A new son for Prince Mirko

October 11, 1908

Amidst the turmoil "of the most tremendous political upheaval that has taken place in the Balkans since the Turko-Russian war of more than thirty years ago,"  an infant prince was recently born at Cetinje in Montenegro, where his birth, according to the Marquise de Fontenoy, "has been welcomed a cause for national rejoicing of the most enthusiastic order.

The new little prince is the son of Prince Mirko of Montenegro and his beautiful wife, Natalia.  Up until last spring, Prince and Princess Mirko had two other sons, Stephen and Stanislas, "fine, sturdy little chaps, aged 5 and 3, respectively.  Prince Stephen was seen as the future sovereign as the Crown Prince and Crown Princess are childless.

In February, however, both boys "were stricken with acute tuberculosis of the lungs," which they had caught from one of the nursery maids. Despite the "efforts of the great specialists in Europe to check the progress of the disease," the two little princes died within five weeks of each other. Prince Stanislas died at Cattaro, and Stephen died on the French Riviera.

The "utmost indignation prevailed" against the doctors and other court officials for failing to "ascertain that one of the nurses of the royal children was afflicted" with "the white plague."

The deaths of the two little princes had led to "dynastic complications.  If anything were to happen to Prince Mirko's younger brother, Peter, the royal house of Montenegro could become extinct in the male line.

Only three months a "conspiracy was discovered in Montenegro to wipe out the entire reigning family by dynamite bombs."  It has been proven "conclusively" that the bombs were "manufactured at the principal government arsenal of Servia."  It also has been asserted that leading Serbians were "parties to this plot" and even King Peter and Crown Prince George were "cognizant of its objects."   With Prince Nicholas, the reigning Montenegrin sovereign, and his three childless sons, Crown Prince Danilo, Prince Mirko, and Prince Peter, "out of the way," the next in the line of succession would have been the Crown Prince of Servia, "whose mother, long since dead, was the eldest daughter of the Prince of Montenegro."

The Montenegrins were so angered "by the evidence produced at the trial in support of the complicity of Crown Prince George" and "so intense was the indignation aroused in Servia by the accusations at Cetinje against Crown Prince George" that the two countries severed diplomatic relations.  The Montenegrin legislature also prepared a bill that would exclude King Peter's sons from inheriting the throne in Montenegro in favor of the children of Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, the wife of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, by her first marriage to the Duke of Leuchtenberg.   Anastasia, known as a Stana, is the second daughter of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro.

But when it was learned that Princess Mirko was again pregnant, the government postponed the bill on "Servian exclusion" until after the birth of the child.

The succession is now secure with the birth of a new prince.  The bill to bar King Peter's descendants from the throne of Montenegro "has been dropped."

The new prince has been named Michael.