Gavrilo Princip is perceived on a spectrum, from “criminal terrorist” to “national hero”. The issue is so toxic, as the centennial of the June 28, 1914 assassination of Franz Ferdinand approached,in Bosnia, there was no national consensus, on how it should be acknowledged.
It was the great flash point of the 20th century, an act that set off a chain reaction of calamity: 2 World Wars, 80 million deaths, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the atomic bomb.
The Archduke, Franz Ferdinand was never much loved.
His public persona was cold, short- tempered and rumored to be insane, due to the inbreeding of the Hapsburg Family.
The only thing, divergent people hated more than each other, was a Hapsburg.
The only thing, divergent people hated more than each other, was a Hapsburg.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand with his wife Sophie, the Duchess of Hohenberg, and their three children, Princess Sophie, Maximilian, the Duke of Hohenberg,
Ferdinand ‘s marital choice was also not popular.
He married Countess Sophie Chotek, for love and both paid a heavy price.
She had been a lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Isabella, whose sister, Ferdinand was expected to marry.
Although she was made Duchess of Hohenberg in 1909, the slights were constant.
At functions, such as imperial banquets, she had to enter the room last.
She could never share in rank with Ferdinand or in the splendor it provided.
She was not ever to sit with him ,at any public occasions.
Their marriage was also morganic , which meant their children were excluded from the line of succession.
However, in 1913, Franz Ferdinand was made inspector general of the armed forces of Austria-Hungary; it was this role which took him to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, in 1914, to inspect the army’s summer maneuvers.
It also was the one loophole….which allowed Sophie enjoy the recognition of her husbands rank, only while he was acting in a military capacity , so they rode in an open air carriage, finally side by side.
Under the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, 11 nationalities lived with as many grievances.
50 million people across modern-day Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, parts of Poland and northern Italy.
Bosnia-Herzegovina was the most recent addition, having been annexed in 1908.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand had opposed the annexation, as a pointless provocation, of them and of Russia.
This alarmed the Serbs, who felt they ,foresaw the creation of a third crown, in the Austro-Hungarian empire, with Zagreb the possible capital – if that happened, the chances of creating Greater Serbia would vanish.
The formal independence of Serbia was recognized at the Congress of Berlin, in 1878.
Bosnian Serbs dreamed of joining, it as a Greater Serbia.
While Franz Ferdinand had no personal liking for the Serbs, he was not hostile to them:In fact, he was thought to be a ‘federalist’, who supported giving more autonomy to Slavic lands.
Yet, it might never have happened , if it were not for Gavrilo Princip and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
It was the murder, which sent the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire, on a collision course with Serbia.
It sent Europe down the slippery slope, which led to the outbreak of the First World War, a month after, Princip pulled the trigger on June 28, 1914.
Gavrilo Princip was born in a province of Austria -Hungary that had recently been acquired, an area known as Bosnia Herzegovina.
For centuries it had been occupied by the Ottoman Empire (Turkish) but in 1878, it was “flipped,” becoming Hapsburg (German) territory overnight.
Trifko Grabež
Garvil Pricip 19, left Sarajevo in May 1912 for Belgrade, after being expelled from school (where he had been with Grabež).
Trifun “Trifko” Grabež was a BosnianSerb member of the organization, Black Hand, and involved in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Pricip volunteered to join Serbian guerrillas, fighting OttomanTurks, in the First Balkan War, but was rejected, as too weak and sickly.
On October 17, 1912, following the example of Montenegro, their smaller ally in the tumultuous Balkan region of Europe.
Serbia and Greece declared war, on the Ottoman Empire, beginning the First Balkan War, in earnest.
Immediately after the start of hostilities Bulgarian pilot Christo Toprakchiev suggested the use of aircraft to drop bombs or grenades on Ottoman positions.
Four years earlier, a rebellion in Ottoman-held, Macedonia, by the nationalist society known as, the Young Turks, had shaken the stability of the sultan’s rule in Europe.
However, Princip’s interest extended beyond merely the Serb cause, to the freedom of all Southern Slavs.
He traveled to Belgrade, for a more Serb-nationalist education, and became an active propagandist for the Greater Serbian cause.
