Politika
- Echo of the Crisis Settlement
- THE MYSTERIOUS PROTOCOL
- THE KING HAS RETURNED TO TOPOLA
Politika's front page of 18 October 1926 dealt with the end of a ten-day cabinet crisis in Belgrade. The main report retraced how the crisis opened when Dr. Nikić left Nikola Uzunović's government on the evening of 7 October, how Stjepan Radić's outburst at Zagreb station the next day set off a storm among the Radicals, how Uzunović resigned on 13 October and the Crown refused the resignation, and how, after a break between Radicals and Radićists, everything ended where it began. A second item reported that neither Uzunović nor his ministers and majority deputies would discuss a new protocol that was to stay secret. A short note said King Alexander, who had come from Topola on news of the resignation, went back there once it was withdrawn.
This is a partial reading of three front-page excerpts. Words are cut off at column edges, so passages begin and end mid-word or mid-sentence. The excerpt on the King's return has low legibility, and its opening contains three illegible words marked [?]. The 'Mysterious Protocol' excerpt stops before a minister's surname that cannot be read with certainty. The body of the item headed 'АКЦИЈА ЗЕМЉОРАДНИКА' is too faint to transcribe and is not translated. Fragmentary OCR was not used to fill gaps.
Translation
Echo of the Crisis Settlement
…litical circles, ended at the very place where it began. In all ten or so days of the crisis, not a single step forward was taken, nor was even one question resolved. The crisis was actually opened on Thursday, October 7, when in the evening Dr. Nikić ceased to be a member of Mr. Uzunović's government. Right the next day, October 8, came Mr. St. Radić's well-known outburst at the Zagreb station. A great storm broke out in all political circles, and especially within the government itself. The Radicals had all been thrown into alarm; consultations, talks and negotiations began, people even went to Topola, where the King was, and all of it led to Mr. Uzunović submitting his government's resignation on Wednesday, October 13. Only the Crown did not accept that resignation. New painful consultations and negotiations began, Mr. St. Radić also came to Belgrade, and it even came to a complete break in relations between the Radicals and the Radićists (on Friday evening), but everything ended unexpectedly, precisely at the moment when it was being claimed that the King had already accepted the resignation and that the President of the Assembly had been summoned to the Palace, with Mr. Uzunović …
THE MYSTERIOUS PROTOCOL
…coming days, and all of it under the protection of the Radical–Radićist coalition, restored with great difficulty.
THE MYSTERIOUS PROTOCOL
Just as Mr. Uzunović did not want to speak about the new protocol, which will remain secret from the public, so neither the members of the government nor the members of the government majority wanted to speak about that subject. Besides, they all used one and the same answer, namely that to them …
THE KING HAS RETURNED TO TOPOLA
…ew vice-president [?] [?] [?] …it was said that Mr. Subotić does not wish to be elected again to the presidency of the Assembly.
THE KING HAS RETURNED TO TOPOLA
The King had come to Belgrade from Topola when he was informed that the government had submitted its resignation. Now that the government has withdrawn its resignation and everything has again remained as before, the King left Belgrade yesterday afternoon and returned to Topola.
Context
A six-month-old premiership and a divided Radical Party
Politika places Nikola Uzunović at the centre of a crisis that, in its words, ended where it began. Uzunović had been prime minister only since the spring: in April 1926 Nikola Pašić, facing corruption scandals, was forced to resign, and Uzunović took office on 8 April 1926. His tenure was marked by internal conflict within the Radical Party and by a succession of short-lived governments. That background helps explain why the departure of a single minister and one outburst by Radić could, as the paper reports, bring Uzunović to submit his cabinet's resignation on 13 October. The patched-up arrangement the paper describes did not last long either: Uzunović's premiership ended on 17 April 1927.
