Peter I of Serbia

Biography

Peter Karadjordjevic was born in Belgrade in 1844, a son of Prince Alexander Karadjordjevic and grandson of Karadjordje, leader of the First Serbian Uprising. When his father was forced to abdicate in 1858 the family went into exile. Peter was educated in Geneva and Paris and graduated from the Saint-Cyr military academy in 1864; he read widely in liberal political thought and translated John Stuart Mill's On Liberty into Serbian.

He served as an officer in the French Foreign Legion during the Franco-Prussian War and, under the name Petar Mrkonjic, led a guerrilla band against the Ottomans in Bosnia in 1875-1876. The rival Obrenovic dynasty regarded him as a threat, and a Serbian court sentenced him to death in absentia in 1879. He married Princess Zorka of Montenegro in 1883, became head of his dynasty in 1885 and later lived in Geneva with his children.

After army officers murdered King Alexander Obrenovic in the May Coup of 1903, the National Assembly called Peter to the throne. As King of Serbia he governed as a constitutional monarch under the liberal 1903 constitution, and his reign is remembered for political freedoms, a free press and national growth. He commanded the army in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, which greatly enlarged Serbia, but in June 1914, worn out and under pressure, he handed his powers to his son Alexander as regent.

Peter retreated with his army through Albania during the First World War. On 1 December 1918 he became the first King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, though Alexander continued to rule as regent. He died in Belgrade in 1921 and is remembered as King Peter the Liberator.