JUGOSLAVIA: Little King

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In France public resentment at the ease with which the murders were executed forced the reorganization of the Doumergue Cabinet, the retirement of Minister of the Interior Albert Sarraut. Working fast and furiously to save their reputations, the French secret police, assisted by the Jugoslav police, had uncovered by the week's end, the following "facts": Alexander's assassin, hacked to pieces by police sabres and bullets, was a fat young man named Petrus Kalemen, later said to be Vlada Georgieff. On his arm was tattooed the motto and device of a Mace donian secret society known as IMRO. The weapon with which the murders were committed was a huge ungainly Mauser automatic pistol of the latest type which sprays 20 shots like a machine gun. In his pockets Kalemen also carried a Walther pistol, a hand grenade, and 150 loose cartridges. He did not need them. With the Mauser he was able To kill: Alexander of Jugoslavia Foreign Minister Louis Barthou of France Yolande Farris Mme Marie Dubrec To wound: General Alfonse Joseph Georges of France General Alexander Dimitriejevitch of Jugoslavia Admiral Philippe Berthelot Police Inspector Calestin Galli Policeman Felix Forestier Marius Humbert Laurent Tortero Mme Justine de Mawer and her son Felix Edmond Brooks Dascomb, U. S. newsreel photographer, made a complete record of the assassination while bullets whistled round his ears. Four days later he dropped dead from a cerebral hemorrhage. Petrus Kalemen was not alone in his plot. Acting on secret tips, police on the French border arrested two men attempting to slip over the line into Switzerland: Ivan Raitch and Zvonemer Posposil. According to the French police, Raitch, Posposil and Kalemen were members of a Croatian terrorist organization known as Ustashi, sworn to the assassination of King Alexander in revenge for the murder of the great Croat Leader Stephan Raditch in Belgrade's Parliament six years ago. Ustashi's founder is an exiled Croatian deputy named Ante Pavelitch. Its headquarters was at a Hungarian camp for Croatian refugees at Janka Puszta where they were supposed to have been drilled by Hungarian army officers. Conspirator Pavelitch was said to have sent the five men to France with forged passports to murder the King. Petrus Kalemen was to try in Marseilles, the others in Paris. Following confessions by Raitch and Posposil, French police picked up one Sylvester Mathy after he had hid for days in the Forest of Fontainebleau, living on roots & herbs. They sought three other suspects—a mysterious young girl known as Marie Vjoudroch whose duty was to carry suitcases of small arms to the assassins, and two men. All Europe exploded in a few days of mutual recrimination. Because the murder weapons were German made. French police tried to blame the Nazis. Jugoslav crowds hurled insults at Italian consulates. Orthodox Serbians pelted Roman Catholic churches with stones, then switched their spleen to Hungary which had given shelter to Ustashi. A dozen chancelleries grew worried. Press attacks suddenly ceased. Jugoslavia, too. was calm. It might be the heavy silence before the hurricane, but for the time being even the angry attacks against Italy ceased. Jugoslavia, like all Europe, was waiting to see if the new Regency could govern that piebald land.

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