elysée - btv1b90261803.jpg|thumb|King Alexander I in 1926, [[Élysée Palace]], Paris, France.]]
On 8 June 1922, he married [[Maria of Yugoslavia|Princess Maria of Romania]], who was a daughter of [[Ferdinand of Romania|Ferdinand I of Romania]] and his wife, [[Marie of Romania|Princess Marie of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha]], the granddaughter of [[Queen Victoria]]. They had three sons: [[Peter II of Yugoslavia|Crown Prince Peter]], and Princes [[Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia|Tomislav]] and [[Prince Andrew of Yugoslavia|Andrej]]. He was said to have wished to marry [[Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia]], a cousin of his wife and the second daughter of [[Tsar Nicholas II]], and was distraught by her untimely death in the [[Russian Civil War]]. The Russophile Alexander was horrified by the murders of the [[House of Romanov]]-including the Grand Duchess Tatiana-and during his reign was very hostile towards the Soviet Union, welcoming Russian emigres to Belgrade.{{sfn|Seton-Watson|1935|p=21}}

The lavish royal wedding to Princess Maria of Romania was intended to cement the alliance with Romania, a fellow "victor nation" in World War I which like Yugoslavia had territorial disputes with the defeated nations like Hungary and Bulgaria.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=69}} For Alexander, the royal wedding was especially satisfactory as most of the royal families of Europe attended, which showed that the House of Karađorđević, a family of peasant origins who were disliked for slaughtering the rival House of Obrenović in 1903, were finally accepted by the rest of European royalty.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=69}}

[[File:Ivan Vavpotič - Kralj Aleksander I. v admiralski uniformi.jpg|thumb|King Alexander I in the uniform of [[Admiral of the Navy]] on [[Adriatic]] 1930, oil on canvas, work of Ivan Vavpotič, [[National Museum of Slovenia]].]]
In foreign policy, Alexander favored maintaining the international system created in 1918–19, and in 1921 Yugoslavia joined the [[Little Entente]] with [[Czechoslovakia]] and Romania to guard against Hungary. Hungary refused to accept the [[Treaty of Trianon]] and made territorial claims against all three states of the Little Entente.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|pp=140–141}}

In 1921, a war veteran and communist Spasoje Stejić Baćo attempted to assassinate king Alexander by throwing a bomb at his carriage. The bomb was thrown from a balcony and it got stuck in the telephone wires and it ended up wounding several bystanders.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Atentat O Kojem Se Nije Učilo U Školama: Moler koji je usred Beograda Zamalo Ubio Kralja |url=https://www.istorijskizabavnik.rs/blog/atentat-na-kralja-aleksandra-u-beogradu|access-date=2021-03-02|website=Istorijski Zabavnik|date=2 March 2021 |language=en-US}}</ref>

The principal enemy of Yugoslavia in the 1920s was [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]], which wanted much of what is now modern Slovenia and Croatia.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|pp=140–141}} The origins of the Italo-Yugoslav dispute concerned the Italian contention that they had been "cheated" out of what they had been promised in the secret [[Treaty of London (1915)|Treaty of London]] in 1915 at the Paris peace conference in 1919. It was largely out of the fear of Italy that Alexander in 1927 signed a treaty of alliance with France, which therefore became Yugoslavia's principal ally.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=141}} In fact, Alexander I and [[Benito Mussolini]] were arch-rivals.

Starting in 1926, an alliance of the Serb Democrats led by [[Svetozar Pribićević]] and the Croat Peasant Party led by [[Stjepan Radić]] had systematically obstructed the ''skupština'' to press for federalism for Yugoslavia, filibustering and filing nonsensical motions to prevent the government from passing any bills.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=71}} In response to obstructionism from the opposition parties, in June 1928, one frustrated deputy from Montenegro took out his handgun and shot Radić on the floor of the ''skupština''.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=71}} The charismatic Radić, the "uncrowned king of Croatia", had inspired intense devotion in Croatia and his assassination was seen as a sort of Serb declaration of war.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=138}} The assassination pushed Yugoslavia to the brink of civil war and led Alexander to consider the "amputation" of Croatia as preferable to federalism.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=138}}

Alexander mused to Pribićević that: "We cannot stay together with the Croats. Since we cannot, it would be better to separate. The best way to be to effect a peaceful separation like Sweden and Norway did".{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=71}} When Pribićević protested that this would be an act of "treason", Alexander told him he would think some more about what to do.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=71}} Alexander appointed the Slovene Catholic priest, Father [[Anton Korošec]] prime minister with one mandate, namely to stop the slide towards civil war.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=138}} On 1 December 1928, the lavish celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the triune Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes that the government organized led to rioting that left 10 dead in Zagreb.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=138}}

In response to the political crisis triggered by the [[assassination of Stjepan Radić]], King Alexander [[Vidovdan Constitution|abolished the Constitution]] on 6 January 1929, prorogued the Parliament and introduced a [[European interwar dictatorships|personal dictatorship]] (the so-called "[[January 6th Dictatorship]]", ''Šestojanuarska diktatura''). One of the first acts of the new regime was to carry out a purge of the civil service with one-third of the civil service being fired by May 1929 in an attempt to address popular complaints about rampant corruption in the bureaucracy.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=138}} He also changed the name of the country to the '''Kingdom of Yugoslavia''' and changed the internal divisions from the 33 [[oblasts]] to nine new ''[[Subdivisions of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia|banovinas]]'' on 3 October. Of the ''banovinas'', only one had a Slovene majority, two had Croat majorities and the rest had Serb majorities, which especially angered the Bosnian Muslims who were in a minority in every ''banovina''.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|pp=138–139}}

The way in which the ''banovinas'' were based on new borders that did not correspond to the historical regional borders led to much resentment, especially in Bosnia and Croatia.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|pp=138–139}} The ''banovinas'' were named after the topography of Yugoslavia rather than the historical names in a bid to weaken regional loyalties, being governed by ''bans'' appointed by the King.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=138}} In the same month, he tried to banish by decree the use of [[Serbian Cyrillic]] to promote the exclusive use of the [[Latin alphabet]] in Yugoslavia.<ref>[https://archive.today/20120913211333/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,752216,00.html Dangerous Decree], ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', 21 October 1929</ref>

Alexander replaced the three regional flags for the triune Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes with a single flag for the entire country, brought in a single legal code for his realm, imposed a single fiscal code so all of his subjects would pay the same tax rate, and a Yugoslav Agrarian Bank was created by merging all of the regional agrarian banks into one.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=138}} Alexander tried to promote a sense of Yugoslav identity by always taking his vacations in Slovenia, naming his second son after a Croat king, and being a godfather to a Bosnian Muslim child.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=76}} Alexander had once fraternised frequently with ordinary people, being known for his habit of making unannounced visits to various villages all over Yugoslavia to chat with ordinary people but after the proclamation of the royal dictatorship, his social circle consisted of a few generals and courtiers, causing the King to lose touch with his subjects.{{sfn|Farley|2007|pp=76–77}}

[[File:Kralj Aleksandar Karađorđević - 1925. pozdravlja ratne veterane.jpg|thumb|King Alexander I salutes [[Serbia in World War I|Serbian]] [[Veteran|war veterans]] from the palace window at [[Belgrade]] in 1931.]]
Within Serbia, the royal dictatorship for the first time made Alexander into an unpopular figure.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=139}} The British historian Richard Crampton wrote many Serbs "...were alienated by the attempt, albeit unsuccessful, to lessen the Serbian domination on which, to add insult to injury, many of the faults of the previous system were blamed. Alexander had implicitly made the Serbs, the most reliable proponents of centralism, the villains of the Vidovdan piece".{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=139}} The royal dictatorship was seen in Croatia as merely a form of Serbian domination, and one result was a marked upswing in support for fascistic ''Ustashe'', which advocated winning Croat independence via violence.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=77}}

By 1931, the [[Ustaše]] were waging a terrorist campaign of bombings, assassinations, and sabotage, which at least in part explained Alexander's reluctance to engage with ordinary people as he done in the past out of the fear of assassination.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=77}} On 14 February 1931, Alexander visited Zagreb, and the men of the Turnopolje district, who for centuries always provided a mounted honour guard for any royal visitor to Zagreb, failed to show up, a snub that shown how unpopular Alexander had become in Croatia.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=77}} On 19 February 1931, the Croat historian [[Milan Šufflay]] was murdered by police agents, becoming an international ''cause célèbre'' with [[Albert Einstein]] and [[Heinrich Mann]] leading a campaign to pressure Alexander to prosecute Šufflay's killers.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=77}}

The Great Depression was especially severe in predominantly rural Yugoslavia as it caused deflation leading to a collapse in price of agricultural products.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=77}} The Croat politician [[Ante Trumbić]] summed up the feelings of many when he gave a speech in early 1931 stating: "We are in a crisis, an economic, financial and moral crisis. There is no material or moral credit in the country. Nobody believes anything anymore!"{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=77}} However, Alexander remain unperturbed, stating in an interview with the press: "Yugoslav politics will never again be driven by narrow religious, regional or national interests".{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=78}} In response to pressure from Yugoslavia's allies, especially France and Czechoslovakia, led Alexander to decide to lessen the royal dictatorship by bringing in a new constitution which allowed the ''skupština'' to meet again.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=78}}

In 1931, Alexander [[1931 Yugoslav Constitution|decreed a new Constitution]] which transferred executive power to the King. Elections were to be by universal male suffrage. The provision for a secret ballot was dropped and pressure on public employees to vote for the governing party was to be a feature of all elections held under Alexander's constitution. Furthermore, the King would appoint half of the upper house directly, and legislation could become law with the approval of one of the houses alone if it were also approved by the King. The 1931 constitution kept Yugoslavia as an unitary state, which enraged the non-Serbian peoples who demanded a federation and saw Alexander's royal dictatorship as thinly disguised Serbian domination.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=78}} In the elections for the ''skupština'' in December 1931 – January 1932, the call of the opposition parties to boycott the vote were widely heeded, a sign of popular dissatisfaction with the new constitution.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=139}}

In response to the impoverishment of the countryside caused by the Great Depression, Alexander reaffirmed in a speech the right of every peasant family to a minimum amount of land that could not be seized by a bank in the event of a debt default. In 1932 he issued a decree suspending all debt payments by farmers to the banks for six months and forbade any more foreclosures by the banks against farmers.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=140}} Alexander's measures preventing the banks to foreclose on farmers who were unable to pay their loans saved many peasants from being ruined and prevented economic distress in the countryside from turning political, but in the long run, his policies did not solve the economic problems of the rural areas.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=140}}

The losses taken by the banks and their inability to foreclose on farmers who had delinquent loans made the banks unwilling to make new loans to the farmers.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=140}} As Yugoslav agriculture, especially in the southern parts of the country was backward, the farmers needed loans to modernise their farms, but the unwillingness of the banks to lend to the farmers made modernisation of the farms impossible in the 1930s.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=140}}

In September 1932, Alexander's friend, the Croat politician [[Ante Trumbić]] gave an interview with ''[[The Manchester Guardian]]'' newspaper, where he stated that life for ordinary Croats was better when they were part of the Austrian empire and stated that perhaps the Croats would be better off if they broke away from Yugoslavia to form their own state.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=79}} For Alexander, who always respected and liked Trumbić to see his former friend come very close to embracing Croat separatism was a painful blow.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=79}} On 7 November 1932, Trumbić and Vladko Maček of the Croat Peasant Party issued the so-called [[Zagreb Points]], which demanded a new constitution which would turn Yugoslavia into a federation, and stated that the Croats would otherwise demand independence.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=79}}

Alexander had Maček imprisoned without charges, but the issuing of the Zagreb Points inspired the other peoples to issue similar declarations with the Slovenes issuing the Ljubljana Points, the Bosnian Muslims issuing the Sarajevo Points and the Magyars issuing the Novi Sad points.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=79}} The emergence of a multi-ethnic opposition movement embracing the non-Serb peoples threatened to break the country apart and forced Alexander to ease the level of repression as his ministers warned him that he could not imprison the entire country.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=79}}

In Macedonia, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation was continuing its long-running guerrilla struggle while in Croatia the security situation had further deteriorated by 1932.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=80}} By the end of 1932, the ''Ustashe'' had blown up hundreds of trains and assassinated hundreds of government officials.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=80}} The often violent response of the mainly-Serb gendarmes to ''Ustashe'' terrorism fuelled more support for the ''Ustashe''.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=80}} To many, it appeared that Yugoslavia was sliding into the civil war that Alexander's "self-coup" of January 1929 was supposed to prevent.{{sfn|Farley|2007|p=80}}

