Alexander I of Yugoslavia - Early Life

Early Life

Alexander Karađorđević was born on 16 December 1888 in Principality of Montenegro as the fourth child (second son) of Petar Karađorđević (son of Prince Alexander of Serbia who thirty years earlier in 1858 got forced into abdicating thus surrendering power in Serbia to rival House of Obrenović) and Princess Zorka of Montenegro (eldest daughter of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro). Despite enjoying support from the Russian Empire, at the time of Alexander's birth and early childhood, the House of Karađorđević was in a political exile of sorts with different family members scattered all over Europe unable to return to Serbia that recently got transformed from a principality into a kingdom under Obrenovićs who ruled with strong support from Austria-Hungary. The antagonism between the two rival royal houses was such that after the assassination of Prince Mihailo Obrenović in 1868 (an event Karađorđevićs were suspected of taking part in), the Obrenovićs resorted to making constitutional changes, specifically proclaiming the Karađorđevićs banned from entering Serbia and stripping them of civic rights.

Alexander was only two when his mother Princess Zorka died in 1890 from complications while giving birth to his younger brother Andrija who also died only 23 days after being born.

Alexander spent his childhood in Montenegro, however, in 1894 his widower father took the four children, including Alexander, to Geneva where the young man completed his elementary education. Alongside his older brother George, he continued his schooling at the imperial Page Corps in St Petersburg, Russian Empire. In 1903 while young George and Alexander were off getting schooled abroad, their father Petar along with a slew of conspirators managed to pull off a bloody coup d'état in the Kingdom of Serbia known as May Overthrow in which King Alexander I Obrenović and his consort Queen Draga got murdered and viciously dismembered. House of Karađorđević thus retook the Serbian throne after forty five years and Alexander's 58-year-old father became King Peter I of Serbia, prompting George's and Alexander's arrival to Serbia to continue their studies.