“Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.”
The Skuptshina (the Servian Parliament) was amazed at the proclamation, and its president as well as the Metropolitan of Servia implored the King on their knees to revoke it. He had only deaf ears for them.
On the fifth of August, 1900, the wedding was solemnized, and Draga Maschin took her place on the throne of Servia.
If the King had hoped that the irritation of the public would die out after the wedding, he must have been a badly disappointed man; for the scandals about Draga continued. Not only was her past life with its many stains and blemishes laid bare unsparingly, but her life as queen consort was also unmercifully exposed. Every word and every act of her married life were carefully weighed in the scales of public opinion, and hardly ever was a word of praise accorded to her, while vituperation, insinuations, and direct accusations abounded. The Belgrade correspondents of foreign newspapers knew that anything they might have to report of King Alexander, Queen Draga, or any member of her family would be read with interest. If they could not pick up anything of interest they invented some unfavorable story. Unquestionably many of the stories circulated about Draga, and also of Alexander are utterly untrue. It should also be remembered that the elevation of Draga to a station which none of her rivals could hope to attain made her an object of envy, and that they resented this elevation by telling about her all the bad things they knew. But after making all these allowances, we still find enough to justify us in saying that the two were an exceedingly ill-matched couple,—he a voluptuous, ungrateful, good-for-nothing simpleton, and she a designing, ambitious, unscrupulous woman of powerful mind.
The scandal which has been most widely circulated referred to the fictitious pregnancy of the Queen. Unquestionably the young King was anxious to have a son. Alexander was the last Obrenovitch, and it was natural for him to desire to have a son so that his dynasty might continue to rule over Servia. It was equally natural for Draga to desire to become the mother of an heir, because as such she would have had an additional claim on the affection of her husband,—a claim which might have outlasted her physical beauty. This desire was certainly not unreasonable in a wife twelve years older than her husband. This pregnancy was officially announced by the court physician, but it was afterwards stated that the announcement had been premature. These are the facts in the case; and on these slim facts a superstructure of rumors and fables has been erected. Very likely the great anxiety of the couple to have an heir was the real cause of the announcement. The rumors so widely circulated in the kingdom did certainly not contribute to improve the reputation of the Queen, or to give the people the impression of a happy domestic life.
The generally recognized mental superiority of Queen Draga over her husband had still another unfavorable consequence,—one of a political character. While Alexander was unmarried, his political mistakes, his autocratic interference with the work of the Skuptschina, his violation of the constitution, were charged to himself; but after his marriage all the political sins of the government were ascribed to Draga’s instigation.
The political conditions of the Balkan countries are of the most unsettled kind. They resemble very much the political conditions in the South American and Central American states, and while nominally they are regulated by constitutions and by a parliamentary system of government, they are really controlled by the principle that “might constitutes right.” It has been so in Servia from the day of the establishment of its national independence: continuous party strife, revolutions, assassinations—frequently winked at, if not directly instigated and supported, by foreign powers. In 1903 the Radicals had been several years in full control of the government. They had filled all lucrative offices with their party friends, many of whom belonged to the rural population, and had so apportioned the public taxes as to place the principal burden upon the city populations, where the Liberals had their voting strength. The misgovernment under the Radicals was so great that it became a national scandal. The public debt had been nearly doubled, the annual deficit was enormous, the most flagrant corruption and extravagance existed in all branches of the public service; but the Servian Congress refused to correct these abuses, and it remained for the King to interfere personally. He did so by a new coup d’état in March, 1903; the old Constitution was abrogated, a new Constitution was promulgated, and new general elections were ordered.
One of the most alarming features of the political situation in Servia was the dissatisfaction of the army, and especially of its officers. This dissatisfaction was not, as has been asserted frequently, caused by patriotic considerations or by disapproval of the King’s personal conduct, but simply by the unpardonable neglect of the army on the part of the government. While in the royal palace at Belgrade an uninterrupted series of festivities, all arranged in the most sumptuous and expensive style, kept the gay capital on the tiptoe of excitement, the army was reduced nearly to a state of starvation, because neither officers nor men had been paid for months, “for want of funds in the public treasury.” Instead of being a firm support of the government, the army therefore turned against it. It easily lent itself to propositions for a change, especially if that change would come in with the payment of their arrears of wages.
There was another cause of dissatisfaction, which evoked a direct and strong protest against the Queen and her influence. Disappointed in her hope of giving the King a son and heir, Draga devised another plan to perpetuate her own power,—namely, to select an heir to the throne. Her choice fell upon her own brother, Nicodemus Lunyevitch, a young lieutenant in the Servian army, and she succeeded in winning the consent of the King. It is even stated that Alexander intended to adopt this brother-in-law, who was twenty-four years old, and formally proclaim him his heir. No sooner had the plan been mentioned than a very loud, and almost general, opposition to it manifested itself. The cabinet ministers heard of it, and waited on the King in a body to enter their protest. When their arrival at the palace was announced to him, the King knew what they wanted, and kept them waiting for a long time. He finally received them in the large assembly hall. He was dressed in full uniform; the Queen was by his side and leaning upon his arm. He turned to the prime minister and requested him to state the object of the visit, whereupon the prime minister asked the Queen in a very courteous manner to withdraw for a short time from the conference. She haughtily refused, and the King coolly informed the ministers that he had no secrets either private or public which he wished to conceal from his wife.
The ministers then presented their complaints. They stated that public opinion was excited to such a degree that there was imminent danger of a revolution if the King should persist in carrying out this new plan. “Moreover,” added the prime minister, “the Skuptschina should be consulted in a matter of such great importance—a matter in which the state and the people are principally interested. In default of direct heirs, the representatives have the right to say who shall succeed to the throne.”