The king had come to France to dedicate a memorial to Serbs and Croats who had served there during the Great War. Alexander II had come on Yugoslavia's largest ship, the light cruiser Dubrovnik, to demonstrate his nation's unity and military proficiency, serving notice to France that Yugoslavia was a Mediterranean power and a nation of skill.

The king was riding through the streets of Marseilles wearing a tight dress uniform, with France's foreign minister, Louis Barthou, and Gen. Alphonse Georges, when the assassin struck. A man whirled out of the crowd, passed a policeman on the pavement, leaped in front of Lt. Col. Piollet's horse, and fired point-blank at the car's occupants. Before anyone knew what happened, the king and Barthou were dying. Georges sprang on the assassin, who shot the general four times, wounding him in the side, chest, and arms. A police agent tried to stop the assassin, and took a bullet in the stomach instead.

Pandemonium broke out. Barthou dazedly staggered out of the car and wandered for half hour before being found. The crowd in the street realized what was going on, and surged on the terrorist, kicking him and shouting. The king's aides opened his uniform with a penknife to find blood spurting out. The chauffeur honked his horn and shot through the mob to the Prefecture, where tea bad been laid out. Alexander was carried into the chief magistrate's room, and the most highly qualified doctor was summoned. He pronounced Alexander dead. Barthou died on the operating table. Georges' life was spared when a medal on his chest deflected a bullet aimed at his heart.

The bullet that struck down King Alexander II on Oct. 6, 1934, was fired from a Croatian terrorist's gun. The terrorist (a man of many aliases, but no known name) was in turn a member of Ante Pavelich's Ustaschi front, which opposed the Serbdominated monarchy that reigned over Yugoslavia. The Ustaschi, in turn, were bankrolled by Benito Mussolini, the sawdust Caesar who saw in Pavelich a shortcut to carving up Yugoslavia.

The impact of the bullet went beyond the death of the monarch. The throne was inherited by Alexander's 11-year-old son Peter, and royal power went to the regent, Prince Paul, Alexander's brother. And the fact that Croatian terrorists had committed regicide only inflamed the boiling pot of Yugoslavia's feuding ethnic groups. Dead ahead from Alexander's death lay the political divisions that led to Hitler's invasion of Yugoslavia, four years of bloody partisan warfare, and 50 years of Tito-led Yugoslavian unity, which came apart in this decade, and the deaths of thousands of people. The bullet travels still.

Post WWI Yugoslavia itself was minted after World War I. It's official name until 1929 had been "Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes," a heavy-handed title. The nation was patched together from bits and pieces - Bosnia, Croatia, Herzegovina, and Slovenia were all part of the collapsed Austro-Hungarian Empire. Montenegro and Serbia had been independent nations. The monarchy came from Serbia, which dated back to a 1903 revolution.

More than 15 million people lived in Yugoslavia, a nation the size of Oregon, with three officially-recognized religions, three languages, and two alphabets. The country itself is 80 percent mountains, either Alpine spurs or barren limestone plateaus. The word "Balkan" has roots in the Turkish word for "mountain."

6.5 million (41 percent) of Yugoslavia's population were Eastern Orthodox Serbians, and they held the keys of power, including the monarchy, experience at running a modem state, and the capital, Belgrade. Croatians at 3.5 million numbered 22 percent and were predominantly Roman Catholic, and battled with the Serbs for political and economic power.

The sharp end of the Croatian opposition to Serbian power was the Ustaschi movement, led by the fiery Pavelich. His rhetoric called for an independent Croatia and expulsion of Serbians. His bankroll came from Mussolini, who saw the possibilities of expanding his empire by carving up Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia's 1.5 million Slovenes and 900,000 Macedonians also sought claims against the nation. 900,000 Muslim Slavs distrusted their Christian neighbors. And 500,000 Montenegrins (the word means "black mountains") had a long heritage oi opposing all foreigners.

