In the article “The water in the Drina flows cold, and the blood of the Serbs is hot”, it was told about the founders of two dynasties of princes and kings of Serbia - “Black George” and Miloš Obrenovic. And about the beginning of the bloody struggle of their descendants for the throne of this country.
We stopped at the report of the murder of Prince Mikhail III Obrenovich by the Radovanovich brothers. It was not possible to return the Karageorgievichs to the throne: the grand-nephew of the murdered prince, Milan, who was then only 14 years old, ascended the throne of Serbia. And therefore, until he came of age, Serbia was ruled by the regent Milivoje Blaznavac.
It was then, by the way, that the first Serbian bank was founded, which later became the "National Bank of Serbia".
Milan Obrenovic - Prince and King of Serbia
Milan Obrenovic initially took a course towards cooperation with Russia.
In 1875, an anti-Ottoman uprising began in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1876, Milan demanded that Turkey withdraw its troops from this province. Having received no answer, he declared war on the Ottoman Empire, personally taking over the army. And Serbia almost lost all the fruits of previous achievements and agreements.
Milan fled to Belgrade, transferring command to a Russian volunteer, General M. Chernyaev. But he could not correct the situation either. (More details about the uprising in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Russian volunteers will be discussed in another article.)
Only the victories of Russia in Bulgaria during the next war with Turkey (1877-1878) saved the Serbs. Serbia and Montenegro (as well as Romania) gained independence under the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878. But after the Berlin Congress, Milan Obrenovic decided that Serbia no longer needed Russia. And he began to focus on Austria-Hungary and Germany.
In 1881, he concluded an agreement with Austria-Hungary, according to which the Habsburgs recognized Serbia as a kingdom. And they promised not to hinder the expansion of its southern borders. And Serbia undertook an obligation not to conclude political treaties with foreign states without the consent of Vienna. In 1882, the coronation of Milan Obrenovic took place, who thus became the first Serbian king.
Around this time (in 1881) the main Serbian parties were formed: Radical (headed by the future Prime Minister Nikola Pasic), Progressive and Liberal.
In 1885, the Austrians, dissatisfied with the strengthening of Bulgaria after the unification of the Bulgarian principality and Eastern Rumelia, provoked a war between Serbia and Bulgaria, in which the Serbs were defeated.
Against the backdrop of general discontent, Milan Obrenovic abdicated the throne in 1889 in favor of his son Alexander, bargaining for himself an annual salary of 300 thousand francs.
Alexander was then only 13 years old. Therefore, Jovan Ristic became the regent of the kingdom.
In Serbia, Ristic's activities were highly rated. But Alexander was under the influence of his father, who (despite his abdication) continued to interfere in the affairs of the state.
On April 14, 1893, Alexander declared himself an adult and ordered the arrest of the regent and members of the government. And on May 21, 1894, the constitution was abolished in Serbia (a new one was adopted in 1901).
In 1900, Alexander married his mother's maid of honor - Draga. This woman was 15 years older than him, and the reputation of her brothers was extremely dubious. Even the king's father did not give blessings for this marriage. Draga was also not popular among the people.
Draga was childless. Therefore, Alexander Obrenovic was going to bequeath the Serbian throne to the king of Montenegro. And the Serbian patriots were categorically not happy with this. As a result, it was decided to kill Alexander Obrenovich, once again handing over the crown to the representative of the House of Karageorgievich.
The conspirators were headed by Dragutin Dmitrievich, nicknamed "Apis". In Greek, this word means "bee", and in Egyptian - "bull". Choose the meaning: nicknamed "bull" for strength and perseverance. Or "bee" - for efficiency and active character.
In 1901, the first attempt failed: the king did not appear at the ball, where the conspirators were expecting him. The second attempt was also unsuccessful. For the third time, on June 11, 1903, Dmitrievich and his people did better.
The assassination of the last king of the Obrenovic dynasty
This was a very tough action by force. Not a quiet palace coup, but a real assault in which the entrance to the royal apartments was blown up with dynamite. The rebels in search of the king went from room to room, shooting along the way everything that could serve as a shelter for the monarch: cabinets, sofas. And all this lasted for two hours. Many conspirators received bullet wounds, including Drago Dmitrievich, who was wounded three times. Some died. But the goal was achieved - Alexander Obrenovich was killed.
