Peter I of Serbia reigned as the last King of Serbia (1903–1918) and as the first King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (1918–1921). Peter was Karađorđe's grandson and third son of Persida Nenadović and Prince Alexander Karađorđević, who was forced to abdicate. Peter lived with his family in exile. He fought with the French Foreign Legion in the Franco-Prussian War.
Background
Peter was born in Belgrade on 11 July 1844, the fifth of Prince Alexander Karađorđević and his consort Persida Nenadović's ten children. He was the grandson of Karađorđe, the leader of the First Serbian Uprising (1804–1813) and the founder of the Karađorđević dynasty. Peter was not born in the Royal Court, which was undergoing renovations at the time, but at the home of merchant Miša Anastasijević. His birth was not met with much celebration because he was his parents' third son and his older brother Svetozar was the heir to the throne. His parents' oldest son, Aleksa, had died three years prior to Peter's birth, aged five, at which point Svetozar became heir. Peter did not become heir until Svetozar's death in 1847 at the age of six. Besides Belgrade, Peter spent much of his childhood in the town of Topola, from where the Karađorđević dynasty originated. He received his elementary education in Belgrade.
Career
Nineteenth-century Serbian politics revolved around the rivalry between the princely Karadjordjevic and Obrenovic families and their respective followers. In 1859 the political wheel turned, the Karadjordjevic line was deposed, and Peter left for an exile that stretched for forty-five years. Educated in Switzerland and France, Peter fought with distinction in the Franco-Prussian War. He spent most of the next three decades in Switzerland, but Serbian affairs remained his vital interest. In his homeland the exiled prince stood high in public esteem. A volunteer in the Bosnian revolt against the Ottoman Turks in the 1870s, he bolstered his popularity by his marriage in 1883 to the daughter of the reigning Serbian line in Montenegro.
In the 1890s rumors of Peter's likely return circulated widely. Disenchantment with the Obrenovic rulers mounted, intensified by their pro-Austrian foreign policy as well as their unsavory domestic affairs. In June 1903, a military conspiracy led to the murder of the young Obrenovic ruler. Historians absolve Peter of complicity in the crime, but he was the predictable choice to mount the throne. A steeping in Western political ideas he had, for example, translated Mill's "On Liberty" into Serbo-Croatian prepared him to fit comfortably into the role of constitutional monarch. But Peter's reign marked a substantial change in Serbia's foreign policy. Belgrade's friendship with Vienna cooled.
Russia emerged as Serbia's link with the great powers. Concern for ethnic Serbs outside the nation's borders deepened. En route to Belgrade in 1903 to accept the Serbian crown, Peter found himself greeted in Vienna as "the Yugoslav King" by a throng of Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian students. Peter's sympathies pointed instead to an expanded Serbia, and in this he was supported by Serbia's political and military leaders. But he found himself a symbol for larger South Slav aspirations. In 1912, during the First Balkan War, Croatian volunteers rushing to aid Serbia hailed Peter as "our King."
Peter presided over a political system constitu¬tional in form but, in fact, rent by persistent clashes between civil and military authorities. In late June 1914, on the eve of the assassination at Sarajevo, crisis erupted. The immediate issue was the control over Macedonian lands won in the recent Balkan Wars. Peter, old and sick, was compelled to step down in favor of his son, Crown Prince Alexander, who became prince-regent.
During World War I Peter took the role of frontline soldier and symbol of national resistance. In the face of the Austrian offensive of December 1914, he rose from his sickbed to stand in the trenches with a rifle; a few days later, he led the parade of the victorious Serbian army back into Belgrade. The ultimate attack of the Central Powers, then joined by Bulgaria, in October/November 1915 again brought the old man out of retirement. Serbian and foreign observers were treated to the sight of a crowned monarch fighting as a common soldier.
Peter rode a gun carriage over the mountains during the epic Serbian retreat westward to Albania at the close of 1915, then left for Greece and obscurity. His final retirement was broken only in December 1918 when he was crowned as ruler of the new kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. He passed the throne at once to Alexander.
The soldier-king died in Belgrade, August 16, 1921.
Politics
The Western-educated King attempted to liberalize Serbia with the goal of creating a Western-style constitutional monarchy. King Peter I became gradually very popular for his commitment to parliamentary democracy that, in spite of certain influence of military cliques in political life, functioned properly. The 1903 Constitution was a revised version of the 1888 Constitution, based on the Belgian Constitution of 1831, considered as one of the most liberal in Europe. The governments were chosen from the parliamentary majority, mostly from People's Radical Party led by Nikola Pašić and Independent Radical Party led by Ljubomir Stojanović. King Peter himself was in favor of a broader coalition government that would boost Serbian democracy and help pursue an independent course in foreign policy. In contrast to the Austrophile Obrenović dynasty, King Peter I was relying on Russia and France, which provoked rising hostility from expansionist-minded Austria-Hungary. King Peter I of Serbia paid two solemn visits to Saint-Petersburg and Paris in 1910 and 1911 respectively, greeted as a hero of both democracy and national independence in the troublesome Balkans.
The reign of Peter I, from 1903 to 1914, is remembered as the "Golden Age of Serbia", due to the unrestricted political freedoms, free press, and cultural ascendancy among South Slavs who finally saw in democratic Serbia a Piedmont of South Slavs. King Peter I was supportive to the movement of Yugoslav unification, hosting in Belgrade various cultural gatherings. Grand School of Belgrade was upgraded into Belgrade University in 1905, with scholars of international renown such as Jovan Cvijić, Mihailo Petrović, Slobodan Jovanović, Jovan M. Žujović, Bogdan Popović, Jovan Skerlić, Sima Lozanić, Branislav Petronijević and several others. King Peter I gained enormous popularity following the Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913, which, from a Serb and South Slav perspective, were a great success, heralded by the spectacular military victories over the Ottomans, followed by the liberation of "Old Serbia" (Kosovo Vilayet) and mostly Slavic-inhabited Macedonia (Manastir Vilayet). The territory of Serbia was doubled and her prestige among South Slavs (Croats and Slovenes in particular, and among the Serbs in Austria-Hungary, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Vojvodina, Military Frontier, Dalmatia, Slavonia, etc.) grew significantly, with Peter I as the main symbol of this both political and cultural success. After the conflict between military and civilian representatives in the spring of 1914, King Peter chose to "retire" due to ill health, reassigning on 11/24 June 1914 his royal prerogatives to his second son Heir apparent Crown Prince Alexander.