Yugoslavia had its share of resources - bauxite, antimony, chrome, copper, and coal - and sat astride the Orient Express to Turkey. But as the Great Depression dragged on, Yugoslavia's peasants and farmers suffered. Many lived in earthen huts below ground level, adding economic misery to ethnic hatreds.

"Such indeed were the divisions in Yugoslavian society that after 1929 the country had been ruled by a royal dictatorship as the only practical alternative to civil war," wrote British historian H. P. Willmott in 1989.

Pro-German Leaning

This was not a healthy brew, and the fact that this divided nation was ruled by a child did not help. Prince Paul was all urbane diplomat - educated at Oxford and in France, his sisterin- law was the Duchess of Kent - with emotional and family ties to Britain, but he could read a newspaper headline. By the end of 1940, Paul could see that Adolf Hitler's strutting Nazis were rapidly dominating Europe. Alliance with Britain and Greece could lead to disaster. Accommodation with Germany could preserve Yugoslavia's existence.

Political leadership was divided. Prime Minister Dragise Cvetkovic was a nonentity, Foreign Minister Alexander Cincar- Markovic weak, and the Minister of War, Gen. Milan Nedic, still dismissed tanks in October 1940, saying, "I suppose motorization is a good thing. But what happens when we run out of petrol? Our bullocks were slow - but they didn't run out of petrol."

Popular sympathy in Belgrade among the Serbs was proAllied, as Orthodox and Catholic church leaders remembered World War I and believed the Allies would ultimately be victorious. Croatians and Slovenes favored appeasement. Adding to this tension was the illegal Yugoslav Communist party, headed by Josip Broz-Tito, who had defied Moscow's strict line in maintaining strong anti-German rhetoric and noisy anti-Nazi demonstrations. Rumors of an Anglo-American backed coup d'etat that would put King Peter on the throne before his 19th birthday (September 1941) and a pro-Allied government in place, began to circulate.

Diplomacy

Balkan politics heated up in October 1940, with Mussolini's ill- chosen invasion of Greece. Soon dead Italian soldiers lay stacked up in the Greek mountains. Greece and Britain eyed Yugoslavia as an ally against Hitler, the Nazis saw it as an ally to save Mussolini from the British and Greeks.

Hitler moved first, summoning Cincar-Markovic to Berchtesgaden on November 27, 1940. "Come over to the Axis now," Hitler told the nervous diplomat over linden tea. "In three months conditions will be less favorable." Cincar-Markovic wavered as usual and offered to mediate between Greece and Italy. Neither side was interested. Yugoslavia continued to ride the fence.

King George VI and President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent messages to Prince Paul urging him to stand firm against Hitler. So did the American and British ministers in Belgrade. Prince Paul retorted, "You big nations are hard. You talk of our honor but you are far away."

After three months of diplomatic messages, Hitler ran short of patience. He offered Yugoslavia generous terms for joining the Axis: control of Greek Macedonia and demilitarization of the Adriatic Coast. On February 14, he met Cincar-Markovic and Cvetkovic at Salzburg for a four-hour parley. Still the Yugoslavians refused to commit themselves. Hitler sent troops to the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border, menacing both Yugoslavia and Greece.

Prince Paul got the point, and he went to Berchtesgaden on March 4, 1941 to meet Hitler. After smiling uneasily for the cameras, the two got down to business. Hitler made it clear that if Yugoslavia resisted, the Wehrmacht would not stop Mussolini from invading the divided nation. Paul said he would never accept clauses allowing German troops to enter Yugoslavia. Hitler agreed.

Prince Paul returned home, convinced Hitler would be in Belgrade in a fortnight. He summoned his advisers to discuss the situation. No Allied help was likely. Yugoslavian arms and food stockpiles could last six weeks. Someone suggested Yugoslavia enter the war symbolically. General Petar Pesic scoffed, "I'm an old soldier, but I've never heard of a symbolic war. What is it?"

