Peter II, already on the stamps as a child King after his fathers assassination, was not really in charge. His Uncle Paul was regent and making some iffy decisions. So when real trouble came, the kid King flies away and gets crossed out. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The situation had changed so an overstamp of the prewar Yugoslav stamp was called for. The big black circle over the guys face is downright rude. A few weeks before the German invasion, a coup supported by the young King was seen as against special arrangements made with Croats. So apparently the Croats were especially anxious to cross him out. The German puppet Serb government just wrote Serbia over the same stamp, so the extra hostility was not from the Serbs or even the Germans.
Todays stamp is issue A16, a one Dinar stamp issued by Croatia on May 16th, 1941, only a few weeks after the German invasion. It was a two stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents whether mint or used.
Peter II became King in 1934 upon the assassination of his father. See https://the-philatelist.com/2018/02/08/it-is-dangerous-to-rule-the-kingdom-of-serbs-croats-and-slovenes/ . He was 11 years old. His uncle Paul became regent and claimed to be trying to continue the policies of Peter’s father until he reached his majority in 1941. Instead he gave a great deal of autonomy to a greater Croatia that included much of Bosnia. This angered the Serbs. They were further angered in early 1941 when the regent signed an alliance with Germany. There was a British supported coup. Pro coup army forces approached the royal compound that was guarded by troops loyal to the regent. At this point, 17 year old King Peter slipped out of the Palace by climbing down a drainage pipe and greeted warmly the coup forces. Quickly there was a coronation and Peter was ruling. Regent Paul went into exile and house arrest in Kenya.
10 days later, the Germans invaded. The Yugoslav plan if attacked was not to resist but instead withdraw intact to the south. So instead of defending against the Germans, the Yugoslav army invaded Italian occupied Albania hoping to link up with Greece. Peter flew to Greece. This plan did not succeed and despite the Yugoslavs and the Greeks far outnumbering the Germans, the campaign was over in a few weeks and Greek and Yugoslav royals were off to London where Peter married a Greek Princess. Almost none of his army got out with him and the active resistance to the Germans were mostly Communists and/or Serb nationalist, who owed nothing to the King.
Post war Peter lived in first the USA and then France. Tito had frozen his bank accounts so Peter had to live of the generosity of Serbs abroad. He drank a lot and became famous for writing bad checks. He probably thought they were just Royal mementoes not to be cashed. He dreamed of leading an army of expats back to Yugoslavia and liking up with Serb nationalists he imagined were still fighting Tito in the mountains. He died after a failed liver transplant in 1970 and became the first European Royal buried in the USA.
Oddly in the 1980s there was revival of Royal nostalgia in Yugoslavia. The American soap opera Dynasty featuring glamorous young Catherine Oxenberg was shown on TV there. She is the granddaughter of Prince Paul, Peter II’s old regent who caused so much trouble 45 years before. Time had healed and neither Serb nor Croat, communist nor capitalist, wanted to ex her out.
Well my drink is empty and if I am lucky a Yugoslav Royal will write the check for another round. I will understand not to cash it. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.