This paper analyses the role played by Regent Alexander Karadjordjevic in
Serbia?s politics and military effort during the First World War. He assumed
the position of an heir-apparent somewhat suddenly in 1909, and then regency,
after a political crisis that made his father King Peter I transfer his royal
powers to Prince Alexander just days before the outbreak of the war. At the
age of twenty-six, Alexander was going to lead his people and army through
unprecedented horrors. The young Regent proved to be a proper soldier, who
suffered personally, along with his troops, the agonising retreat through
Albania in late 1915 and early 1916, and spared no effort to ensure the
supplies for the exhausted rank and file of the army. He also proved to be a
ruler of great personal ambitions and lack of regard for constitutional
boundaries of his position. Alexander tried to be not just a formal
commander-in-chief of his army, but also to take over operational command; he
would eventually manage to appoint officers to his liking to the positions of
the Chief of Staff and Army Minister. He also wanted to remove Nikola Pasic
from premiership and facilitate the formation of a cabinet amenable to his
wishes, but he did not proceed with this, as the Entente Powers supported the
Prime Minister. Instead, Alexander joined forces with Pasic to eliminate the
Black Hand organization, a group of officers hostile both to him and the
Prime Minister, in the well-known show trial in Salonika in 1917. The
victories of the Serbian army in 1918 at the Salonika front led to the
liberation of Serbia and the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes (Yugoslavia), while Alexander emerged as the most powerful political
factor in the new state.
Regent Alexander Karadjordjevic in the First World War
