Claridge’s Hotel, London, in the middle of the Blitz:Winston Churchill declares a suite there to be sovereign Yugoslav territory for a day so that a baby can come into the world as a native of his own country. A Serbian prince is born to a Greek princess in room 212 on 17 July 1945.
The baby, Alexander Karadjordjevic, was brought up with little to distinguish him as heir to the throne of Yugoslavia or, for that matter, the man who might one day unite the frustratingly fractious forces now opposing Europe’s last “dictator-king”.
For a wannabe monarch, who has emerged as Slobodan Milosevic’s most unlikely enemy, Alexander’s was a very un-Balkan upbringing. There was none of the attendant frills associated with royalty or indeed a family dynasty created by Black George, the hero whose Turk-slaying skills set the course of Serbian history.
No. Alexander Karadjordjevic was raised as the quintessential English gentleman. After attending a Swiss primary school, Alexander was sent to Gordonstoun and Millfield before the de rigueur stint at Sandhurst and a commission in the British Army. Like all good aristocrats who hold British citizenship, he still enjoys a good old whinge about it all. Gordonstoun, says the erstwhile insurance-broker as we sip water in a hotel suite overlooking the Greek Aegean, did nothing for his legs and even less for his mind.
Crown Prince Alexander has just hosted the largest ever get-together of just about everyone who is anyone (at least anyone anti-regime) in Serbia today, and he is telling me about his knees: “Those shorts in the Scottish Highlands, they destroyed my knees.” So very Prince Charles, one might think, so very un-Serb. But London-based Alexander is in every other respect quite unlike his fellow Gordonstoun alumnus, who also happens to be his cousin.
He may have worn the odd red sash and donned the odd decorative cross and medal, but he does not sport a signet ring – just very bright, crested gold cufflinks and a gold Rolex, which he takes strange delight in flaunting. His head has never touched a crown. (He refused, as an exile, to accept the title of king when his father died in 1970.)
In fact, the nearest Crown Prince Alexander gets to royalty these days is the occasional family gathering. “We all share the same grandmama of Europe [Queen Victoria], and everyone respects everyone else. As an exiled monarch, I have the occasion of meeting other royalty at weddings, funerals, birthdays and other lovely events and, yes, one has got to know them, respect them, love them.
“I have learnt a lot from Juan Carlos, the King of Spain, who is my third cousin if I’m not wrong. I watched him as a student. I watched him transform his country into a stable democracy after Franco.”
Therein lies Alexander’s mission. He may not feel like a prince. (“I still haven’t got over an American once asking me if I really had blue blood.”) Indeed, he may have hardly ever stepped into his kingdom, and his Serbo-Croat (a language he is currently learning) may be a little basic.
But in this unassuming, inoffensive, portly English gentleman, the internationally isolated Serbs have begun to feel they may have found a saviour – a neutral figurehead who can talk about the “common good”, perhaps even prevent a civil war. Like Juan Carlos, Alexander appears more than happy to oblige. He tweaks the lapels of his slightly over-pressed suit.
“It’s a long, hard slog,” he murmurs. “But great fun.” To be sure, his role as a non- partisan symbol of nationhood has suddenly become a 24-hour job. He now flies around the world, gathering dissidents as he has done in Greece, guiding them in the ways of the west, raising aid for Yugoslavs of all ethnicities, preparing the ground for Milosevic’s demise and telling his people a few home truths. He has even given up insurance.
“My family has been involved in the history of my nation through good and bad times, right from the very start. My contribution, as I see it, will be to unite people from across the spectrum, minus the regime – to help to resolve the differences that divide them. There can only be peace in the Balkans when Serbia becomes a part of the brotherhood of nations and Milosevic is out.”
In this, the crown prince is right. Until tiny but strategic Serbia becomes a part of the Marshall Plan-style stability pact drawn up by the Europeans, the region will never be able to recover economically from the depredations that the years of conflict have inflicted on the entire region. And that will only come to pass when Milosevic goes, taking western sanctions with him. So far, however, the greatest ob-stacle to that has been the bickering among the different elements of the Serb opposition. It has made them the autocrat’s easiest enemy yet. Lack of cohesion among his opponents, say the polls, is the single biggest reason for the electorate’s lack of confidence in a democratic alternative.
But is this really the time for Serbs to place their trust in kings and princes? All over the Balkans, in Albania, Bulgaria and Romania, royal claimants have been knocking on their old palace doors – so far, without much luck. In Serbia, polls have shown less than 25 per cent support for the restoration of royalty. Is hereditary constitutional monarchy, as represented by Alexander, the only way forward?
“Why not?” rejoins Zoran Djindjic the leader of the determinedly un- monarchist Democratic Party. “He’s a rational guy, he stands above politics and, in Yugoslavia, people’s last happy memories ended with the monarchy. So why not let the people vote on the issue in a referendum?”
Why not indeed? It will be a long way from Claridge’s – and his home around the corner – but perhaps not so far-fetched for Alexander the English gentleman, after all.
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