[[File:Alexander I of Yugoslavia and Mustafa Kemal in 1933.jpg|thumb|King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and [[Mustafa Kemal Atatürk]], the first President of the [[History of the Republic of Turkey|Republic of Turkey]], in 1933.]]
Starting in 1933, Alexander had become worried about [[Nazi Germany]]. In March 1933, the French minister in Belgrade, [[Paul-Émile Naggiar]], told Alexander that France was seriously worried about the stability of Yugoslavia and warned that the King could not continue to rule in face of opposition from the majority of his subjects and that Paris viewed that Alexander was starting to become a liability for France.{{sfn|Farley|2007|pp=80–81}} Naggiar predicted the new regime in Germany was going to challenge the international order created by the [[Treaty of Versailles]] sooner or later and that France needed Yugoslavia to be stable and strong, which led Naggiar to advise the King to adopt federalism for his realm.{{sfn|Farley|2007|pp=80–81}}

However, one point of agreement of Alexander with Mussolini was his fear of ''[[Anschluss]]'' which would make Germany a direct neighbour of Yugoslavia. Alexander had no desire to have Germany as a neighbour, which led him to support the continuation of Austrian independence.{{sfn|Seton-Watson|1935|p=26}} Despite his distaste for communism, the King gave support, albeit in a very cautious and hesitant way, to the plans of French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou to bring the [[Soviet Union]] into a front meant to contain Germany.{{sfn|Seton-Watson|1935|p=26}} In 1933–34, Alexander become the proponent of a Balkan Pact, which would unite Yugoslavia, Greece, Romania and Turkey.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=141}}

Although the Balkan Pact was directed primarily against Italy and its allies (Hungary, Albania and Bulgaria), Alexander hoped the pact might provide some protection against Germany.{{sfn|Crampton|1997|p=141}} After the [[1934 Bulgarian coup d'état|coup d'état in May 1934]] in [[Sofia]], King Alexander also hoped that Bulgaria would join the [[Balkan Pact|Balkan Entente]]. The new Bulgarian government had started repression against [[VMRO|IMRO]]. In September 1934, Alexander visited Sofia to improve relations with Bulgaria. A Bulgarian military organisation, [[Zveno]], supported the unification of Bulgaria and Albania into Yugoslavia, which agreed with Alexander's policy, ''Balkans for the Balkan peoples''.

==Assassination==
{{Infobox event
| title = Assassination of Alexander I of Yugoslavia
| partof = the [[interwar period]]
| image = Monument de la Paix rue de Rome Marseille.jpg
| caption = A monument to King Alexander I and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou in Marseille, France.
| date = {{start date|1934|10|09}}
| Location = [[Marseille]], [[French Third Republic|France]]
| type = [[Assassination]], [[shootout]], attempted [[murder-suicide]]
| Target = 
| perpetrator = {{flagicon image|Flag of IMRO.svg}} [[Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization|IMRO]]<br>[[File:Ustaše_symbol.svg|20px]] [[Ustaše]]
| organizers = {{flag|Fascist Italy|name=Kingdom of Italy}} (allegedly)
| filmed by = [[Universal Newsreel|Universal Pictures]]
| participants = 5
| outcome = {{Bulleted list|Alexander dies from the gunshot wounds|The assassin, [[Vlado Chernozemski]], is beaten up by the crowd and dies in police custody|[[Peter II of Yugoslavia|Peter II]] takes the Yugoslav throne with Alexander's first cousin, [[Prince Paul of Yugoslavia|Prince Paul]], as regent|The four accomplices are released by [[Nazi Germany]] following the [[Battle of France|Fall of France]] in 1940}}
| casualties1 = 
| reported deaths = 7{{efn|Alexander and the [[chauffeur]] were killed directly, [[Louis Barthou]] died after being fatally injured by a stray bullet, three civilians died after being fatally injured, and the assassin died from injuries after being beaten up by the crowd}}
| reported injuries = 10{{efn|Four of which were fatal}}
| arrests = 5{{efn|[[Vlado Chernozemski]] and four Ustaše militants}}
| sentence = [[Life imprisonment]]{{efn|Excluding [[Vlado Chernozemski]], who died in police custody, [[Ante Pavelić]], [[Dido Kvaternik]] and Ivan Perčević were sentenced to death in absentia}}
| footage = [[File:1934-10-17 King Alexander Assassination.ogv|200px]]
}}

After the [[Ustaše]]'s [[Velebit uprising]] in November 1932, Alexander said through an intermediary to the Italian government, "If you want to have serious riots in Yugoslavia or cause a regime change, you need to kill me. Shoot at me and be sure you have finished me off, because that's the only way to make changes in Yugoslavia."{{sfn|Marković|2003|p=21}}

The French Foreign Minister [[Louis Barthou]] had attempted in 1934 to build an alliance meant to contain Germany, consisting of France's allies in Eastern Europe like Yugoslavia, together with Italy and the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|pp=191–192}} The long-standing rivalry between [[Benito Mussolini]] and King Alexander had complicated Barthou's work as Alexander complained about Italian claims against his country together with Italian support for Hungarian revisionism and the Croat ''Ustaše''.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=192}}

As long as the French ally Yugoslavia continued to have disputes with Italy, Barthou's plans for an Italo-French rapprochement would be stillborn. During a visit to Belgrade in June 1934, Barthou promised the king that France would pressure Mussolini into signing a treaty under which he would renounce his claims against Yugoslavia.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=193}} Alexander was sceptical of Barthou's plan, noting that there were hundreds of ''Ustaše'' being sheltered in Italy and it was rumoured that Mussolini had financed an unsuccessful attempt by the ''Ustaše'' to assassinate him in December 1933.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=193}}

