In late August 1914 during the first month of the war, Prince Peter was in command of the defence of Lovćen when it was attacked by the Austrians.

[8] By March 1915 his army had progressed into Austrian territory holding a 30-mile stretch from Spizza to a southern fortress in the Bay of Cattaro.

[9] In May 1915 a highly controversial meeting took place at Budva between Prince Peter and the Austrian Colonel Hupka, former military attaché at Cetinje.

All that Prince Peter would acknowledge took place at the meeting was a request from him for the Austrians to stop the bombardment of towns by their aeroplanes, and that he was acting on instruction from his father.

[10] After Prince Peter's surrender of Lovćen by 1916 the war had turned against Montenegro in favour of the numerically superior Austrians.

Having fallen in love and wishing to marry her, Prince Peter wrote to his father instructing him to arrange the marriage.

Violet's mother, it is said, persuaded the couple to delay marriage as Prince Peter had a claim of compensation against the Yugoslav government, (estimated at £6million for the confiscation of the Royal Family's property in Montenegro).

Violet's mother feared that if Prince Peter married her daughter, a commoner, it could jeopardise his claim.