began to grow restless, and King Milan, at the instigation of Austria, foolishly declared war on Prince Alexander of Battenberg.  This speedily ended in the disastrous battle of Slivnitsa (cf. chap.  II); Austria had to intervene to save its victim, and Serbia got nothing for its trouble but a large increase of debt and a considerable decrease of military reputation.  In addition to all this King Milan was unfortunate in his conjugal relations; his wife, the beautiful Queen Natalie, was a Russian, and as he himself had Austrian sympathies, they could scarcely be expected to agree on politics.  But the strife between them extended from the sphere of international to that of personal sympathies and antipathies.  King Milan was promiscuous in affairs of the heart and Queen Natalie was jealous.  Scenes of domestic discord were frequent and violent, and the effect of this atmosphere on the character of their only child Alexander, who was born in 1876, was naturally bad.

The king, who had for some years been very popular with, his subjects with all his failings, lost his hold on the country after the unfortunate war of 1885, and the partisans of the rival dynasty began to be hopeful once more.  In 1888 King Milan gave Serbia a very much more liberal constitution, by which the ministers were for the first time made really responsible to the skup[)s]tina or national assembly, replacing that of 1869, and the following year, worried by his political and domestic failures, discredited and unpopular both at home and abroad, he resigned in favour of his son Alexander, then aged thirteen.  This boy, who had been brought up in what may be called a permanent storm-centre, both domestic and political, was placed under a regency, which included M. Risti[’c], with a radical ministry under M. Pa[)s]i[’c], an extremely able and patriotic statesman of pro-Russian sympathies, who ever since he first became prominent in 1877 had been growing in power and influence.  But trouble did not cease with the abdication of King Milan.  He and his wife played Box and Cox at Belgrade for the next four years, quarrelling and being reconciled, intriguing and fighting round the throne and person of their son.  At last both parents agreed to leave the country and give the unfortunate youth a chance.  King Milan settled in Vienna, Queen Natalie in Biarritz.  In 1893 King Alexander suddenly declared himself of age and arrested all his ministers and regents one evening while they were dining with him.  The next year he abrogated the constitution of 1888, under which party warfare in the Serbian parliament had been bitter and uninterrupted, obstructing any real progress, and restored that of 1869.  Ever since 1889 (the date of the accession of the German Emperor) Berlin had taken more interest in Serbian affairs, and it has been alleged that it was William II who, through the wife of the Rumanian minister at his court, who was sister of Queen Natalie, influenced King Alexander in his abrupt and ill-judged