Mussolini had come to believe that it was only the personality of Alexander that was holding Yugoslavia together and that if the king were assassinated, Yugoslavia would descend into civil war, which would allow Italy to annex certain regions of Yugoslavia without fear of reprisal from France.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=194}} However, France was Yugoslavia's closest ally, and Barthou invited Alexander for a visit to France to sign a Franco-Yugoslav agreement that would allow Barthou to "go to Rome with the certainty of success".{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=194}} As a result of the previous deaths of three family members on Tuesdays, Alexander refused to undertake any public functions on that day of the week. On Tuesday, 9 October 1934, however, he had no choice, as he was arriving in [[Marseille]] to begin a [[state visit]] to France to strengthen both countries' alliance in the [[Little Entente]].<ref name="matthewgraves">Matthew Graves, 'Memory and Forgetting on the National Periphery: Marseille and the Regicide of 1934', ''Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies'', Vol. 7, No. 1, January 2010 [http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal/article/viewFile/1291/1647]</ref>{{Failed verification|date=October 2020}}{{dubious|date=October 2020}}

While Alexander was being slowly driven in a car through the streets along with French Foreign Minister Barthou, a Bulgarian assassin, [[Vlado Chernozemski]],<ref>''The assassination was attributed to the Croatian Ustaše organization, mortal enemies of Serbian domination, but it was established that the actual assassin was Bulgarian, the IMRO member Tchernozemski, alias "Vlado the Chauffeur.'' Crown of Thorns: The Reign of King Boris III of Bulgaria, 1918–1943, Stephane Groueff, Madison Books, 1998, {{ISBN|1461730538}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=NZcVYDLUMw0C&dq=tchernozemski+bulgarian&pg=PA224 p. 224.]</ref> stepped into the street and shot the King twice and the chauffeur with a [[Mauser C96]] semiautomatic pistol. Alexander died in the car and was slumped backwards in the seat with his eyes open.<ref>{{cite web|title=Assassination of King Alexander – Vivid pictures from the scene of the tragedy at Marseille.|url=http://www.britishpathe.com/video/assassination-of-king-alexander/query/king+alexander+assassination|publisher=British Pathe|access-date=8 July 2013}}</ref> Barthou was also killed by a stray bullet fired by French police during the scuffle following the attack.<ref name=delaunay>{{cite book|last1=de Launay|first1=Jacques|title=Les grandes controverses de l'histoire contemporaine 1914–1945|year=1974|publisher=Edito-Service Histoire Secrete de Notre Temps|page=568}}</ref> Lieutenant-Colonel Jules Piollet struck the assailant with his sword. Ten people in the procession were wounded, including General Alphonse Georges who was hit by two bullets as he tried to intervene. Nine people in the crowd that came to see the king were wounded, four of them fatally. Among them was Yolande Farris, barely 20 years old, on Place Castellane, who came to the Palais de la Bourse to see the king. She was hit by a stray bullet and died at the Hôtel-Dieu on October 11, 1934. Mrs. Dumazet and Durbec, who also came to see the king, also died.

It was one of the first assassinations to be captured on film; the shooting occurred in front of the newsreel cameraman,<ref name=Moll>{{cite magazine|title=Kampf gegen den Terror |trans-title=Fight against the Terror |first=Nicolas |last=Moll |language=de |magazine=[[Damals]] |year=2012 |issue=6 |pages=72–77}}</ref> who was only metres away at the time. While the exact moment of shooting was not captured on film, the events leading to the assassination and the immediate aftermath were. The body of the chauffeur Foissac, who had been mortally wounded, slumped and jammed against the brakes of the car, which allowed the cameraman to continue filming from within inches of the King for a number of minutes afterwards. 
The film record of Alexander I's assassination remains one of the most notable pieces of newsreel in existence,<ref>{{cite web |title=Assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia & Louis Barthou (1934) &#124; British Pathé |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R3dVZdFxxo |website=YouTube | date=13 April 2014 |publisher=British Pathé |access-date=7 July 2024}}</ref> alongside the film of Emperor [[Nicholas II of Russia]]'s [[Coronation of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna|coronation]], the [[state funeral of Queen Victoria]] and that of Emperor [[Franz Joseph I of Austria]], and the [[assassination of John F. Kennedy]]. A [[20th Century Fox]] newsreel presented by [[Graham McNamee]] was manipulated to give the audience the impression that the assassination had been captured on film. Three identical gunshot sounds were added to the film afterwards, but in reality, Chernozemski fired his handgun over ten times and killed or wounded a total of 15 people. A straw hat is shown on the ground, as if it had belonged to the assassin, unlike in reality. A [[Mauser C96]] semi-automatic pistol with a 10-round magazine is shown as the assassination weapon, but the actual one had a 20-round magazine. The exact moment of assassination was never filmed.<ref>{{YouTube|CsM0AKOV96s|Verschollene Filmschätze 1934 Das Attentat auf König Alexander I. von Jugoslawien}} {{in lang|de}}</ref> Just hours later, Chernozemski died in police custody.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Konrad Sebastian |last=Morawski|title=The assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in the light of archival press articles|journal=Studia z Dziejów Rosji i Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej|year=2016|volume=51|issue=1|pages=47–76|doi=10.12775/SDR.2016.EN1.03|language=en|doi-access=free}}</ref>

[[File:Alexandre Ier-Louis Barthou-masques funéraires..jpg|thumb|The [[Death mask]]s of Alexander I and Louis Barthou.]]
[[File:Kralj Aleksandar Karađorđević - sahrana 1934.jpg|thumb|The funeral of king Alexander at Belgrade.]]
The assassin was a member of the [[pro-Bulgarian]] [[Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization]] (IMRO or VMRO) and an experienced marksman.<ref>"The suicide-assassin from VMRO was Vlado Cernozemski, who on orders from Mihajlov and his ethno-national VMRO, which was defined as Bulgarian, killed the Yugoslav king Alexander I Karadzordzevic and the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Louis Bareau in Marseille in 1934." New Balkan Politics, Issue 6, 2003, [http://www.newbalkanpolitics.org.mk/newwebsite/item.php?id=79&issue=69#.UprqgdIW3Sk Stefan Troebst, Historical Politics and Historical "Masterpieces" in Macedonia before and after 1991.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203011642/http://www.newbalkanpolitics.org.mk/newwebsite/item.php?id=79&issue=69#.UprqgdIW3Sk |date=3 December 2013 }}</ref> Immediately after assassinating King Alexander, Chernozemski was cut down by the sword of a mounted French policeman, and then beaten by the crowd. By the time that he was removed from the scene, the King was already dead. The IMRO was a political organization that fought for the liberation of the occupied [[region of Macedonia]] and [[United Macedonia|its independence]], initially as some form of [[Independent Macedonia (1944)|second Bulgarian state]], followed by a later unification with the Kingdom of Bulgaria.<ref>"Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question," Victor Roudometof, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, {{ISBN|0275976483}}, p. 99: "In the aftermath of the WWI the conservative (pro-Bulgarian) fraction of the IMRO was reconstructed under the leadership of Todor Alexandrov... This IMRO developed an agenda for an autonomous Macedonia, as it was a way for an unification with Bulgaria... Ivan Mihailov and Alexander Protogerov, who assumed IMRO's leadership in the wake of Todor Alexandrov's death (1924), retracted their support for an independent Macedonia and moved toward that would be their old position of autonomy. By 1928, Mihailov, who had emerged as the key leader of the group proposed a new plan calling for unification of a pre-1913 Macedonia region into a single state, that would be autonomous from Bulgaria. By 1931, Mihailov, with Italian support, broke his ties with the Bulgarian government and began to operate as a semi-autonomous agent, wishing to create a Macedonian state that would be under his personal control."</ref>