"I cannot lead our people to slaughter," said Paul, "and that is what we must expect if we precipitate a war with Germany."

On March 19, the Germans gave Yugoslavia five days to sign the Tripartite Pact. Prince Paul and his council debated peace or war the next day. Finally, a majority vote agreed to sign the Axis alliance. Serbian patriots wept in coffee houses. Cvetkovic and Cincar-Markovic took a special train to Vienna.

On March 25, before newsreel cameras, the two joined Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to sign the Tripartite Pact. Nobody looked happy. Even Hitler likened the event to a funeral.

Allied Pressure and the Coup

Nobody was surprised, least of all the British, who had been encouraging dissident Yugoslavian military officers to launch , coup should Yugoslavia sign the pact. At the Reserve Officers Club in Belgrade, the British air attache urged air force deputy commander Gen. Bora Mirkovic to take action. Mirkovic, a Serb patriot, needed little prodding. With his boss, Gen. Simovic, he planned to take over the capital. "I have decided to remove the traitors tonight," Mirkovic said.

At 2:20 a.m. on the morning of March 27, Mirkovic struck The Yugoslavian army's few gray-green French tanks and artillery moved out to command Belgrade's lamplit mair intersections. Tanks stood on trolley tracks, menacing the street., with their 47 mm guns. Cavalrymen and Royal Guards patrolled street comers. Blue-coated air force officers escorted Simovic to the Ministry of War, where he summoned Cvetkovic. A guard said, "The Premier cannot be disturbed." The coup leader pulled his gun and shouted, "Nevertheless, disturb him!"

The bewildered Prime Minister was induced to resign. By dawn, Belgrade radio announced the government overthrown the Regency ended.

The 17-year-old king. called "a pleasant boy, still rather young for his age, and immediately keen on anything mechanical" didn't know what was going on until his valet woke him up at 6 a.m. The commander of the Belgrade garrison had to see him. The King found out that troops had taken over the post office, general staff headquarters, and the Ministry of War, and cut all the phone cables. Baffled, he went to breakfast. At 9 a.m., he heard his own voice on radio announcing that Prince Paul had resigned and a new government was being formed. The revolutionaries had found a young officer to impersonate the monarch.

Prince Paul, in Zagreb, was stunned, and glumly returned to Belgrade to renounce his powers at 10 minutes to midnight and go into exile with his wife to Greece. Mirkovic, who had no intention of taking power himself, went back to the Air Force, leaving Simovic in charge.

Belgrade's citizens took to the streets with portraits of King Peter, waving flags, shouting, "Better war than pact: better grave than slave." Early-rising commuters trolleyed in to work, riding past tanks and guns. Union Jacks and Stars and Stripes fluttered everywhere, and people marched down the boulevards, singing the national anthem, "Oi Serbia!" Mobs destroyed the plateglass windows of the German Travel Agency, and burned Hitler in effigy. A Swedish diplomat was mistaken for a German and beaten senseless.

Churchill said "The Yugoslavian nation had found its soul." The New York Times wrote of a "lightning flash illuminating a dark background." In Vichy French Marseilles, someone scattered flowers at the site where King Alexander had been assassinated.

"I thought it was a joke," Adolf Hitler later said about seeing the telegram announcing Yugoslavia's coup and volte-face. But by noon the Fuhrer knew the truth, and had summoned his generals from their planning of the upcoming invasion of Russia to a conference at the Reichschancellery in Berlin. Hitler was furious. He would not stand for the coup, and would clean up the Balkans "good and proper. How much military force do you need? How much time?"

The Fuhrer is determined ... to make all preparations for the destruction of Yugoslavia militarily and as a national unit," said the minutes of the meeting. "Politically it is especially important that the blow against Yugoslavia be carried out with pitiless harshness and that the military destruction is done with lightning rapidity." The Luftwaffe was ordered to be ready to flatten Belgrade.

The Germans Invade