1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicholas (King of Montenegro)

NICHOLAS (1841-1921), King of Montenegro, was the last member of the House of Petrovich Njegosh to reign over a separate Montenegrin realm, his dominions being now merged in the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The story of the last twenty years of his life is very largely the contemporary history of Montenegro (see Montenegro). His grant of a constitution in 1907 was followed by a period of violent internal conflict between him and his opponents, whose position had been strengthened by the elections to the Skupshtina, whom he sought to discredit by the Cetinje bomb plot mystification. His assumption of the kingly title in 1910 marked a further stage in the evolution of his plans, of which it constituted a public notification, and aroused hostile comment among his own people as well as in Serbia. The Balkan wars resulted in a marked diminutio capitis for Nicholas, who failed to play a conspicuous part in them and was forced to call in Serbian aid before Scutari. At this time already the survival of a Montenegrin throne appeared a doubtful problem. In the World War the breach between him and his people was complete, and even before the final act the old monarch was apostrophized derisively as Nicholas the first and Petrovich the last. He died at Antibes March 1 1921, and was buried at San Remo.