Balkan Air
These are stamps depicting King Peter II of Yugoslavia, from before the Italian occupation. They’re overprinted with the words, Governatorato de Montenegro. When I redesign these pages, I may change the title to his name.
King Peter II
On March 25, 1941, Prince Paul, who was ruling as regent for the young king, announced that Yugoslavia would join the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy and Japan. The agreement was unpopular. Two days later, a pro-British coup led by General Dušan Simović removed the regent and declared Peter II of age at 17. The coup was very popular in Belgrade. However, it also gave Germany a reason to act. The Axis invasion of Yugoslavia started on April 6, and the Yugoslav armed forces were defeated within eleven days.
Peter left the country with his ministers, going first to Greece, then to Jerusalem and Cairo, and finally to London. A government-in-exile was set up there in June 1941. The British press greeted him and his government as heroes. The government’s position was a bit murky, though, since it had come to power through a coup. In March 1944, Peter married Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark, and their only son, Alexander, was born a year later. By then the Partisans under Josip Broz Tito were gaining the upper hand at home, and the king’s side was losing ground to them.
In 1944, Peter accepted an agreement with Tito that set up a joint government, and on March 7, 1945, he created a Regency Council to take his place. It did not save the monarchy. On November 29, 1945, the Constituent Assembly formally deposed Peter and proclaimed Yugoslavia a republic. Basically, he was king for only a few weeks in Yugoslavia itself, and he was not allowed to go back after the war. Peter settled in the United States instead and died in Denver in 1970 at the age of 47.
Note
I designed all of the pages for this album in Adobe Photoshop. There are probably too many stamps on this page. It’s not so cluttered now that I have none of the stamps. Once I fill the page, though, I may feel differently. It so, I may change the layout of all of these pages, putting these air mail stamps, rows three through six on a separate page.
Contains 25 spots: own 0 – 0 unused, 0 used.
Stamp Details
The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.
spot |
own |
catalog |
subject |
description |
comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
40 |
King Peter II |
1₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
41 |
King Peter II |
1.50₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
42 |
King Peter II |
3₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
43 |
King Peter II |
4₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
44 |
King Peter II |
5.50₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
45 |
King Peter II |
6₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
46 |
King Peter II |
8₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
47 |
King Peter II |
12₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
48 |
King Peter II |
16₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A10 |
Ohrid Lake |
0.50₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A11 |
Rab Island |
1₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A14 |
Ohrid Lake |
5₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A15 |
Rab Island |
10₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A12 |
Sarajevo |
2₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A13 |
Ljubljana |
2.50₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A16 |
Sarajevo |
20₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A17 |
Ljubljana |
30₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A18 |
Ohrid Lake |
0.50₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A19 |
Rab Island |
1₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A22 |
Ohrid Lake |
5₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A23 |
Rab Island |
10₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A20 |
Sarajevo |
2₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A21 |
Ljubljana |
2.50₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A24 |
Sarajevo |
20₤ (jan 1942) |
|||
A25 |
Ljubljana |
30₤ (jan 1942) |
Footnotes
Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.