The IMRO worked in alliance with the Croatian Ustaše group, led by [[Ante Pavelić]].<ref name=Moll/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://uktv.co.uk/yesterday/gallery/aid/595790/image/5775/#gallery |work=[[UKTV History]]|title=Infamous Assassinations-King Alexander|access-date=17 June 2012}}</ref> Chernozemski and three Croatian accomplices had travelled to France from Hungary via Switzerland. After the assassination, Chernozemski's accomplices were arrested by French police.<ref name=Moll/> A prominent diplomat with the Palazzo Chigi, Baron Pompeo Aloisi, expressed fears that the ''Ustashi'' based in Italy had killed the King and sought reassurances from another diplomat, Paolo Cortese, that Italy had not been involved.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=194}} Aloisi was not reassured when Cortese told him that with Alexander being dead, Yugoslavia was about to break up.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=194}}

Public opinion and press in Yugoslavia held that Italy had been crucial in the planning and directing of the assassination.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hamerli|first=Petra|title=The Hungarian-Italian Support of the Croatian Separatism between 1928 and 1934|url=https://www.academia.edu/19673649|journal=West Bohemian Historical Review}}</ref> Demonstrators outside of the Italian embassy in Belgrade and the Italian consulates in Zagreb and Ljubljana blamed Mussolini for Alexander's assassination.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=195}} An investigation by the French police quickly established that the assassins had been trained and armed in Hungary; had travelled to France on forged Czechoslovak passports; and frequently telephoned ''Ustaše'' leader [[Ante Pavelić]], who was living in Italy.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=196}}

The incident was later used by Yugoslavia as an argument to counter the Croatian attempts of secession and Italian and Hungarian revisionism.<ref name=Moll/> The participants in the assassination were Ivan Rajić, [[Mijo Babić|Mijo Kralj]], [[Zvonimir Pospišil]] and Antun Godina. They were sentenced to [[life in prison]] although the Yugoslav authorities had expected that they would be [[sentenced to death]]. In 1940, after the [[Battle of France|fall of France]], they were released from prison by Germany.

[[Pierre Laval]], who succeeded Barthou as foreign minister, wished to continue the rapprochement with Rome and saw the assassinations in Marseille as an inconvenience that was best forgotten.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=197}} Both London and Paris made it clear that they regarded Mussolini as a responsible European statesman and in private told Belgrade that under no circumstances would they allow ''[[Duce|Il Duce]]'' to be blamed.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|pp=197–198}} In a speech in [[Northampton]], England, on 19 October 1934, British Foreign Secretary [[John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon|Sir John Simon]] expressed his sympathy to the people of Yugoslavia over the king's assassination and stated that he was convinced by Mussolini's speech in Milan that denied involvement in the assassination.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=199}}

When Yugoslavia made an extradition request to Italy for Pavelić on charges of regicide, the Quai d'Orsay expressed concern that if Pavelić were extradited, he might incriminate Mussolini and were greatly reassured when its counterparts at the [[Palazzo Chigi]] stated there was no possibility of Pavelić being extradited.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=201}} Laval cynically told a French journalist off the record that the French press should stop going on about the assassinations in Marseille because France would never go to war to defend the honour of a weak country like Yugoslavia.{{sfn|Kovrig|1976|p=201}}

The following day, the body of King Alexander I was transported back to the port of [[Split, Croatia|Split]] in Yugoslavia by the destroyer JRM ''[[Yugoslav destroyer Dubrovnik|Dubrovnik]]''. After a huge funeral in Belgrade that was attended by about 500,000 people and many leading European statesmen, Alexander was interred in the [[Oplenac]] Church in [[Topola]], which had been built by his father. The [[Holy See]] gave special permission to bishops [[Aloysius Stepinac]], [[Antun Akšamović]], [[Dionisije Njaradi]], and [[Gregorij Rožman]] to attend the funeral in an Orthodox church.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cpi.hr/download/links/hr/7947.pdf |title=The Dictatorship of King Alexander and the Roman Catholic Church 1929–1934 |access-date=29 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019134318/http://www.cpi.hr/download/links/hr/7947.pdf |archive-date=19 October 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> As his son King [[Peter II of Yugoslavia|Peter II]] was still a minor, Alexander's first cousin [[Prince Paul of Yugoslavia|Prince Paul]] took the regency of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

A ballistic report on the bullets found in the car was made in 1935, but its results were not made available to the public until 1974. It revealed that Barthou was hit by an [[8mm French Ordnance|8 mm]] [[Modèle 1892 revolver]] round commonly used in weapons, carried by French police.<ref name=delaunay/>

After the assassination, relations between Yugoslavia and France became colder and never returned to the previous level. Also, the Little Entente and the Balkan Pact lost their importance. The Yugoslav public considered it shocking that the assassination had happened on French soil. In the coming years, Prince Paul (as regent) attempted to keep a neutral balance between London and [[Berlin]] until 1941, when he yielded to heavy pressure to join the [[Tripartite Pact]].

