PLOTTED KING’S DEATH

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 430, 11 August 1928, Page 27

PLOTTED KING’S DEATH

SERBIAN ASSASSINATION TRAGEDY OF 1903 RECALLED General Damjan Popovitch. one of the chief conspirators in the revolt which ended in the assassination of King Alexander of Serbia and Queen Draga in 1903, died in Belgrade recently. The general, who was 71 years of age, had lived in seclusion for some time, as he had fallen into disfavour. The assassination of the Serbian King and Queen in the palace at Belgrade In June, 1903, shocked the whole world. General Popovitch was regarded as the arch-conspirator in the military plot against King Alexander and Queen Draga. The Queen, who had been a lady-in-waiting to the King’s mother, was the special object of the army’s hatred. It was originally intended to kidnap the royal couple, and put them across the frontier, and proposals were made to Prince Peter, who was then in Geneva, that he should come to Serbia and be proclaimed King by the army. He arrived in Serbia later and became King, but it was after the midnight assassinations had been carried out, and Popovitch was one of those who went to Geneva to offer him the crown of the murdered King. When the murder plot was ripe, a number of officers met in a Belgrade restaurant at night, and over the supper table arranged the final details. They reached the palace at midnight to find the door leading to the royal apartments closed against them. The door was blown down by dynamite, and then for two hours they hunted through every corner of the palace for the King and Queen, who, alarmed by the explosion, were in hiding. An aide-de-camp at last brought them news of where the unhappy couple were crouching behind a door. The King fell on his knees, begged that his life might be spared, and offered to meet every demand, to sign any document, to leave the country, and to send the Queen away, if only he might be allowed to live.