Following recent anarchist attacks in the United States and United Kingdom, King Alexander approached Ivan Ribar about the possibility of forming a secret police force that would monitor and report on the activities of anarchists and their collaborators. Ribar brought the proposal to the National Assembly where a fierce debate regarding the issue of the secret police ensued.

Svetozar Pribićević, Minister of the Interior, opened the proceedings by arguing strongly in favor of a secret police force citing that “the anarchist and Bolshevik threat cannot be understated, what is to say that they do not tear us apart so soon after we are united.” Many of the deputies echoed this sentiment. The present threat was that of communist and anarchist subversion, in the eyes of the government. Branko Jovanović, Pribićević and Kosta Timotijević, forming what Croatian radical Stjepan Radić dubbed “the Serb troika” surprisingly advocated a headquarters for the secret police in Sarajevo. Pribićević argued that a central location was crucial to logistics and efficiency, especially as the war ravaged Kingdom was stressed thin as it stood. Milorad Drašković, transportation minister, seconded this motion.

Finishing the open deliberations, the National Assembly concluded that the matter would be put to a vote exactly one week later.

Closed Doors Cabinet Meeting

The King called for a secret meeting of the Ministers in a drawing room of the palace, to discuss an auxiliary function of the secret police force. The King requested that plans be drawn up for the police to not only monitor the anarchists and communists, but also to monitor nationalist groups within the Kingdom. He principally named the Croatian Party of Rights, followers of Ante Starčević’s form of Illyrianism, Montenegrin nationalist groups, and most importantly, the sizeable Bulgar minority in Macedonia.

While Ivan Ribar strongly agreed with this proposition, knowing that among them all Starčević’s Illyrianism was still popular in the Croat intelligentsia and saw Slovenes and Serbs as Croats, Stjepan Radić was enraged that the King had not included Nikola Pasić’s Serbian Radicals on the list of nationalist groups. A fierce exchange between the King and Radić ensued with the King bellowing that Radić served the ministry at his behest – and that it was the King’s approval that put Radić in his position. The room was tense. Ivan Ribar quietly whispered something to the King who scoffed and brushed him away.

The Serb Troika called Alexander aside, while Ante Trumbić attempted to calm down his countryman. The Troika urged the King to include the Radicals, but promised him that they had plans for preventing any sort of subversion of Serb interests. The King bregudgingly accepted and returned to the rest of the Ministers with an amended list. They all signed, with Radić hesitating, and leaving the room immediately after setting the pen down. The King folded the paper and put it in his desk drawer.

Bill on the Creation of the Secret Police

The Bill creating the secret police, tentatively called the Discrete Police Force of the Kingdom of SHS, (DPSKSHS), was put before the delegates, with provisions that allowed for the King’s secret plan to go into effect, ensuring that the DPSKSHS would not be prevented from investigating “elements that subvert the national integrity and multinational character of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.”

It passed handily, with Radić even mustering his party to vote with the coalition. The headquarters of the new service, in Sarajevo, was built under the auspices of a new opera hall, and a Viennese style façade obscured the activities that would go on backstage. The most controversial move of the Assembly, though, was when Ivan Ribar and Justice Minister Kosta Timotijević appointed Muhamed Mehmedbašić as the DPSKSHS director. Mehmedbašić had been one of the co-conspirators in the Franz Ferdinand assassination and had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 1917 for a conspiracy to assassinate Alexander that was dubious at best. The King attempted to veto the appointment of Mehmedbašić, but once again, the coalition had the votes…