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Meanwhile in Vienna bronze casters and workmen of the firm of Julius Maschner & Son were working day & night to finish a 500-lb. copper and bronze coffin for the body of the murdered King. There was not time for an entirely original design but Julius Maschner & Son are used to rushing work. In existence for some 300 years, the firm has made coffins for Maria Theresa, the Empress Elizabeth, the murdered Archduke Rudolf of Habsburg, Emperor Franz Josef, the murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the murdered Alexander Obrenovitch of Serbia. In the elaborate neo-Byzantine Kara-Georgevitch family tomb on the hill of Oplenatz murdered Alexander of Jugoslavia, in his Austrian sarcophagus, will soon lie. From their catalog, Julius Maschner & Son chose the same model coffin as those they recently completed for former Chancellors Dollfuss and Seipel of Austria. All they had to do was remove the Roman crucifix from the lid and replace it with a Serbian Orthodox cross, applique the Jugoslav royal arms and a silver name plate. There were also a few minor adjustments to be made to be sure that it would fit on a Jugoslav gun carriage.
All Europe echoed with the pitiful cry of little King Peter: "Why did they do it?" They did it because the various Balkan nationalities that were persuaded to throw in their lot with Serbia after the War feel that they have been bilked of their due. The Kingdom that they thought they were joining, that of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, quickly became Jugoslavia, in which only the voice of Serbia could be heard. Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Slovenes found Serbia a far more brutal master than Austria-Hungary. Any effort to state national aspirations in public brought instant oppression, exile, often torture and assassination. From Serbia's point of view this policy worked for all the provinces but one. The Croats were not to be downed. They fought back, inside Jugoslavia and out.