Princip, was inspired by Bogdan Žerajić, was a 22-year-old Serb medical student, from Herzegovina, resolved to kill Emperor Franz Joseph, at the opening of a parliament in Sarajevo, in June 1910.
Žerajić attempted to shoot, Marijan VareŠanin, the governor of the province, missed, then killed himself, with his final bullet.
Grabež, Čabrinović and Princip in Kalemegdan, May 1914.
Gavrilo Princip was admitted to Major Tankosic’s , Black Hand partisan academy in 1912, but his poor health rendered him unfit for active duty.
Two years later, Tankosic recruited Princip, and two other principal recruits,Trifko Grabez and Nedeljko Cabrinovic for a plot to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Because of his earlier partisan training, Princip was the best shot, of the three and showed leadership qualities.
The other two were chosen because of their familiarity with Sarajevo.
These three were radicalized while frequenting the subversive coffee shop scene in Belgrade by the Black Hand , a secret military society, which formed terrorist methods to promote the liberation of Serbs, outside Serbia, from Hapsburg and Ottoman rule.
In Serbia , The Black Hand was formed by officers in the Army of the Kingdom of Serbia, led by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević also known as ‘Apis’ (after the Egyptian bull god).
He was the 36-year-old head of Serbian military intelligence,instrumental in planning the assassination of Austrian ArchdukeFranz Ferdinand.
In May 1903, Dimitrijević had led Serbian officers in overthrowing King Alexander I and his wife Queen Draga, who were murdered. Vojislav Tankosić, one of the handlers of the Sarajevo assassins was a co-conspirator.
The recruits were trained in the relatively remote Morava Valley by Milan Ciganovic, the weapons man for the Black Hand.
Dimitrijević
They learned bomb throwing, bridge destruction marksmanship, etc. and were very familiar with‘The Death of a Hero’and Gacinovic’s other literature, calling for a generation of martyrs .
All three, who were already infected with Tuberculosis, agreed to take cyanide, once the assassination was complete, ensuring that they would die for the Greater Serbian cause.
Nedjelko Cabrinovic was the son of an Austrian police spy.
He led an unsettled stormy life. At 14, his father made him quit school and seek a trade.
He was a quarrelsome and when his health became poor, Nedjelko made his way to Belgrade, where he found work in an anarchist print shop.
When his health improved, Cabrinovic returned to Sarajevo and took a leading role, in a typesetters strike in 1912, which got him banished from Sarajevo.
Trifko Grabez was the son of a Serb-Orthodox priest, and the only one, who had a police record – sentenced to 2 weeks in prison, for striking his high-school teacher.
He traveled to Belgrade, to finish his education.
Members of the Young Bosnia movement in 1912
Grabez ,was the third man chosen by Major Tankosvic, of the Black Hand, to participate in a plot to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
At the end of training, they were smuggled across the border, back into Bosnia, to meet Archduke Franz Ferdinand, when he visited Sarajevo in late June, 1914.
Just as they were intended to be, the details of the plot are difficult to nail down.
Gaćinović, who joined the Black Hand in 1912, instigated a plot to kill Gen Oscar Potiorek, governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in January 1914, but the would-be assassins’ nerve failed.
Planning, now focused on the Archduke’s visit to Sarajevo, in June, which were rumored and circulated, as early as autumn 1913.
On May 27, Tankosić gave Princip and Čabrinović four Browning pistols and six small grenade-sized bombs from the Serbian State Arsenal, as well as cyanide powder with which to kill themselves after the assassination.
Weapons used by the conspirators during the assassination are displayed at the Museum of Military History (Heeresgeschichtliches Museum) in Vienna.
Čabrinović was smuggled into Bosnia on May 30, Princip and Grabež followed on May 31.
The assassins left a month before Ferdinand’s arrival, to ensure that they made it into Sarajevo, before the borders closed.
They each took separate routes along the way, hoping to cover their tracks.
They each stayed with a number of families along the way, many of whom had no idea who the assassins were or had any knowledge of their intentions.
Nevertheless, almost everyone who housed them along the route was rounded up after June 28.
Upon arrival into Sarajevo, the assassins tried to assimilate back into their former lives as best they could.
