August 1934
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The Paris Peace Conference
had created Yugoslavia after WWI. It was made up of territory that including
Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia, and this
mish-mash of nationalities made it almost impossible to hold together. It was
dominated by the Serbs and ruled by the Serbian King Alexander, but after years
of turmoil and violence, he abolished the original constitution, made himself
dictator.
The assassin, Vlado Chernozemski, was a Bulgarian who
belonged to a Macedonian revolutionary organisation, which wanted to secede
from Yugoslavia. After shooting the King he was cut down by a French mounted
officer with a sabre, and then beaten to death by the crowd.
Louis Barthou may have been shot accidentally by a French
policeman in the confusion of the moment.
Young Peter fled Yugoslavia when Germany invaded during WWII and set up a government in exile in England. In 1945 he was deposed by Communists and fled again this time to the USA where remanined until he died in 1970.
