Peter II, also known as
Peter II Karađorđević (
SerbianSerbian is a South Slavic language, spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora...
,
CroatianCroatian is a South Slavic language which is used primarily in Croatia, by Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Croatian minorities in some neighbouring countries, in the Italian region of Molise, and parts of the Croatian diaspora....
,
BosnianBosnian is a South Slavic language spoken primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the region of Sandžak in Serbia and Montenegro, although it is also spoken in various places throughout the world, as many speakers were forced to become refugees during the Bosnian war...
, Serbo-Croatian:
Petar II Karađorđević,
Cyrillic scriptThe Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is the official modern alphabet used to write the Serbian language. It is an adaptation of the Cyrillic alphabet for the Serbian language, and was developed in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić from the traditional Cyrillic alphabet...
: Петар II Карађорђевић) (6 September 1923 – 3 November 1970), was the third and last
King of YugoslaviaThe Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a kingdom stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
, previously known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes before 1929.
He was the eldest son of
King Alexander I of YugoslaviaAlexander I Karađorđević was the first king of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as well as the last king of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes .-Childhood:Alexander Karađorđević was born in Cetinje in Principality of Montenegro in December 1888...
and
Princess Maria of RomaniaMaria of Romania was queen consort to King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.-Biography:Maria was born in Gotha, Thuringia, in Germany, during the reign of her maternal grandfather Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and during the Romanian reign of her granduncle King Carol I...
; two of his godparents were
the KingGeorge VI was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 11 December 1936 until his death...
and
Queen of the United KingdomElizabeth Bowes-Lyon was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 1936 until 1952 as the wife of King George VI. After her husband's death, she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
.
His education commenced at the Royal Palace.
Peter II, also known as
Peter II Karađorđević (
SerbianSerbian is a South Slavic language, spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora...
,
CroatianCroatian is a South Slavic language which is used primarily in Croatia, by Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Croatian minorities in some neighbouring countries, in the Italian region of Molise, and parts of the Croatian diaspora....
,
BosnianBosnian is a South Slavic language spoken primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the region of Sandžak in Serbia and Montenegro, although it is also spoken in various places throughout the world, as many speakers were forced to become refugees during the Bosnian war...
, Serbo-Croatian:
Petar II Karađorđević,
Cyrillic scriptThe Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is the official modern alphabet used to write the Serbian language. It is an adaptation of the Cyrillic alphabet for the Serbian language, and was developed in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić from the traditional Cyrillic alphabet...
: Петар II Карађорђевић) (6 September 1923 – 3 November 1970), was the third and last
King of YugoslaviaThe Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a kingdom stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
, previously known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes before 1929.
He was the eldest son of
King Alexander I of YugoslaviaAlexander I Karađorđević was the first king of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as well as the last king of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes .-Childhood:Alexander Karađorđević was born in Cetinje in Principality of Montenegro in December 1888...
and
Princess Maria of RomaniaMaria of Romania was queen consort to King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.-Biography:Maria was born in Gotha, Thuringia, in Germany, during the reign of her maternal grandfather Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and during the Romanian reign of her granduncle King Carol I...
; two of his godparents were
the KingGeorge VI was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 11 December 1936 until his death...
and
Queen of the United KingdomElizabeth Bowes-Lyon was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 1936 until 1952 as the wife of King George VI. After her husband's death, she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
.
Early life
His education commenced at the Royal Palace. He then attended Sandroyd School in Wiltshire, England.
Then 11 years old, Peter, of the House of Karađorđević, succeeded to the Yugoslav throne in 1934 upon the assassination (while on a
state visitA state visit is a formal visit by a foreign head of state to another nation, at the invitation of that nation's head of state. State visits are the highest form of diplomatic contact between two nations, and are marked by ceremonial pomp and diplomatic protocol. In parliamentary democracies, heads...
to
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
) of his father, King Alexander I. Because of the young king's age, a
regencyA regent, from the Latin regens "reigning", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Thus, the common use is for an acting deputy governor....
was established, headed by his father's cousin Prince Pavle.
World War II
Although King Peter and his advisors were opposed to
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
, Regent Prince Paul declared that Yugoslavia would adhere to the Tripartite Pact. On 27 March 1941 Peter, then 17, was proclaimed of age, and participated in a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
-supported
coup d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
opposing the
Tripartite PactThe Tripartite Pact, also called the Three-Power Pact, Axis Pact, Three-way Pact or Tripartite Treaty was a pact signed in Berlin, Germany on September 27, 1940, which established the Axis Powers of World War II...
.
Postponing
Operation BarbarossaOperation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a 2,900 km front...
, Germany simultaneously attacked Yugoslavia and Greece. From 6 April
LuftwaffeLuftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1933 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956.Schweizer Luftwaffe is also the name of the Swiss Air...
pounded
BelgradeBelgrade Belgrade Belgrade (Serbian Cyrillic: Београд, Serbian Latin: Beograd (meaning "White City" in Serbian) is the capital and largest city of Serbia. The city lies on two international waterways, at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where Central Europe's Pannonian Plain meets...
for three days and three nights, Operation Punishment. Within a week, Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy invaded Yugoslavia and the government was forced to surrender on 17 April. Yugoslavia was divided to satisfy Italian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and German demands and puppet
CroatThe Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany. The NDH was established on April 10, 1941 after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers...
