Little Emperor

Belgrade is a natural fortress, a high place from which to rule, a snug capital round which the mighty Danube bends. Last week he who rules at Belgrade was wrestling with the forces tending to disrupt his realm. He, Alexander I, is a king in name but a little emperor in fact. His people are of a myriad races and sects, including the Mohammedan. Last week His Majesty faced an especially disheartening cabinet crisis.

Fortunately, King Alexander of Jugoslavia not only reigns but rules. He is in touch with political leaders of all factions and is rated keen at sensing trends. The weight of his personality held the nation and the stock exchange at Belgrade steady, last week, amid the following vicissitudes:

I. Picturesque "Uncle Ljuba" Davidovitch withdraws the support of his Democratic-Mussulman bloc from the Cabinet of Premier Velja Vukitchevitch, which resigns.

II. King Alexander decides that, for the first time, he will call to the Premiership a statesman outstanding in the ranks of the "minority peoples" who cluster around the parent kingdom of Serbia.* His Majesty, not without guile, calls to the Premiership that fiery Croat, famed, boisterous, bibulous Stefan Raditch. The King, whose power is rooted in Serbia, knows that so erratic and frequently boozy a statesman will not lead the "minorities" into a commanding position.

III. Though Stefan Raditch is still the strongest politician among the potent Croats, he fails to evolve a majority which will support him and confesses that he cannot form a cabinet.

IV. King Alexander offers the Premiership to "Uncle Ljuba" Davidovitch, but by this time the Opposition parties are so disorganized by M. Raditch's failure that canny Peasant Davidovitch refuses even to try to form a cabinet.

V. His Majesty calls Dr. Ninko Peritch, President of the Narodna Skupstina (Parliament), to negotiate among all parties with intent to evolve a broad coalition Cabinet. Dr. Paritch is of the so-called "Radical" party--actually reactionary and ultra Serbian.

VI. Dr. Peritch (Radical) reports that no basis exists for a broad coalition cabinet. His Majesty then turned back to that other Radical who had resigned as Premier earlier in the week, M. Velja Vukitchevitch. King Alexander entrusts him with a mandate equivalent to "As you were !" and he sets out to reassemble his former predominantly Radical cabinet.

Thus Little Emperor Alexander I continued to play, last week, the game which he was taught by that great statesman Nikola Pashitch, who was the bulwark of the present dynasty until his death at the age of 80 (TIME, Dec. 20, 1926).

Today, though the great Nikola Pashitch is dead, his family is still potent. Last week his daughter, Mile. Dara Pashitch, announced her engagement to a young Jugoslav who had previously been reported engaged to Miss Mary Landon Baker, Chicago heiress of a few millions. The fiance who got not dollars but a great name is comely Bojidar Puritch, recently Jugoslav Consul General at Chicago.

*"Jugoslavia" is, of course, a convenient abbreviation for "The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes."