The posthumous recollections of an ex-Yugoslav King’s Guard reserve lieutenant: bombs, rage, fear, starvation, treachery, and more bombs and captivity—a shaken life, hanging on through resilience, defiance, patience, ingenuity, memories, and intellectual quests.
Genre: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / HistoricalThree sales since May 2016.
5-star rating when distributed by AuthorHouse on Amazon (now on Lulu Press).
Two years earlier, that is, two weeks after the assassination of his predecessor by a Russian fascist, right-of-center President Lebrun had put a police controller specifically in charge of government VIP security, which included, with the assistance of regional prefects, state visits, thereby reducing the responsibilities of the Director of the National Police (NP). Just a few months earlier, during the right-wing Paris riot of February 1934 protesting recurring government corruption scandals, police had displayed abysmal shortcomings in the protection of the National Assembly. While the Belgrade French military attaché had warned of an assassination attempt, a new, politically appointed NP Director had criticized his VIP controller’s security arrangements for the royal visit, but was powerless. The main Marseille Press, which was right-wing controlled, had attacked the strict NP Director instead of his VIP controller in an attempt to soil his superior’s reputation, the left-of-center minister of Interior. Meanwhile, the VIP controller had remained in Paris to oversee the security arrangements made by Marseille’s regional prefect. Both the NP Director and the VIP controller had arrived by train that morning, and they now found themselves sitting together in the lead car, separated from the royal landaulet by a squadron of slow-trotting—very slow-trotting—Republican Horse Guards.
The king sat in the landaulet’s convertible section with Minister Barthou on his left, both of them behind half-raised windows. General Georges, the king’s escort, sat across from Barthou, on a jump seat. The hard-top front compartment was occupied by the chauffeur, on the right side, that is, in front of the king, and by a bodyguard, on the left side.
The king’s demeanor and eyes portrayed a nervous, preoccupied look.
