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Of the last nine Serbian rulers, only three, including King Alexander's senile father, Peter I, died natural deaths while reigning. Spectacled Alexander never expected to share his father's luck. At his country estate in Bled last January he drew up his will and decreed that in case of his sudden death, three regents should rule the country until little Peter became of age (18):
Prince Paul, his 41-year-old cousin whose wife is the sister of the Duke of Kent's Princess Marina.
Dr. Radenko Stankovitch, former Minister of Education.
Governor Ivan Perovitch, of Sava Province.
Stankovitch, a Serb, and Perovitch, a Croat, are sympathetic to Croatian aspirations. But there was a joker up Alexander's political will. Should anything happen to these regents he had three substitutes. The most important was the ironfisted, fire-eating Serb, General Vojeslav Tomitch, commander of the Belgrade Garrison.
The new regents will have much more than the unruly Croats to contend with. Jugoslavia's population is 11% Mohammedan. Dalmatia is filled with Italians, the scene of much Italian intrigue. Bosnia and Herzegovina have important German minorities. Montenegrans are wondering why they ever gave up their independence.
As senior regent, pale scholarly Prince Paul Kara-Georgevitch is not an over-impressive figure to hold in line this racial conglomeration that is Jugoslavia. At the National Assembly he took the oath of office last week, listened to a great funeral oration from Premier Uzunovitch while Deputies roared out "Slavu Mu! Glory to Him!" at every mention of the dead King. Eyes kept turning from the pale Prince Regent to another figure behind him. grizzled, bristling General Pera Zivkovitch, by tradition the man who let the murderers of Alexander Obrenovitch into the royal palace, virtual dictator for three years under Alexander of Jugoslavia, the strongest, the most hated man in the kingdom, and as Commander of the Royal Guard, proprietor of a well-drilled, well-equipped army-within-an-army of nearly 10,000 men.
*Seldom has any hotel sheltered so much royalty as the Paris Ritz that night. On the register were Dowager Queen Marie of Rumania, Princess Ileana and her husband Archduke Anton of Habsburg, Infante Alfonso of Spain, Grand Duke Cyril of Russia and his son Prince Vladimir, Princess Marina of Greece. Mr. & Mrs. Johnson of Pembina, N. Dak. complained of the service.