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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Serbia in revolt

January 11, 1902

The following dispatch has been received by the Chicago Daily Tribune in Vienna from a "high quarter in Belgrade."

"The situation is truly alarming.  Everyone feels that a revolution is imminent.  King Alexander is at this moment little more than an idiot.  Queen Draga is Queen, both in fact and in name, and she and her grasping and avaricious family are directing the affairs of the country so far as they have any direction at all.

"Discontent is universal.  The state treasury is empty. The government is unable to pay the salaries of its employees or even the officers of its army.

"We shall wake some morning and find the army in possession of the capital and the King and Queen in flight or assassinated.

"The choice of a successor to the crown lies between Prince Karageorgevitch, son-in-law of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro, and Colonel Constantineovitch, uncle of King Alexander and an Obrenovitch in his mother's side.

"There is also a party in Serbia which favors the election of a Prince of some reigning European house on the lines that have been adopted in Greece and Bulgaria.  This party is for the moment lying low but may become dominant."

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