,
MontenegrinMontenegro existed from 1941 to 1943 as a puppet protectorate of Fascist Italy, a component of the envisioned Italian Empire. The Italian Fascist regime saw Montenegro as a future part of a Greater Italy that would span the Adriatic coast to northern Greece, where local populations would be...
and Serb states proclaimed.
Peter was forced to leave the country with the Yugoslav Government following the
AxisThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
invasion; initially the King went with his government to
GreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
, and
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
, then to the British Mandate of Palestine and Cairo, Egypt. He went to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in June 1941, where he joined numerous other governments in exile from Nazi-occupied Europe. The King completed his education at
Cambridge UniversityThe University of Cambridge , located in the City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the fourth oldest in Europe...
and joined the
Royal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the United Kingdom's air force, the oldest independent air force in the world. Formed on 1 April 1918, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history ever since, playing a large part in World War II and in more recent conflicts.The RAF operates almost 1,109...
.
Despite the collapse of the Yugoslav army, two rival resistance groups to the occupying forces formed. The first were the Partisans, a communist-led left-wing movement encompassing republican elements in Yugoslav politics, led by
Josip Broz TitoJosip Broz Tito Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz Tito (Cyrillic script: Јосип Броз Тито, (7 or 25 May 1892 – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. He was Secretary-General (later President) of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (1939–80), and went on to lead the World War II...
. The other were the
ChetniksThe Chetnik movement or the Chetniks were a Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organization operating in the Balkans before and during World Wars...
, a predominantly
SerbianSerbs are a South Slavic people living in the Central Europe and the Balkans , between the Balkan- and Carpathian mountains in the east and the Adriatic sea in the west. They are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, to a lesser extent, in Croatia...
movement led by royalist General
Draža MihailovićDragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general, now primarily remembered as a World War II collaborator and leader of the Chetnik movement...
, soon proclaimed the Minister of Defence in the government-in-exile. Starting in November 1941, the Chetniks began attacking the Partisan strongholds, the "liberated territories", and soon started coordinating their anti-Partisan efforts with occupation units. The Allies, having initially supported Mihailović, switched their support to the Partisans in 1943, as their sources came to indicate an increasing relationship between the Germans and Mihailović, and that the Partisans were far more engaged in fighting the German enemy than were the Chetniks. The Partisans soon gained recognition in Tehran as the Allied Yugoslav forces on the ground. In 1944, Marshal Josip Broz Tito was recognized by the government-in-exile and King Peter as the Commander-in-Chief of Yugoslav forces, and was appointed Prime Minister of a joint government as the republicans gained more and more support in Yugoslavia itself through their resistance to the Axis forces and their numerous collaborators.
Marriage
Peter married Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark, in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
on 20 March 1944.
They had one son:
Alexander, Crown Prince of YugoslaviaAlexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia also known as Alexander Karađorđević , born 17 July 1945) is the claimant to the throne of Serbia. At the time of his birth, his father was the King of Yugoslavia, making him Yugoslavia's last crown prince...
Deposed and exiled
While still in exile, Peter was deposed by Yugoslavia's
Constituent AssemblyA constituent assembly is a body composed for the purpose of drafting or adopting a constitution...
on November 29, 1945. However, he refused to abdicate. After the war he settled in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. After many years of suffering from
cirrhosisCirrhosis is a consequence of chronic liver disease characterized by replacement of liver tissue by fibrous scar tissue as well as regenerative nodules , leading to progressive loss of liver function...
, he died in Denver,
ColoradoColorado is a U.S. state located in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States of America. It may also be considered to be part of the Western and Southwestern regions of the United States. Colorado entered statehood in 1876 and was nicknamed the “Centennial State”...
on 3 November 1970 after a failed
liverThe liver is a vital organ present in vertebrates and some other animals; it has a wide range of functions, including detoxification, protein synthesis, and production of biochemicals necessary for digestion...
transplant.
He is interred at the St. Sava Monastery Church at
Libertyville, IllinoisLibertyville is a northern suburb of Chicago in Lake County, Illinois, United States. It is located 5 miles west of Lake Michigan on the Des Plaines River. The 2000 census population was 20,742; the 2005 estimate was 21,760...
, the only European monarch buried on
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
soil. His son, Crown Prince
AlexanderAlexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia also known as Alexander Karađorđević , born 17 July 1945) is the claimant to the throne of Serbia. At the time of his birth, his father was the King of Yugoslavia, making him Yugoslavia's last crown prince...
, is heir to the Yugoslavian throne.
On 4 March 4 2007 Crown Prince Alexander announced plans to return the body of his father to
SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country located in both Central and Southeastern Europe. Its territory covers the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and central part of the Balkans...
.
The Mausoleum of the Serbian Royal Family The plan has upset some
Serbian-AmericansSerbian Americans are citizens of the United States who are of Serbian ancestry.-Numbers:According to U.S. Census Bureau in 2005, 169,479 Americans declared as Serbian descent. The metropolitan area around Chicago, Illinois, is of particular note for its large Serbian community. This can be seen in...
. Peter II personally chose St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Monastery as his final resting place because of the thousands of Serbians living in the
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
area.
Ancestry
External links