Nedeljko Cabrinovic moved back in with his parents for the time being.
Danilo Ilic invited the assassins to dinner the night before the assassination.
They were each given their weapons and a vial of cyanide.
After dinner, the assassins went out drinking for the first (and final) time in their lives.
But Princip didn’t stay long. He went to visit Bogdan Zerajic’s grave at the back of Sarajevo’s cemetery.
He brought dirt from free Serbia, promising that the following day, would be the day of liberation.
Nedlejko Cabrinovic was overcome with emotion throughout the morning.
Danilo Ilić
He wore his best clothes, and visited an apothecary beforehand, to have his picture taken.
He arranged to have the photos sent to his grandmother in Croatia, so she could remember him.
They were joined in Sarajevo, by a four-man cell recruited by Danilo Ilić, a Black Hand member aged 23.
He had trained as a schoolteacher, and worked in Sarajevo as a proof-reader and the editor of a local paper.
Ilic was not trained for the assassination by the Black Hand in Serbia, but had been on the fringes of terrorist societies for several years.
When the Black Hand decided to assassinate the Heir-Apparent to the Austrian throne, Ilic was eager to join the plot.
It was Ilic ,who recruited three additional local Sarajevans; to give the assassin group a more grass-roots (and less Serbian inspired) appearance.
Ilic gave the two high school students (Cubrilovic and Popovic) a one-day training course in their roles.
Mehmedbasic had been involved in Black Hand plots before, though without particular success.
The recruits were:
Muhamed MehmedbaŠić, 28, a Muslim carpenter from Herzegovina, who had been involved in the botched plan to kill Potiorek earlier in the year.
Muhamed MehmedbaŠić
Cvjetko Popović, 18, was a school pupil in Sarajevo (he died in the city in 1980)
Vaso Čubrilović, 17, was also at school in Sarajevo and a member of Mlada Bosna, Young Bosnia.
Before positioning themselves along the parade route, the assassins met with Danilo Ilic one final time.
His final words to them: ‘Be strong, be brave.
Ferdinand and Sophie attended mass in the morning before boarding the train into Sarajevo.
The day before had been cold and wet but the morning of June 28 was sunny it was St Vitus’s Day, the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo on the ‘Field of Blackbirds’ in 1389, in which the Ottomans annihilated the Serbs.
It remained a day of profound significance to all Serb nationalists.
The couple was returning from an official visit to City Hall and were driven an open-topped Double Phaeton built by the Viennese firm of GrÄf & Sift.
Black Hand Members
The assassin, Gavrilo Princip burned with the fire of Slavic nationalism.
He envisioned the death of the Archduke as the key that would unlock the shackles binding his people to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
A six-car motorcade began, to move from the railway station, along the river to the City Hall.
Danilo Ilić and the six other would-be assassins were already stationed along the route.
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie traveled with Gen Oscar Potiorek, the governor of Bosnia.
Next to the driver, in the front, was Count Franz von Harrach, in charge of their security.
Ilic (who may have been unarmed) paced back and forth between the others, seeing that they were in position and giving words of encouragement.
Everyone was eager for the ceremony.‘ Six vehicles of dignitaries made up the procession that traveled along the parade route.
The first two assassins along the route, one of the high schoolers and Muhamed Mehmedbašić, were paralyzed with fear when, Ferdinand’s car passed.
As the Archduke’s car neared, he was about to throw his bomb but panicked.
They didn’t act.
But Nedlejko Cabrinovic, overcome with emotions throughout the morning, was composed when his time came.
He was standing by river, and was the first to act.
He primed his bomb and threw it.
The bomb bounced off the rear of Ferdinand’s car, before landing ten feet behind it, upon detonation.
The car behind Ferdinand’s, bore the brunt of the explosion.
Ferdinand was unharmed, but two of his aides were seriously injured.
The driver saw it coming and accelerated.
A small splinter cut Sophie’s cheek.
After Čabrinović’s bomb missed the Archduke’s car, four other conspirators lost an opportunity to attack, because of the heavy crowds and the high speed of the Archduke’s car.
To avoid capture, Čabrinović swallowed his cyanide powder,but he cyanide was expired and didn’t work.
