New Britain herald., 1916-01-13
SORDID TRAGEDY IN
 SERBIA RECALLED
Murdered King and Queen Forgot ten By Conqueror and Conquered

 Belgrade, Dec. 31-The last of the house of Obrenovitch, the murdered Alexander, lies in a little chapel in the Belgrade cemetery forgotten by conqueror and conquered alike. Be- side him rests Queen Draga, the woman for whose saying he broke off relations with his father and whose influence upon him undoubtedly led to the sordid tragedy that extinguish- ed this royal line.
 The chapel stands in the center of a neglected graveyard. It is a primi- tive building, larger sample of. the typical Serbian peasants cottage, without ornamentation of any kind. It is of brick, rudely plastered on the outside. Only cross carved into tablet giving the date of erection shows that it Is not an ordinary house or even a substantial barn. Bullets have bored neat holes through two of the plain-glass windows, and have made blisters in a half dozen places on the plain sheet-iron doors. The street fighting was half mile away, but the modern infantry rifle has long range, and the chapel stands on ground elevated somewhat above the scene of the street battles.
 Hungarian Troops Near Chapel.
 A few Hungarian soldiers are quar- ters in a building a hundred yards away from the chapel None of them had any idea where the key to the chapel was to be found. The Asso- ciated Press representative finally crawled through a small hole in the wall which appeared to have been made by a shell which failed to ex- plode. Scattered bricks and mortar lay on the floor inside.
 The scene was depressinga In the middle of the floor lay box con taining books, dust covered and Tn disarray. The high altar had been showed back into a small anteroom. The sacred vestments, some of them torn and muddied, were strewn about the floor and on the altar. A picture of a saint, it's protecting glass splin- tered. lay face down. A bullet had found it's way into one of the crude mural paintings. Mortar dust lay deep over everything.
 No Royal Tomb.
 The correspondent had been in- formed that the murdered king and queen were buried in this chapel, but 1 there was nothing in sight even re- l resembling S royal IO1nD. i@Sar one corner was a plain lettered slab, i 1anked by two wooden crosses. In 1 Cyrillian letters on the slab were the l names of two of the older members of | he Obrenovitch family. Right and l eft stood a crude Roman cross of l wood. On the cross-bar of the cross tt the right was rudeIy lettered 1 Alexander Obrenovitch." The cor bar on the cross at the eft bore the name, ''Draga Obreno- itch. There was not another letter m either cross no date of birth nor Ieath. no word to indicate that the 1 persons buried here had once been ying and queen of the country.
 Tn the more than thirteen years hat have elapsed since the murder, he crosses have not even been set upright They are simply leaned gainst the white-washed wall. A 1ickeled candlestick stands near the ,qualid tomb; at the other side is Q ,all cylindrical sheet-iron stroVe, sole means of heating the chapel No l guard rail separates the tomb from l the place occupied by the worship l pers.
 Stirred all World
 The mean tomb in the little chapel recalls the world-with the exception, ac- cording to the contemporary reports, of Serbia itself-in June, 1903. Trouble had been accommodating for years at the Serbian court. Alexander has alienated his father Milan and offended various European courts by marrying Draga Maschin, widow of an engineer and @ former lady in waiting of Queen Natalie. Nepotism and general favoritism still further em bittered the old court party at Bel grade. Particularly was there wide among the army officers.
 What gave greater impetus to the growing conspiracy against King was his act in suspending the constitution on April ', 1903, de- void the mandates of the sen ators and councillors of state, dissolv- ing the Skupshtina and setting aside various laws, including the press law and the election law.
 Shot and Stabbed
 Late in the night of June 10, 1903, a band of conspira tors, chiefly officials and army officers, and including Col. Maschin, brother of Draga's dead husband. overpowered or shot down the weak palace guard and forced their way to the door of the royal apartment. This door was blown down with dynamite, and the king and queen were shot and stabbed to death and their bodies thrown out of the window into the small garden sur- rounding the palace.
 Contemporary reports describe the murder as taking place in the old Konak. The correspondent was told here in Belgrade, however, that the | tragedy occurred in a small garden 1 house which stood midway between