Why the bombs are a waste of time, by the man who would be king of Yugoslavia

By Julia Llewellyn Smith

WHEN Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia and Yugoslavia was born in Claridge's Hotel, London, in the final days of the Second World War, the staff were asked for the customary towels and hot water. There was also a more unusual request: for Yugoslav soil to be sprinkled under the bed.

"The Home Office declared room 212 Yugoslav territory," the Prince explains today. It meant that the baby Prince could claim to have been born in Yugoslavia, allowing him to succeed to the throne.

For decades, such an act seemed little more than a wistful gesture. Alexander's father, King Peter II, was exiled from Yugoslavia by Hitler in 1941. At the end of the war, the country found itself on the left-hand side of the iron curtain under General Tito. The chance of Yugoslavia's monarchy returning seemed an impossible dream.

"As a younger man, when I was in the British Army, I really thought that communism was here to stay," says Alexander, now 53. "What happened in 1989, when the Iron Curtain came down, was amazing. My life changed dramatically." 

Now, as the Nato bombs rain down on Belgrade, this former businessman's life has changed even more. To the wealthy, exiled Serb community in London, Alexander has always been regarded as a leader. But, since Tito's death in 1980, more and more people in beleaguered Serbia have begun to yearn for a replacement for the hated Slobodan Milosevic.

In Alexander's plush offices in London's Park Lane - loaned to him by the reclusive Greek shipping billionaire John Latsis - the walls are covered in framed covers of eastern-European, Hello!-style magazines, showing the Prince, his wife and his three sons.

The message is that this is a royal family in waiting, who at any moment could be reinstated in the White Palace in Dedinje, a smart suburb of Belgrade.

In his study, Alexander sits in front of a computer and below a portrait of his father in military regalia. Previously an insurance broker and shipping merchant, he is fully versed in the necessary techniques to create a modern monarchy, handing out glossy press packs and pointing you to his website: www.royalfamily.com.

Much in demand for his analysis of the Balkan crisis, the past few weeks have been an endless round of consultations with world leaders.

"I am very lucky that I am friendly with all Nato leaders but I wish they had been more aware of what they were saying earlier," he says. "Milosevic is a monster, a dictator, but the West has given him one lease of life after another. They have visited him, they have wined and dined him, they have completely ignored the demonstrations in Belgrade against him. He has turned himself into an emperor."

Yet, if anyone has the connections to sway politicians' opinions, it is Alexander. He is great-great-great grandson of Queen Victoria, godson of the Queen and a friend of Lady Thatcher.

Even his schooling reads like something out of an airport novel. There was a spell at Gordonstoun, where he became close friends with Prince Charles, and Millfield, Britain's most expensive school in Somerset; as well as the elite Culver Military Academy in America and Le Rosey in Switzerland, favourite of the international jet set.

AFTER school, it was a natural passage to Sandhurst, where he became a captain in the Lancers. His first wife - with whom he had three sons - was a member of the Brazilian royal family. His second, Princess Katherine, who heads several charities for the former Yugoslavia, is a member of the Greek aristocracy.

Friends include the spin doctor Tim Bell, who has advised Alexander about his dream of returning to the Yugoslav throne. Failing that, his aim is "to bring democracy, human rights and a better future to Yugoslavia".

Yet his links with his lost kingdom are slight, to say the least. His Serbo Croat is rusty - he pauses endearingly as he spells out Serbian names and he has only visited Serbia twice, admittedly to a rapturous reception, once in 1992 and again in 1995. "The way Milosevic dealt with me was to ignore me," he says. "Everything I did was completely censored, nothing I did appeared in the press."

Still, Alexander's feelings towards his fatherland are decidedly proprietorial. "I have had a good experience of democracy and I want my people to have that too," he says in his faintly American-tinged accent.

For now, however, he is pessimistic about the future. "I don't think bombing will solve anything," he says. "It will just create a blitz spirit in Belgrade and put the people more firmly than ever behind Milosevic. Remember, the press is completely censored there so ordinary people have no idea why the West has decided to attack them."

He is even more gloomy about what will happen after the bombings. "There doesn't appear to be a plan, it seems to me that the West will still want to negotiate with this lunatic. We have already lost 10 years with him in charge and at this rate we will go into the next century with thisdictatorship."

The message is unmistakable - and slightly bitter. If the West had not allowed the communists to snatch his father's throne, then none of this would have happened. "I think that, in Milosevic, we are dealing with someone who was brought up during the cold war," he says pointedly. "Our communists were always considered acceptable by the West but, in fact, they are pretty nasty. Democracy is very foreign to them."

Yet with every shell that falls on Belgrade, the chances of Alexander emulating the feat of his cousin, Juan Carlos of Spain, in presiding over a successful return to democracy seem ever more remote. Even if Alexander were to succeed, at this rate there will not be much kingdom worth returning to.