page_title: Peter II of Yugoslavia
section_title: Marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Peter II of Yugoslavia / Marriage
caption_attribution_description: Español: Retrato de boda del Rey Pedro II de Yugoslavia y la Princesa Alexandra de Grecia, 20 de marzo 1944. Al lado izquierdo de la pareja, el Rey Jorge VI del Reino Unido y a la derecha el Rey Jorge II de Grecia.
context_page_description: Peter II was the last King of Yugoslavia, reigning from 1934 to 1945. He was the last reigning member of the Karađorđević dynasty which came to prominence in the early 19th century.
context_section_description: The Chicago Tribune reported on 1 August 1943 about the royal romance in London between King Peter and Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark that: "The princess, a pretty, dark-haired girl, used to serve waffles and coffee to American officers and nurses over a snack bar at the London Red Cross club. There she met King Peter, a slender young man in naval uniform who often dropped in to listen to the music of a United States infantry band". In April 1942, Peter proposed marriage to Princess Alexandra after a few weeks of courtship and she accepted. While the Western media portrayed a "fairy tale romance" across the backdrop of wartime London between the young Yugoslav king and a Greek princess, the announcement of Peter's engagement to Alexandra in July 1943 caused immense controversy in his homeland. According to Serbian tradition, a leader must not marry during a national emergency, and the news that Peter had become engaged while his homeland was torn by war caused a backlash against him. This was all the more so because of the catastrophic turn in Yugoslavia starting in April 1941 with war, genocide, revolution, civil war and a disastrous collapse in living standards, in what had been before 1941 one of Europe's poorest and most backward countries, all ravaging the land. However much Peter was in love with Alexandra, his engagement and "fairy tale" wedding in the relative comfort of London while his subjects were suffering so much was seen as a callous break with Serbian traditions.
   
  The cabinet in a rare show of unity had all objected to Peter's plans for a wedding in wartime when the issue was first discussed in April 1942, and the issue was not raised again until April 1943. Again, when the matter was discussed in early 1943 the Serb ministers had objected while from Serbia itself General Mihailović reported that public opinion strongly disapproved. The Prime Minister, Slobodan Jovanović, was opposed to announcing the engagement while Yugoslavia was still occupied, predicting the news would discredit the monarchy in Serbia, and rather than postpone the engagement, which was announced in July 1943, Peter dismissed Jovanović on 26 June 1943.
  In early 1944, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill applied strong pressure on Peter to dismiss his prime minister, Božidar Purić, whom almost everybody viewed as incompetent, and to sever his links with General Mihailović, whom Churchill was convinced by this point was a collaborator. At the same time, the British threatened to stop arms shipments to Josip Broz Tito's Partisans unless he recognized King Peter as the rightful king of Yugoslavia. Churchill wanted to preserve the Yugoslav monarchy to keep the country in the western sphere of influence after the war while incorporating the Partisans into the royalist government-in-exile. Peter married his third cousin, Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark in London on 20 March 1944. Attending the wedding which was held at the Yugoslav legation in London was King George VI who served as Peter's best man together with King Haakon VII of Norway, King George II of Greece, and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands all attending.  They had one son, Crown Prince Alexander, who was born on 17 July 1945.
  The news that King Peter had married in wartime did much to discredit him with his people, and becoming very unsettled as it started to sink in that he might have sacrificed his throne for love, Peter became unusually open to British "advice" in early 1944. Churchill had announced in the House of Commons in May 1944 that Peter had dismissed Purić as Prime Minister and Mihailović as Chief of Staff and the new prime minister was Ivan Šubašić, when none of these things had actually happened. After a week of strong British pressure, Peter capitulated and on 1 June 1944 appointed Šubašić prime minister. The mandate of the new Šubašić government was to form a coalition with Marshal Tito's People's Liberation Movement. On 10 June 1944, Šubašić flew to the island of Vis to meet Tito for talks, and on 16 June 1944 it was announced that 
caption: King Peter II and Queen Alexandra at their wedding day, 20 March 1944, with George VI, King of United Kingdom and the British Dominions (left) and George II, King of Greece (right)
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