George, Crown Prince of Serbia was the son of King Peter I of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and Princess Ljubica of Montenegro, the grandson of King Nicholas I of Montenegro, and the older brother of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.
Background
As the eldest son, he was his father"s heir-apparent, but he did not get to savour his role for long as he renounced his succession rights in 1909 after feeling guilty for an incident in which he kicked his servant in the stomach which resulted in the servant"s death. George was born in Cetinje, Montenegro and was raised in the court of his grandfather King Nicholas before the sudden death of his mother led his father to move his family first to Geneva and thence to Russia.
Education
In Russia, George studied at the Page Corps school of Tsar Alexander World War II
Career
At the age of 17 he returned to Serbia in 1903, along with the rest of his family, following a palace coup when a conspiracy of army officers overthrew the ruling Obrenović dynasty to proclaim his father as King of Serbia. As a result, George became Crown Prince. This friendship through difficult times later on in his life.
They went fishing together, established a fencing club in Belgrade, and of course spent time studying mathematics.
Encouraged by Petrović, George in time became fascinated by the work of Henri Poincaré, and on 3 March 1911 he wrote to the great French mathematician:
Dear Professor...Please excuse the liberty I take in addressing myself directly to the Master to clarify the results of modern research on the question. The question is as follows: What is the least of the limiting values which a polynominal function F(z) may take when the variable z increases indefinitely along the different vectors in this plane? Begging you to excuse my importunities, I beg you, Monsieur, to accept this expression of my respectful regards.
George
The reply arrived on 12 March 1911. The only (known) surviving answer comes from a paper by Mihailo Petrović, which mentions Poincaré"s solution to the problem (Petrović, 1929).
Prince George participated in the Balkan wars as well as World War I, where he was severely wounded in the Battle of Mačkov Kamen near Krupanj in 1914.
He was proclaimed to be insane and locked in an asylum near the city of Niš. Following Alexander"s assassination in 1934, George hoped he would be freed by the new regent Prince Paul, but he remained in jail until World World War II when he was freed by the German occupiers. The couple did not have any children.
He wrote his memoirs Istina o mom životu (Truth About my Life).
He died on 17 October 1972 in Belgrade and was buried in Saint George"s Church in Topola, SFR Yugoslavia.
Membership
He was a member of the European Royal House of Karađorđević. However, George was allowed to retire in Belgrade as the only member of the Royal family in the country.