==Issue==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Name!!Birth!!Death!!Spouse!!Children
|-
| [[Peter II of Yugoslavia|King Peter II]]
| 6 September 1923
| 3 November 1970
| [[Alexandra of Yugoslavia|Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark]]
| [[Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia|Crown Prince Alexander]] (b. 1945)
|-
| rowspan=2|[[Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia|Prince Tomislav]]
| rowspan=2|19 January 1928
| rowspan=2|12 July 2000
| [[Princess Margarita of Baden]]<br /><small>Divorced 1981</small>
| Prince Nikola (b. 1958)<br />[[Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia|Princess Katarina]] (b. 1959)
|-
| Linda Mary Bonney
| Prince George (b. 1984)<br />Prince Michael (b. 1985)
|-
| rowspan=3|[[Prince Andrew of Yugoslavia|Prince Andrew]]
| rowspan=3|28 June 1929
| rowspan=3|7 May 1990
| [[Princess Christina Margarethe of Hesse]]<br /><small>Divorced 1962</small>
| Princess Maria Tatiana (b. 1957)<br />Prince Christopher (1960–1994)
|-
| Princess Kira Melita of [[Leiningen family|Leiningen]]<br /><small>Divorced 1972</small>
| Princess Lavinia Maria (b. 1961)<ref>Born while her father was still married to Princess Christina of Hesse (thus making it necessary for him to adopt her legally on 15 February 1965, after marrying her mother)</ref><br />Prince Karl Vladimir (b. 1964)<br />Prince Dimitri (b. 1965)
|-
| Eva Maria Andjelkovich
| 
|}

==In popular culture==
* The song "Don Juan" by British synth duo [[Pet Shop Boys]] (the B-side to their 1988 single "[[Domino Dancing]]") contains the phrase "[[Zog I of Albania|King Zog]]'s back from holiday, [[Magda Lupescu|Marie Lupescu]]'s grey and ''King Alexander'' is dead in Marseille".(21)
* In [[Upton Sinclair]]'s historical novel, "Wide Is The Gate" (novel 4 in the Lanny Budd series published 1941) the assassination is attributed to the Nazi German government. The novel claims funds and a forged passport were obtained by the Croatian assassin from the head of German foreign policy department.
* A heavily fictionalized version of the assassination serves as the opening to the book ''The Second Assassin'' by Christopher Hyde. The gunman is changed to a Croatian, while an Irish hitman kills both him and Barthou using a rifle, undetected in the confusion. It is described as masterminded by Nazi Germany to get rid of both Alexander and Barthou while they are together.
* In [[Ivan Vazov]]'s poem "Па ща си ти?" ("What are you?")<ref>Словото, Виртуална библиотека за българска литература, Песни за Македония, Ив. Вазов: [https://www.slovo.bg/old/vazov/macedoni/pashtasi.htm "Па шта си ти?"].</ref> is depicted a case when crown prince Alexander asks the question to a little girl from Skopje and when she answers 'I'm Bulgarian' he slaps her in the face. The poem emphasizes the suffering of the [[Macedonian Bulgarians]] under [[Serbianization|Serbian rule]].<ref>Църнушанов, Коста. Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него, Университетско издание Св. Климент Охридски, София, 1992, [http://www.promacedonia.org/kc/cyrn13_g.html стр. 107–108].</ref>
* TV series ''Alexander of Yugoslavia'' directed by [[Zdravko Šotra]]<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-03-08|title="Aleksandar od Jugoslavije" od 15. marta na Nova S|url=https://rs.n1info.com/showbiz/aleksandar-od-jugoslavije-od-15-marta-na-nova-s/|access-date=2021-03-08|website=N1|language=sr-RS}}</ref>

