YUGOSLAV HOLIDAY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 211, 6 September 1941, Page 9

YUGOSLAV HOLIDAY

KING PETER 18 TO-DAY

BIRTHDAY IN EXILE Yugoslavians in the Dominion observed to-day as a national holiday, the occasion being the 18th birthday of their king, Peter 11. The Yugoslav Consul at Auckland, M. J. M. Totich, will be in attendance at the consulate, Ferry Buildings, tomorrow morning, to receive courtesy calls.

Under the Yugoslav constitution, a monarch comes of age on his 18th birthday and assumes his Royal prerogative over the State, but it will be recalled that, in the case of the young King Peter, owing to the unfortunate crisis forced upon Yugoslavia by the action of the Axis Powers early this year, he immediately assumed such prerogative on the advice of his loyal advisers and with the wholehearted support of his people. The effect of this was not only to turn the scales of Yugoslavia's sympathy towards the democracies, but to force King Peter into exile, which, happily, is being lived in London.

[ "This brave action of the young king," said M. Totich to a Star representative to-day, "has been strongly acclaimed by the whole of the Yugoslav nation, as well as bv the whole of the Yugoslav communities in New Zealand and other overseas countries. On this occasion Yugoslavs all over the world will add to their felicitations to King Peter upon his birthday their profound sympathy on account of the calamity which has undeservedly overtaken him and his people. Further, they will show their undaunted determination to continue to struggle against the Nazi and Fascist tyrannies to the ultimate defeat of the latter and the liberation of the enslaved nations."

With reference to the protests of the Yugoslav Government against the dismemberment of Yugoslav territory, the attempt to create an independent Croat State and the annexation of Slovenia, M. Totich stated that the British Foreign Secretary, Mr. Anthony Eden, had informed the Yugoslav Minister in London, M. Ivan Soubbotitch, that the British Government held the acts of the German and Italian Governments to be null and void. The Government, Mr. Eden stated, desired to place on record its sense of indignation at the shameless manner in which Yugoslavia had been mutilated and parts of her territory subjected to foreign rule in gross violation of the true feelings of the Yugoslav people in general and of the Croatian and Slovene populations in particular.