After the May Coup, from which 117 years have passed, the Karađorđević dynasty returned to the Serbian throne, and Petar I Karađorđević became the King of Serbia. Certain conspirators from the interior arrived in Belgrade on the eve of that day, under various pretexts. With their Belgrade comrades, divided into five groups, they spent until midnight in city taverns, and then all met at the Officers’ Club (today’s SKC) from where Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis, one of the leaders of the conspiracy, commanded the departure to the palace.
Guards Lieutenant Petar Živković opened the palace doors to the conspirators. The doors to the royal chambers were broken with dynamite, but no one was in the bed. The search for the royal couple lasted unsuccessfully for nearly two hours. During that time, Captain Jovan Miljković, the king’s orderly, and Colonel Mihajlo Naumović, the adjutant, who was aware of the conspiracy, were killed.
Apis was also wounded. He saw someone fleeing down the stairs into the courtyard and it seemed to him that it was the king, so he ran after him, but a guardsman waited for him downstairs and seriously wounded him with three bullets in the chest. At that moment, the conspirators believed the conspiracy had failed. Apis lay wounded in the basement, and the king and queen were simply gone.
The hidden location where the last Obrenovićs were hiding was discovered by the king’s first adjutant, General Laza Petrović, who was captured as soon as the conspirators entered the palace. According to this version, he was given ten minutes to say where the king and queen were, otherwise he would be killed. There is no historical data to confirm that he revealed the location in exchange for his life.
Aleksandar and Draga, according to one version, were hiding behind a mirror in the royal bedroom. That small room served as the queen’s wardrobe, and the cupboards covered a hole in the floor, which was the entrance to a secret passage. According to another version, during a renewed search of the royal bedroom, cavalry lieutenant Vemić noticed an indentation in the wall as if for a key to a secret door. The king and queen were hidden there.
However it happened, upon emerging from their hiding place, the king and queen were killed and thrown from the palace terrace. In this way, the Obrenović dynasty disappeared from the historical stage.
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Source: MCP; Photo: Wikipedia/GradBegrad