deserved the awful fate that befell them, it is equally true that had any
other course been adopted, such as deposition and exile, the wire-pulling
and intriguing from outside, which had already done the country so much
harm, would have become infinitely worse. Even so, it was long before
things in any sense settled down. As for the alleged complicity of the
rival dynasty in the crime, it is well established that that did not
exist. It was no secret to anybody interested in Serbian affairs that
something catastrophic was about to happen, and when the tragedy occurred
it was natural to appeal to the alternative native dynasty to step into
the breach. But the head of that dynasty was in no way responsible for the
plot, still less for the manner in which it was carried out, and it was
only after much natural hesitation and in the face of his strong
disinclination that Prince Peter Karagjorgjevi['c] was induced to accept
the by no means enviable, easy, or profitable task of guiding Serbia's
destiny. The Serbian throne in 1903 was a source neither of glory nor of
riches, and it was notoriously no sinecure.

After the tragedy, the democratic constitution of 1888 was first of all
restored, and then Prince Peter Karagjorgjevi['c], grandson of
Kara-George, the leader of the first Serbian insurrection of 1804-13, who
was at that time fifty-nine years of age, was unanimously elected king. He
had married in 1883 a daughter of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro and sister
of the future Queen of Italy, but she had been dead already some years at
the time of his accession, leaving him with a family of two sons and a
daughter.



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