Background
Nikola I Petrović-Njegoš was born in Njegos in southwestern Montenegro on October 7, 1841.
Nikola I Petrović-Njegoš was born in Njegos in southwestern Montenegro on October 7, 1841.
His father, Mirko Petrović-Njegoš, a celebrated Montenegrin warrior, was elder brother to Danilo I of Montenegro, who left no male offspring. After 1696, when the dignity of Vladika, or prince-bishop, became hereditary in the Petrović family, the sovereign power had descended from uncle to nephew, the Vladikas belonging to the order of the black clergy (i.e., monastic clergy) who are forbidden to marry. A change was introduced by Danilo I, who declined the episcopal office, married and declared the principality hereditary in the direct male line. Mirko Petrović-Njegoš having renounced his claim to the throne, his son was nominated heir-presumptive, and the old system of succession was thus accidentally continued.
Prince Nikola, who had been trained from infancy in martial and athletic exercises, spent a portion of his early boyhood at Trieste in the household of the Kustic family, to which his aunt, the princess Darinka, wife of Danilo II, belonged. The princess was an ardent francophile, and at her suggestion the young heir-presumptive of the vladikas was sent to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. Unlike his contemporary, King Milan of Serbia, Prince Nikola was little influenced in his tastes and habits by his Parisian education; the young highlander, whose keen patriotism, capability for leadership and poetic talents early displayed themselves, showed no inclination for the pleasures of the French capital, and eagerly looked forward to returning to his native land.
In 1868 Nicholas forged a lasting tie with Russia. He dreamed of freeing those of his fellow Serbs still under Turkish control and creating a "Greater Serbia” under Montenegrin leadership.
In 1876, alongside Serbia, the other free Serbian state, Nicholas again marched against the Turks. Russian intervention now helped to overcome new Montenegrin military defeats, so that by 1880 Nicholas found himself ruling a state doubled in size and firmly established on the Adriatic coast. Once again, he led his people through a period of postwar recovery and modernization.
A line of marital alliances provided links to the ruling houses of Italy and Russia. In 1883 Nicholas' eldest daughter Zorka married Peter Karadjordjevic of Serbia, the exiled prince whom a military revolt brought to the throne in Belgrade twenty years later. Nicholas took the title of king in 1910 on the fiftieth anniversary of his coronation. This nominal elevation could not mask his growing political difficulties, as educated Montenegrins were increasingly restive under a nominally constitutional system that, in fact, left most power in the king's hands. Nicholas' hopes of directing the formation of a united Serbian state faded: Serbia under Peter, larger and more powerful than Montenegro, soon assumed that role after 1903. Friction between Serbia and Montenegro intensified as Montenegrin dissidents used Serbia as a base for plots against Nicholas. The weakness of Montenegro's still primitive armed forces stood out clearly in the Balkan Wars, 1912/1913. Finally, the old monarch's widespread reputation for personal avarice received new emphasis resulting from word of his wartime stock market speculations.
In the July 1914 crisis Nicholas was tempted to remain neutral. Austria offered Montenegro territorial concessions in Albania and the Sanjak of Novibazar. But heated interventionist sentiment in the National Assembly at Cetinje convinced Nicholas to stand by Serbia or to risk being pushed off his throne. Nonetheless, Nicholas' wartime role remained deliberately small. An early offensive northward against Austrian territory failed by October 1914. Thereafter, Montenegrin troops besieged the port of
Scutari in the Turkish dependency of Albania, but this operation betrayed Nicholas' long-time ambitions and drew Montenegro's small army away from the increasingly desperate Serbs.
On January 8, 1916, after Serbia's fall, Nicholas faced unaided the full weight of an Austrian offensive. The Cetinje cabinet had resigned four days earlier, possibly in protest against rumors that Nicholas was angling for a separate peace with Vienna. If so, Nicholas deceived the Austrians; with Montenegro still a belligerent, the old king left for exile in Italy.
Nicholas then faced a new and more serious threat from Serbia. His grandson, Crown Prince Alexander Karadjordjevic, and Prime Minister Pasic prepared to absorb Montenegro once the war had ended. Starting in mid-1916 Serbia encouraged Montenegrin political leaders to call publicly for Nicholas' abdication. The successful Allied offensive in the Balkans in September/October 1918 brought the quarrel to a climax, and the advancing Serbian army was ordered to move into Montenegro. Meanwhile, French authorities obliged Serbia by refusing to let Nicholas leave his place of exile in Bordeaux.
Stained by his less than heroic role in January 1916 and weakened by persistent rumors thereafter that he was seeking an accommodation with the Central Powers, Nicholas was helpless as the Serbs whipped up prounionist sentiment in Montenegro. The first postwar election in his kingdom found Nicholas' supporters soundly defeated. The old king was deposed on November 26,1918, and Montenegro became part of a united South Slav state under Serbian hegemony. Nicholas left for a second and final exile in France and Italy. He died in Antibes on March 1, 1921.