Alexander was but a boy of fourteen when he came to the throne—a subnormal boy, and wilful, too. As an Autocrat he had no rival among modern Serbian rulers. No one unmade and made so many Constitutions. No Prince or King of Serbia surprised his people with so many coups d'état. But the time had passed when the misdoings of a ruler could make the people of Serbia very unhappy. Although the King never failed to show that he despised not only statesmen and scholars but even distinguished army officers, he could terrorize neither individuals nor the Nation. The three great parties, Liberal, Radical, and Progressive, were not afraid to express opinions, and many reforms were projected and carried out. Serbs as a whole were anxious to be counted among the people of the world of intelligence and culture. Alexander and Draga mortified them; but the assassination of the wretched pair lowered the Nation in the estimation of humanity.
Less than a week had passed since the killing of the King and Queen, in the spring of 1903, when the Skupchtina elected Peter Karageorgevitch to the throne. This grandson of Karageorges had been an exile for forty-five of his fifty-seven years of life. Austria and Russia alone among the Great Powers were willing now to recognize him. Great Britain waited three years before sending back her Minister to Serbia. This was after the regicides had gone from the country.
IV. SERBIANS
So Serbia was no longer a child, and she wore a royal crown. She even had to be considered by the family of Nations when making plans. Some members of the family, indeed, would like to have made all her plans for Serbia, without intimating that in so doing they would profit themselves. Serbia realized that there were things she could not do without the consent of some, or even all of them; but she did not wonder why—for Serbia herself had grown up, and it wasn't merely a physical development. She understood a great many things that in her more primitive days she could not have comprehended.
Sometimes they fought among themselves, with an occasional black eye for one or the other, because they found it hard to decide, not what they could do for Serbia—the youngest and most inexperienced—but what they could get from her without her discovering their motives, without the others objecting. They forgot that Serbia was no longer a child; they did not know that she could spy self-interest in the proffers they made her. So she was coldly distant with them at times, though she leaned most toward the big, fur-clad Cousin from the North. He was closer of kin, a double relation, and he seemed less mercenary than some of them. But even he could not get her a home facing the sea. She longed so ardently for this! Why did every one hinder her? The Imperial Cousin on the West was determined to stop her. Had he not given refuge to her exiled children in the days of darkness? Had he not let them win victories for him when she had hardly a friend in the world? Was it likely—as human nature goes—that he had done this without expecting a reward? No, she must be reasonable and must let him have the first choice of all that she had to sell, and at his own price. Should she reach the sea, others would tempt her. She would find all sorts of people there anxious to trade with her—new people whom she herself had never yet had a chance to help. No! he, the Imperial Cousin, knew what was best for her. The only trade route for her was the one through his land. She must send her things that way and, after he had looked them over, if there was anything he did not wish, she might sell it to some one else. Moreover, of course, she must pay whatever he charged for transportation and customs as she passed through his country.
But Serbia had grown more sophisticated. Her costume of red and gold still followed the old lines; indeed, only a close observer could see any changes in it. But the material was richer than formerly, and she had thrown aside the little veil—symbol, as it seemed to her, of the darkening oppression of the Ottoman. Her people were clamoring around her. They assured her they were not lazy, though perhaps a little slower than some of their neighbors. Their fields yielded abundantly. They discovered that by digging they could get much wealth, not only from the surface but from their rocks far below. They must be able to exchange it—to send it readily where they wished. Why, why, since they were willing to pay for it, could they not have a seaport of their own?
But there was another who was determined to hold Serbia back. She did not know him well; for though he bore the Imperial eagle, he had appropriated a title that belonged to the old house that for a time had held the world in its grasp. She would not call him a parvenu—not wholly a parvenu—yet why should he trouble her? She was not really in his way. Could it be that he was trying to curry favor with the turbaned Turk, and hoped to ingratiate himself the more thoroughly by tormenting her? What had the Turk to give him? Ah! Serbia had now grown so worldly that she suspected motives in every action, even in those sometimes that were really guileless.