Such a romanticized (and not entirely correct) description of these events is contained in V. Pikul's novel "I Have the Honor!" (the author's sympathies are completely on the side of the Karageorgievichs and Dragutin-Apis):
“We broke into the lobby, where the guards showered us with bullets. Everyone (myself included) diligently emptied the drums of their revolvers … I swear, I've never had such fun as in these moments …
In total darkness, we climbed the stairs, stumbling over corpses.
The second floor doors leading into the royal chambers were securely locked. Someone nervously struck matches, and in the flames I saw how the old general was beaten:
- Where are the keys to these doors? Give me the keys!
It was the court general Lazar Petrovich who was beaten.
“I swear,” he yelled, “I resigned yesterday …
The door fell, blown up by dynamite. Naumovich collapsed next to me, struck to death by the force of the explosion. Choking in the acrid fumes of gunpowder smoke, I heard the screams of the wounded.
The brutal beating of General Petrovich continued:
- Where is the king? Where is Draga? Where did they go?
Apis with a heavy boot stepped right on Petrovich's face:
- Or you tell me where the hidden door is, or …
- There she is! - showed the general.
And they shot him. A secret door led into a dressing room, but it was closed from the inside. A pack of dynamite was tucked under it.
- Bend down … I set fire! - shouted Mashin.
An explosion - and the door was blown away like a light stove damper.
Moonlight fell through a wide window, illuminating two figures in the dressing room, and beside them stood a mannequin, all dressed in white, like a ghost … The king, holding the revolver, did not even move.
Draga, half-naked, went straight to Apis:
- Kill me! Just don't touch the unfortunate …
A saber flashed in Machine's hand, and the blade sliced through the woman's face, chopping off her chin. She didn't fall. And she courageously accepted death, with her own body covering the last of the Obrenovich dynasty … The king stood in the shadow of a white mannequin, glittering with glasses, outwardly indifferent to everything.
“I only wanted love,” he said suddenly.
- Hit! - there was a cry, and at once revolvers clattered!
- Serbia is free! - announced Kostich."
In fact, it was not quite like that. The king and queen were found in the ironing room. The first adjutant of the king, Lazar Petrovich, at the point of a revolver, asked him to open the door:
"It's me, Laza, open the door for your officers!"
The king asked him:
"Can I trust my officers?"
Hearing an affirmative answer, he opened the door. And he was shot at point-blank range along with the queen. Lazar Petrovich also drew his pistol (the conspirators did not even search him!) And tried to come to the aid of the king, but was killed in a shootout.
Russian journalist V. Teplov wrote about what happened next:
“After Alexander and Draga fell, the assassins continued to shoot at them and chop their corpses with sabers: they struck the king with six shots from a revolver and 40 blows of a saber, and the queen with 63 blows of a saber and two revolver bullets. The queen was almost completely chopped up, her chest was cut off, her stomach was opened, her cheeks and hands were also cut, especially large cuts between her fingers … In addition, her body was covered with numerous bruises from the blows of the heels of the officers who trampled on her. About other abuse of Draghi's corpse … I prefer not to talk, to such an extent they are monstrous and disgusting."
The bodies of the royal couple, thrown out of the windows of the palace, lay on the ground for several days.
On that night, the Queen's two brothers, Prime Minister Tsintsar-Markovic and Defense Minister Milovan Pavlovic, were also killed. Interior Minister Belimir Teodorovich was seriously wounded, but survived.
Two days earlier, in Istanbul, two disguised Serbian officers tried to kill Georgiy Jesseev, the illegitimate son of Milan Obrenovic, but were detained by the Turkish police. Two more unsuccessful attempts on his life were organized in 1907.
The king is dead, long live the king
Peter I Karageorgievich, a graduate of the French military school Saint-Cyr, who had previously served in the Foreign Legion and a volunteer in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, in 1879 was sentenced in absentia in Serbia to hanging on suspicion of trying to organize a state coup.
