The "Chicago Tribune" reported on 1 August 1943 about the royal romance in London between King Peter and Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark that: "The princess, a pretty, dark-haired girl, used to serve waffles and coffee to American officers and nurses over a snack bar at the London Red Cross club. There she met King Peter, a slender young man in naval uniform who often dropped in to listen to the music of a United States infantry band". In April 1942, Peter proposed marriage to Princess Alexandra after a few weeks of courtship and she accepted. While the Western media portrayed a "fairy tale romance" across the backdrop of wartime London between the young Yugoslav king and a Greek princess, the announcement of Peter's engagement to Alexandra in July 1943 caused immense controversy in his homeland. According to Serbian tradition, a leader must not marry during a national emergency, and the news that Peter had become engaged while his homeland was torn by war caused a backlash against him. This was all the more so because of the catastrophic turn in Yugoslavia starting in April 1941 with war, genocide, revolution, civil war and a disastrous collapse in living standards, in what had been before 1941 one of Europe's poorest and most backward countries, all ravaging the land. However much Peter was in love with Alexandra, his engagement and "fairy tale" wedding in the relative comfort of London while his subjects were suffering so much was seen as a callous break with Serbian traditions.