==Honours==
[[File:Spomenik kralju aleksandru 2010.JPG|thumb|Monument to Alexander the Unifier in [[Niš]], Serbia.]]
[[File:Kralj Aleksandar Karađorđević, TIME, 11.02.1929..jpg|thumb|King Alexander on the cover of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' on [[List of covers of Time magazine (1920s)|11 February 1929]]]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-  style="background:#ccf; text-align:center;"
| colspan=2 |'''Serbian and Yugoslavian military decorations'''
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Noribbon.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of St. Prince Lazar|Order of Saint Prince Lazarus]], Collar (Royal Order only)<ref name= "slava i cast">{{Cite book|last=Acović|first=Dragomir|title=Slava i čast: Odlikovanja među Srbima, Srbi među odlikovanjima|year=2012|location=Belgrade|publisher=Službeni Glasnik|pages=273–289}}</ref>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=SRB-SHS-YUG Orden Karađorđeve zvezde VKrst BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of Karađorđe's Star]], Grand Master<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=SRB-SHS-YUG Orden Belog Orla VKrst BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of the White Eagle (Serbia)|Order of the White Eagle]], Grand Master<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=SRB-SHS-YUG Orden Karađorđeve zvezde sa mačevima VKrst BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of Karađorđe's Star|Order of the Karađorđe's Star with Swords]], Grand Master<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=SRB-SHS-YUG Orden Belog Orla sa macevima VKrst BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of the White Eagle (Serbia)|Order of the White Eagle with swords]], Grand Master<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Ordre de la Couronne de Yougoslavie (Royaume).png|width=60}}
|[[Order of the Yugoslav Crown]], Grand Master<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=SRB-SHS-YUG Orden Svetog Save VKrst BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of St. Sava|Order of Saint Sava]], Grand Master<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|- style="background:#ccf; text-align:center;"
| colspan=2 |'''Serbian service medals'''
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Bravery Medal,1912 gold rib.png|width=60}}
|[[Medal for Bravery (1912)|Gold Bravery Medal]], 1912<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Bravery Medal Milos Obilic, 1913 rib.png|width=60}}
|[[Medal for Bravery (Serbia)|Gold Bravery Medal]], 1913<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Commemorative_Medal_of_the_first_Balkan_war,1912.jpg|width=60}}
| Commemorative Medal of the first Balkan War, 1912<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Commemorative Medal of the second Balkan War,1913 rib.png|width=60}}
| Commemorative Medal of the second Balkan War, 1913<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Conmemorative_Medal_of_the_Accesion_of_King_Peter_I.jpg|width=60}}
| Commemorative Medal of the Election of Peter I as King of Serbia<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Commemorative Medal of the Albanian Campaign,1920 rib.png|width=60}}
|[[Albanian Commemorative Medal|Commemorative Medal of the Albanian Campaign]]<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|- style="background:#ccf; text-align:center;"
| colspan=2 |'''International and foreign awards'''
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=BEL - Order of Leopold - Grand Cordon bar.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of Leopold (Belgium)|Order of Leopold]], Grand Cordon (Belgium)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=BEL Croix de Guerre WW1 ribbon.svg|width=60}}
|[[Croix de guerre (Belgium)|War Cross 1914–1918]], (Belgium)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Order of SS. Cyril and Methodius ribbon.gif|width=60}}
|[[Order of Saints Cyril and Methodius]], Collar ([[Kingdom of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=St.AlexanderOrder-ribbon.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of St. Alexander]] with swords, Collar (Bulgaria)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=CZE Rad Bileho Lva 3 tridy BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of the White Lion]], Collar ([[Czechoslovakia]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Czechoslovak War Cross 1918 (5x) Bar.png|width=60}}
|[[Czechoslovak War Cross 1918|War Cross 1914–1918]], (Czechoslovakia)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Order_of_the_Elephant_Ribbon_bar.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of the Elephant]], Grand Cross (Denmark)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Legion Honneur GC ribbon.svg|width=60}}
|[[Legion of Honour]], Grand Cross (France)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Medaille militaire ribbon.svg|width=60}}
|[[Médaille militaire]], (France)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=CroixdeGuerreFR-SilverPalm.png|width=60}}
|[[Croix de guerre 1914–1918 (France)|War Cross 1914–1918]], (France)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=GRE Order Redeemer 1Class.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of the Redeemer]], Grand Cross ([[Kingdom of Greece (Glücksburg)|Greece]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Greek War Cross 1917 1st class ribbon.png|width=60}}
|[[War Cross (Greece)|War Cross 1914–1918]], (Greece)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Order of the Most Holy Annunciation BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation]], Collar ([[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Cavaliere di gran Croce Regno SSML BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus]], Knight Grand Cross (Italy)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Cavaliere di Gran Croce OCI Kingdom BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of the Crown of Italy]], Knight Grand Cross (Italy)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Cavaliere di gran croce OMS BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Military Order of Savoy]], Knight Grand Cross (Italy)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=WendischeKrone.Order.gif|width=60}}
|[[House Order of the Wendish Crown|Order of the Wendish Crown]], Grand Cross ([[Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin|Mecklenburg]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Order of Saint Peter of Cetinje. Ribbon.gif|width=60}}
|[[Order of Saint Peter of Cetinje]], Knight ([[Kingdom of Montenegro|Montenegro]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=ME Order of Danilo I Knight Grand Cross BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of Prince Danilo I]], Knight Grand Cross (Montenegro)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Noribbon.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem]], Knight of the Collar ([[Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem|Orthodox Church of Jerusalem]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Rib bar 2 of Order of State.png|width=60}}
|[[Order of Distinction (Ottoman Empire)|Order of Distinction]], 1st class ([[Ottoman Empire]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=PER Order of the Sun of Peru - Knight BAR.png|width=60}}
|[[Order of the Sun of Peru]], Grand Cross (Peru)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=POL Virtuti Militari Wielki BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Virtuti Militari]], Grand Cross ([[Kingdom of Poland (1916–18)|Poland]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=POL Order Orła Białego BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of the White Eagle (Poland)|Order of the White Eagle]], Grand Cross ([[Kingdom of Poland (1916–18)|Poland]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=POL Polonia Restituta Wielki BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of Polonia Restituta]], Grand Cross (Poland)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=PRT Three Orders BAR.svg|width=60}}
|[[Sash of the Three Orders]], Grand Cross<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Oliviera|first1=Humberto Nuno de|date=2010|title=Subsídio para a história das relações bilaterais entre Portugal ea Sérvia|url=http://revistas.lis.ulusiada.pt/index.php/lh/article/download/1550/1663|trans-title=Subsidy for the History of Bilateral relations between Portugal and Serbia|journal=Lusíada História |volume=2 |number=7 |page=460 |issn=0873-1330 |access-date=21 March 2020}}</ref> (Portugal)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=PRT Military Order of the Tower and of the Sword - Grand Cross BAR.png|width=60}}
|[[Order of the Tower and Sword]], Grand Cross<ref>"[http://arquivo.presidencia.pt/details?id=124213 Ordem Militar da Torre e Espada – Processos de Estrangeiros: Príncipe Alexandre (Regente do Reino dos Sérvios, Croatas e Eslovenos)]" (in Portuguese), ''Arquivo Histórico da Presidência da República''. Retrieved 2 April 2020.</ref> (Portugal)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Order of Michael the Brave ribbon.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of Michael the Brave]], 1st class ([[Kingdom of Romania|Romania]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=OrderofCarolI.ribbon.gif|width=60}}
|[[Order of Carol I]], Knight Grand Cross with Collar<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://only-romania.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/The-Sallut-of-King-Alexander-of-Yugoslavia-Prince-Nicolas-Prince-of-Hohentzollern-btinging-out-of-the-coffin-from-Palace.jpg |title=Romania |access-date=2015-02-28 |archive-date=2015-04-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402145805/http://only-romania.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/The-Sallut-of-King-Alexander-of-Yugoslavia-Prince-Nicolas-Prince-of-Hohentzollern-btinging-out-of-the-coffin-from-Palace.jpg |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/363313894911423476/ Pinterest]</ref> (Romania)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=St.AndrewOrder.png|width=60}}
|[[Order of St. Andrew]], Collar ([[Russian Empire|Russia]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Russian Imperial Order of Saint Alexander Nevsky ribbon bar.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of St. Alexander Nevsky]], (Russia)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=RUS Order White Eagle BAR.png|width=60}}
|[[Order of the White Eagle (Russian Empire)|Order of the White Eagle]], Grand Cross (Russia)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=RUS Order of Saint George 3rd class ribbon 2000.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of St. George]], 3rd class (Russia)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=RUS Order of Saint George 4th class ribbon 2000.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of St. George]], 4th class (Russia)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=RUS Order św. Anny (baretka).svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of St. Anna]], 1st class (Russia)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=POL Krzyz Wielki Orderu Sw Stanislawa BAR.png|width=60}}
|[[Order of Saint Stanislaus (House of Romanov)|Order of St. Stanislaus]], 1st class (Russia)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Order of the White Elephant - Special Class (Thailand) ribbon.svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of the White Elephant]], Knight Grand Cordon ([[Siam]])<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=Order of the Bath (ribbon).svg|width=60}}
|[[Order of the Bath]], Knight Grand Cross (United Kingdom)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=UK Royal Victorian Order ribbon.svg|width=60}}
|[[Royal Victorian Order]], Honorary Knight Grand Cross (United Kingdom)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|-
|{{ribbon devices|ribbon=King George V Coronation Medal ribbon.svg|width=60}}
|[[King George V Coronation Medal]] (United Kingdom)<ref name= "slava i cast"/>
|}

