PLOT TO KILL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 304, 26 December 1933, Page 7

PLOT TO KILL.

WHILE KING DANCED.

Monarch of Yugoslavia in Danger. SUSPECTS SHOOT POLICE. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 11.30 a.m.) LOXDOX, December 23. A message from Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, states that a plot to assassinate Alexander, King of Yugoslavia, was frustrated by po.liee at Zagreb. The police had received a warning. While the King and Queen were dancing at the King's 45th birthday ball detectives rounded up three unknown men, who drew revolvers and killed one of the detectives and wounded another. Nine arrests have been made. King Alexander Karageoigevitch of Yugoslavia, second son oii King Peter of Serbia, and whose mother was u daughter of King Nicholas of Montenegro, succeeded to the position of Crown Prince on the "voluntary renunciation of hie elder brother George in 1909. In the first Balkan War Alexander won the important battle of Kumanovo. From 1914 to 1921 he acted as llegent during hie father's lingering illness. Immediately after hie ascension to the Throne of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, his life was unsuccessfully attempted by means of a bomb. After eight years of Parliamentary muddle and bickering between the unstable Croatians and the Serbians, King Alexander made his famous coup, and set up a Royal dictatorship, after having dissolved Parliament and suspended the constitution. He appointed the commander of hie personal bodyguard, General Zivkovitch, who had never, taken part in politics, to be Premier and War Minister. However, it was essentially a caee where the King dictated, and the Premier and his colleagues otjeyecT. Economies in public financing, the abolition of corruption and bribeFy among officials, suppression of political free speech, and a Press censorship followed the proclamation, and the country, under its strict ruler, was soon on the rond to recovery.

While Alexander was at Zagreb, the Croation capital; in February, 1931, a bomb outrage occurred, and he received great acclamations for his bravery in walking the streets alone to inspect the havoc. On September of the same year he restored the constitution of the country, and gave it the new name of Yugoslavia instead of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Most of the suspended liberties were restored, with the exception of the right to form political associations. Croatia was bitterly disappointed by her failure to secure regional autonomy, and it was thought for n time that another crisis was approaching. However, this passed with the resignation in April, 1932, of General Zivkoyiteh and the appointment of M. Marinkovitch as Premier, with the same Cabinet. King Alexander married Marie, second daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Rumania, In 1922, and has two sons, Peter and Tomislav, aged ten and five respectively.