The Radical–Radić coalition behind Nikić's exit and the secret protocol
The paper speaks of a Radical–Radićist coalition restored only with great difficulty, after a complete break between the two camps on Friday evening. That partnership dated from 1925, when Radić's Croatian Peasant Party, after years of opposition, made an agreement with the People's Radical Party under which power was shared. Radić himself became Minister of Education, and other members of his party received ministerial posts, among them a Nikola Nikić, a name that matches the Dr. Nikić whose departure from the government on the evening of 7 October Politika identifies as the start of the crisis. The paper states that the new protocol settling the quarrel was to remain secret, and that ministers and majority deputies refused to discuss it, so the page itself gives no terms. The partnership remained fragile: Radić's biography records that the power-sharing arrangement was cut short after Pašić's death on 10 December 1926.
King Alexander as arbiter between Topola and Belgrade
Politika presents King Alexander as the decisive figure in the crisis: politicians travelled to him at Topola, the Crown alone refused Uzunović's resignation, he came to Belgrade when told the government had resigned, and he went back to Topola once the resignation was withdrawn. The paper also notes that rumours of the King having already accepted the resignation circulated just before the settlement. Alexander had served as prince regent and de facto head of state before ascending the throne on his father's death in 1921. The episode belongs to a longer political crisis of the 1920s that culminated in the assassination of the Croat leader Stjepan Radić. In response, Alexander abolished the Vidovdan Constitution in 1929, prorogued parliament, renamed the state the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and instituted a royal dictatorship.
Radical Party leadership on the eve of Pašić's death
The article describes the Radicals as a whole being thrown into alarm by Radić's outburst, without naming any faction. Nikola Pašić, though no longer prime minister, was still president of the People's Radical Party at this time. He died of a heart attack on 10 December 1926, at the age of 80, less than two months after this issue appeared, and Aca Stanojević then became the party's president. Pašić's death also marked the end of the power-sharing arrangement with Radić's party, so the compromise Politika reported on 18 October proved to be one of the coalition's last repairs.
Original
Одјек решења кризе
литички кругови, завршила на ономе месту на коме је и почела. Свих десетак дана кризе није се одмакло ни ко рака даље нити је решено ма и једно питање. Криза је управо отворена у четвртак 7 октобра када је увече др. Никић престао бити члан владе г. Узуновића. Одмах сутра дан, 8 октобра, дошао је познати испад г. Ст. Радића на загребачкој станици. Дошло је до велике буре у свима политичким круговима а нарочито у самој влади. Радикали су се били сви узбунили, настала су саветовања, разговори, преговори, ишло се и у Тополу где је био Краљ и све је довело до тога да је у среду 13 октобра г. Узуновић поднео оставку своје владе. Само Круна није ту оставку уважила. Настала су нова мучна саветовања и преговарања, у Београд је дошао и г. Ст. Радић, дошло је и до потпуног прекида односа између радикала и радићеваца (у петак увече) али се све неочекивано, баш у тренутку када се тврдило да је Краљ већ уважио оставку и да је у Двор позват председник Скупштине, свршило тиме што је г. Узуновић по -
ТАЈАНСТВЕНИ ПРОТОКОЛ
жим данима и то све под заштитом с тешком муком васпостављеном коалицијом радикално радићевском. ТАЈАНСТВЕНИ ПРОТОКОЛ Као што г. Узуновић није хтео да говори о новом протоколу који ће остати тајан за јавност, тако о томе предмету нису хтели да говоре ни чланови владе ни чланови владине већине. Уосталом, сви су они употребљавали један исти одговор, а то је да им
КРАЉ СЕ ВРАТИО У ТОПОЛУ
вог потпредседника [?] [?] [?] че говорило да г. Суботић не жели да буде понова биран у председништво Скупштине. КРАЉ СЕ ВРАТИО У ТОПОЛУ Краљ је био дошао у Београд из Тополе када му је било јављено да је влада поднела оставку. Сада пошто је влада повукла оставку и пошто је опет остало све по старом, Краљ је јуче по подне напустио Београд и вратио се у Тополу.