==References and notes==
;Notes
{{notelist}}

;Citations
{{Reflist|30em}}

;Bibliography
* {{Cite book|last=Acović|first=Dragomir|title=Slava i čast: Odlikovanja među Srbima, Srbi među odlikovanjima|year=2012|location=Belgrade|publisher=Službeni Glasnik}}
* {{cite book|last=Farley|first=Brigit|contribution=King Aleksandar and the Royal Dictatorship in Yugoslavia|editor=Bernd J. Fischer|title=Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian Rulers of Southeastern Europe|location=West Lafayette, IN|year=2007|series=Central European Studies|pages=51–86}}
* {{Cite book |last=Gligorijević|first=Branislav|title=Kralj Aleksandar I Karađorđević (1–3)|url=https://www.knjizara.com/Kralj-Aleksandar-I-Karadjordjevic-Branislav-Gligorijevic-151595|year=2010|publisher=Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva|pages=1186}}
*{{cite book|title=Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After|url=https://archive.org/details/easterneuropeint00cram|url-access=registration|last=Crampton|first=Richard|publisher=Routledge|location=London|year=1997|isbn=978-0415164238}}
* {{Cite book|last=DiNardo|first=Richard L.|title=Invasion: The Conquest of Serbia, 1915|year=2015|location=Santa Barbara|publisher=Praeger|isbn=978-1440800924|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9sbloQEACAAJ}}
*{{cite book|title=Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914|last=Hastings|first=Max|publisher=William Collins|location=London|year=2013}}
*{{cite journal|title=Mediation by Obfuscation: The Resolution of the Marseille Crisis, October 1934 to May 1935|last=Kovrig|first=Bennett|journal=The Historical Journal|volume=19|issue=1|pages=191–221|date=January 1976|doi=10.1017/S0018246X00018367|s2cid=153681564 }}
*{{cite journal|title=King Alexander's Assassination: Its Background and Effects|last=Seton-Watson|first=Robert|journal=International Affairs|volume=14|issue=1|pages=20–47|date=January 1935}}
* {{Cite book|title=Povijest Crne legije: Jure i Boban |last=Marković |first=Marko |year=2003 |language=hr}}
* {{Cite book|title=Women, gender, and fascism in Europe, 1919–45 |last=Passmore |first=Kevin |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=2003 |isbn= 0719060834}}
* {{Cite book|title=The First World War – A New Illustrated History|first=Hew|last=Strachan|author-link=Hew Strachan|publisher=Pocket Books|year=2006|isbn=074323961X|url=https://archive.org/details/firstworldwar0000stra/mode/2up|url-access=registration}}

==External links==
{{Commons category-inline}}
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOlMhOvXVVA Wedding of King Alexander I and Princess Maria at Belgrade (1922)], British Pathé
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvyYKRo0JU8 The first recorded sound movie of speech of the king Alexander I (Under of Yugoslav Sky, 1933 – Yugoslav Film Archive)]
* [http://www.britishpathe.com/video/assassination-of-king-alexander/query/king+alexander+assassination Newsreel footage of the Assassination of King Alexander]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtYQhzm6ddE The Funeral of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia at Belgrade (1934), British Pathé]
* [http://www.royal.rs The Official Website of the Serbian Royal Family]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20171124075053/http://www.oplenac.rs/wpeng/#sthash.aDfKTmit.dpbs Royal Mausoleum Oplenac]
* {{PM20|FID=pe/000341}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-hou|[[House of Karađorđević]]|16 December|1888|9 October|1934}}
{{s-reg}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Peter I of Serbia|Peter I]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[List of heads of state of Yugoslavia|King of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes]]|years=16 August 1921 – 6 January 1929}}
{{s-non|reason=Proclaimed King of Yugoslavia}}
{{s-new}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[List of heads of state of Yugoslavia|King of Yugoslavia]]|years=6 January 1929 – 9 October 1934}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Peter II of Yugoslavia|Peter II]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Heads of state of Serbia}}
{{Heads of state of Yugoslavia}}
{{Karađorđević dynasty}}
{{Serbian princes}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander 01 Of Yugoslavia}}
[[Category:1888 births]]
[[Category:1934 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Serbian monarchs]]
[[Category:Kings of Yugoslavia]]
[[Category:Karađorđević dynasty]]
[[Category:People from Cetinje]]
[[Category:20th-century regents]]
[[Category:Murdered Serbian monarchs]]
[[Category:Assassinated Yugoslav people]]
[[Category:20th-century murdered monarchs]]
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[[Category:Deaths by firearm in France]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses of the Virtuti Militari]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 1st class]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Third Degree]]
[[Category:Grand Masters of the Order of the Yugoslav Crown]]
[[Category:Burials at the Mausoleum of the Royal House of Karađorđević, Oplenac]]
[[Category:Yugoslav anti-communists]]
[[Category:Terrorism deaths in France]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:Regents of Serbia]]
[[Category:Regents of Yugoslavia]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of the Sun of Peru]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of Christ (Portugal)|3]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of Aviz|3]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of Saint James of the Sword|3]]
[[Category:Collars of the Order of the White Lion]]
[[Category:Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath]]
[[Category:Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order]]
[[Category:Yugoslavism]]
[[Category:Serbs of Montenegro]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland)]]
[[Category:Assassinated heads of state in Europe]]
[[Category:Filmed assassinations]]
[[Category:Politicians assassinated in the 1930s]]
[[Category:People murdered in 1934]]
[[Category:People murdered in France]]