In Europe, news of a bloody palace coup in Serbia caused shock. After the news of the murder of the royal couple Obrenovichi, Nicholas II declared mourning at court for 24 days. A funeral Liturgy and a requiem were served in the Kazan Cathedral of St. Petersburg. However, according to the newspaper Novosti Day, none of the Serbian officers who were then in the Russian capital came to see her.
In Sofia, Serbian Ambassador Pavle greeted the guests who came to him with the expression of condolences with a glass of champagne, offering to drink "to the health of the new king."
The People's Assembly of Serbia declared Drago Dmitrievich "the savior of the fatherland." And the court sycophants called the new monarch Peter I the Liberator.
After the murder of Alexander Obrenovich, Dragutin Dmitrievich demonstratively refused all official posts. But his influence on the royal family, army and intelligence agencies was enormous. He then agreed to become a tactics teacher at the country's Military Academy. In 1905 he was an officer of the General Staff, trained in Germany and Russia.
For a long time he did not sit in his general staff office, having gone as the commander of one of the partisan detachments (they were called chets) to Macedonia, where he fought against the same detachments of the Internal Macedonian-Odrin revolutionary organization (we will talk about it in another article). In 1908, Apis returned to Serbia, becoming assistant chief of staff of the Drina division. He took part in the Balkan Wars.
"Orthodox Croats" and "Serbs spoiled by Catholicism"
Dragutin Dmitrievich went further than Ilia Garashanin, who considered Croats and Slovenes to be an equal part of the Serbian people. In the eyes of "Apis" they were "defective Serbs, corrupted by Catholicism."
But even in Croatia, some have long looked down on the Serbs. In 1860, the Party of Law appeared here, whose members ("right-handed") promoted the idea that Serbs were Orthodox Croats.
The most radical ideologues of the “right-handers” (for example, Eugen Quaternik, who raised an anti-Austrian uprising in the city of Rakovica in 1871) even stated that the Serbs were an Asian people with whom it was simply impossible for Europeans-Croats to live in the same state.
A certain Ante Starchevich published the book "The Name of the Serb", in which he claimed that this word comes from the Latin servus, that is, "slave".
Black Hand
In May 1911, Colonel Dragutin Dmitrievich (at that time - the head of the information department (counterintelligence) of the General Staff of the Serbian Army) created the underground organization "Unification or Death" (Ujedinjenje ili Smrt), better known as the "Black Hand" ("Crna ruk").
The second clause of the Black Hand's charter read directly:
"This organization prefers terrorist activity to ideological propaganda."
At this point, I recall the lines of E. Yevtushenko from the poem "Kazan University":
You appeared in a blue beret, A folk wolf with a clean childish forehead, With an oblique plait, with a noble posture, Not the daughter of a cynical hydrogen bomb
And the daughter of naive terrorist bombs”.
After all, there were patriarchal times: what is on the mind is on the tongue. Not that now, when they think one thing, they say another, but do the third.
In reality, nothing changes in the world. The Soviet Union and the United States gave money and weapons to African dictators (and even cannibals) because some of them knew the word "Marxism", and others - the word "democracy". "Fighters for the independence of Algeria" cut the throats of hundreds of thousands of harki and their families, and in France, former collaborators, on the orders of de Gaulle, tortured members of the OAS - heroes of the Second World War and the Resistance. In Odessa, on May 2, 2014, the Nazis burned several dozen people, and they got nothing for it. And the "fighters for freedom and democracy" mocked Gaddafi for 3 hours, raping him with a bayonet before killing him.
Branches of the Black Hand were established in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Macedonia. In Serbia, the members of this organization held key positions in government agencies, the military department and counterintelligence agencies. Many historians believe that this organization included the crown prince of Montenegro Mirko and the youngest son of the Serbian king Peter - Alexander, who at that time was already the heir to the royal throne of Serbia.
The fact is that his older brother George inherited the worst traits of the character of the founder of this dynasty - "Black George". He had mental problems and simply could not control his behavior, managed to turn both Vienna and St. Petersburg against himself: he publicly burned the flag of Austria-Hungary, in the presence of Austrian ambassadors called Emperor Franz Joseph a "thief", and Nicholas II a liar. Finally, George beat a servant to death in 1909, which was the reason for depriving him of the title of heir to the throne.
