Austrian influence at Belgrade at the
expense of that of Russia. King Milan returned for a time to Belgrade in
1897, and the reaction, favourable to Austria, which had begun in 1894,
increased during his presence and under the ministry of Dr. Vladan
Gjorgjevi['c], which lasted from 1897 till 1900. This state of repression
caused unrest throughout the country. All its energies were absorbed in
fruitless political party strife, and no material or moral progress was
possible. King Alexander, distracted, solitary, and helpless in the midst
of this unending welter of political intrigue, committed an extremely
imprudent act in the summer of 1900. Having gone for much-needed
relaxation to see his mother at Biarritz, he fell violently in love with
her lady in waiting, Madame Draga Ma[)s]in, the divorced wife of a Serbian
officer. Her somewhat equivocal past was in King Alexander's eyes quite
eclipsed by her great beauty and her wit, which had not been impaired by
conjugal infelicity. Although she was thirty-two, and he only twenty-four,
he determined to marry her, and the desperate opposition of his parents,
his army, his ministers, and his people, based principally on the fact
that the woman was known to be incapable of child-birth, only precipitated
the accomplishment of his intention. This unfortunate and headstrong
action on the part of the young king, who, though deficient in tact and
intuition, had plenty of energy and was by no means stupid, might have
been forgiven him by his people if, as was at first thought possible, it
had restored internal peace and prosperity in the country and thereby
enabled it to prepare itself to take a part in the solution oL those
foreign questions which vitally affected Serb interests and were already
looming on the horizon. But it did not. In 1901 King Alexander granted
another constitution and for a time attempted to work with a coalition
ministry; but this failed, and a term of reaction with pro-Austrian
tendencies, which were favoured by the king and queen, set in. This
reaction, combined with the growing disorganization of the finances and
the general sense of the discredit and failure which the follies of its
rulers had during the last thirty years brought on the country; completely
undermined the position of the dynasty and made a catastrophe inevitable.
This occurred, as is well known, on June 10, 1903, when, as the result of
a military conspiracy, King Alexander, the last of the Obre