At the head of the "Black Hand" were 11 people of the Supreme Central Council, who had the right to sign with their own names. All other members were known only by serial numbers.
The "Board" decided that for the good of the Serbian people, the Bulgarian king Ferdinand, the king of Greece Constantine and the king of Montenegro Nikolai should be killed.
In the spring of 1914, Serbian Prime Minister N. Pasic, alarmed by the growing influence of Dmitrievich and his organization, asked King Peter to dissolve the "Black Hand", which was already operating almost openly, becoming a prestigious "club" that included the top leaders of the army and intelligence. Dragutin Dmitrievich (in turn) demanded that the Pasic government be dismissed. Pyotr Karageorgievich did not dare to do either one or the other.
And Prince Alexander became a member of another secret organization - "White Hand", created on May 17, 1912 (as opposed to "Black") by royalist-minded officers led by Petar Zhivkovic (who, by the way, was one of the participants in the storming of the royal palace and the murder of the Obrenovich in 1903).
It is believed that one of the goals of the organization "Unification or Death" was the preparation of the assassination of the emperor of Austria-Hungary Franz Joseph. The Black Hand failed to liquidate the Austrian emperor.
However, his heir was still shot in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 by terrorists of the Mlada Bosny created in 1912. Most of the researchers are sure that their curators were people from the Serbian counterintelligence who collaborated with the Black Hand. One of the participants in this assassination attempt (Mukhamed Mehmedbashich) was a member of the Black Hand. It is not for nothing that Serbia, having agreed to 9 out of 10 points of the July ultimatum to Austria-Hungary, rejected the 6th - the most harmless one, which provided for the participation of the Austrians in the investigation of the circumstances of this terrorist attack. Regent Alexander was not sure that the traces would not lead to the offices of the highest leaders of the Serbian army and intelligence.
During the First World War, Apis became the chief of the intelligence service of Serbia. Then the chief of staff of the Uzhitskaya (later Timochskaya) division. Finally, assistant chief of staff of the III Army.
The collapse of the "Black Hand" and the death of Apis
Drago was then imbued with republican feelings. He had the idea of creating a Yugoslav Federation. He began to look askance both at the monarch he had brought to power, and at his youngest son Alexander, regent of the kingdom since June 24, 1914.
Alexander Karageorgievich (a former member of the Black Hand), after being shot at in September 1916 by someone during an inspection trip to the Thessaloniki front, finally stopped trusting Dmitrievich. Out of harm's way, in March 1917, he ordered the arrest of Dragutin on charges of anti-state activities and preparation of an attempt on his (beloved) life. And then shoot them.
Instead of a Democratic Federation, a kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes emerged. (Created in 1918. Since 1929 - Yugoslavia).
The already mentioned leader of the White Hand, the head of the Prince Regent Alexander's personal guard, Petar Zhivkovich, promised Dmitrievich a pardon in exchange for recognition in preparing the assassination attempt on Franz Ferdinand, explaining that this was necessary to start separate peace negotiations with Austria-Hungary. Apis agreed to this deal - and was shot.
The last minutes of Dragutin-Apis were epic, like his whole life. Looking at the grave dug for him, he calmly said that it was too small for him. After that, Dragutin refused the bandage, which, according to the law, had to close his eyes, declaring that he wanted to see the sun. Before firing, he shouted:
“Long live Great Serbia! Long live Yugoslavia!"
apparently deciding that this is what his last words should be. It was not so: after the first volley, he remained on his feet. And after the second, falling to his knees, he shouted:
"Serbs, you've forgotten how to shoot!"
This phrase became the last for him.
According to one version, they had to finish him off with bayonets. After that, according to some sources, a swarm of bees flew out from somewhere. Let me remind you that the word "Apis" in translation from Greek means "bee". I cannot say that this is not a legend invented by fans of Drago Dmitrievich.
Together with him, other leaders of the “Black Hand” were also shot - Lubomir Vulovich and Rade Mladobabic.
In 1953, Dmitrievich-Apis and his comrades were rehabilitated after a second trial of this case by the court of socialist Yugoslavia.
In the next article "The fall of the Karageorgievichs: the last kings of Serbia and Yugoslavia" we will finish the story about Serbia.