So he jumped into the river Miljacka to make sure he died, but the rive was only 10 centimeters (4 in) deep, due to an unusual drought.
Čabrinović’s Arrest
A few seconds later, he was fished out and detained by police.
As he was taken away, he supposedly was heard saying “I am a Serb hero.”
The procession sped back to the City Hall .
“Come on, that fellow is clearly insane, let us proceed …”
Franz Ferdinand responded.
Princip, unable to get off a shot, retreated dejectedly to a side street in shame.
Knowing the party would return from City Hall later, he moved across to the right-hand side of Franz Joseph Street.
At City Hall, the mayor of Sarajevo, Fehim Effendi Curcic, had been in the first car, began a nervous speech of welcome.
Franz Ferdinand interrupted, furiously: ‘I come here as your guest and you people greet me with bombs!’
The couple leave City Hall
The mayor was allowed to continue, then the Archduke spoke, the paper he held bore the bloodstains of one of the officers, in the third car.
Having gathered himself, he praised the cheers of the people of Sarajevo, which he took to be an expression of relief, at the failure of the assassination.
At City Hall, Ferdinand mustered his resolve to continue the trip, but with one concession.
Only major thoroughfares would be used, no more side streets. But not everyone got the message.
Franz Ferdinand wanted to visit Potiorek’s wounded adjutant, in hospital.
Originally, Sophie was to have gone to the governor’s palace,
while her husband went to the museum, but now she said she wished to accompany him.
Franz Ferdinand escaped unhurt from a first assassination attempt on June 28, 1914 when an assassin threw a grenade at his car. Others were injured and the archduke insisted on visiting them at a hospital.
No one told the drivers of the change of plan,
so when the lead car in the motorcade turned right into Franz Joseph Street, the Archduke’s driver followed.
Potiorek yelled, that was the wrong the way.
The car was stopped and – without a reverse gear – and had to be pushed backwards.
The motorcade was to have returned along Appel Quay and turn right into Franz Joseph Street, heading for the National Museum.
But now the museum visit was cancelled; the route would be straight , back down Appel Quay.
But when the first scheduled turn came, he took it, and somewhat by happenstance,
there sat a dejected Gavrilo Princip, unable to believe Ferdinand’s car was turning around right in front of him.
It was an opportunity, he would not waste-Gavrilo Princip, who fired two shots at the Archduke. in photo
Princip had been standing outside Moritz Schiller’s cafe on Franz Joseph Street.
Now he ran forward, his pistol drawn.
Moritz Schillers Delicatessen
He paused on seeing the Duchess, but fired twice at point-blank range.
Whether he was lucky or whether his firearms training in Belgrade had paid off, both bullets hit their targets.
The first shot, went into Ferdinand’s neck.
The second into Sophie’s stomach.
That’s all Princip could get off, but both proved fatal. ‘
The first went through the door of the car and hit Sophie in the abdomen; the second hit Franz Ferdinand in the neck.
Harrach, aware of the continuing threat, had been travelling on the running board.
Now he saw the Duchess slump across her husband, surely aware that both were dying, and heard the Archduke’s beseeching words to her:
Sopherl! Sopherl! Sterbe nicht! Bleibe am Leben fÜr unsere Kinde! – Sophie, Sophie, don’t die, stay alive for our children!
Sophie died almost instantly, the archduke shortly afterwards, in the nearby Konak palace.
Shortly after 11am, both were dead, the same day as their anniversary.
Čabrinović, Ilić and Princip taken to court.
As Princip prepared to kill himself, his gun was knocked from his hands, as well as his packet of cyanide, as the crowd swarmed around him, kicking and punching; he was saved from probable death, by his arrest.
A month later, WWI began.
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie lying in state
Once in custody, Princip and Cabrinovic managed to confuse their amateurish interrogators, revealing nothing, of the Black Hand organization and sponsorship of the plot.
Illic, was picked up a few days later, by Sarajevo police, in a routine round-up of suspects,
lost his cool and told the police nearly everything about the plot,in an attempt to mitigate a likely death penalty for his role.
Up until Ilic’s confession, the other assassins maintained a successful code of silence.
Unlike Princip, who stoically maintained, he was not a criminal, Grabez admitted his guilt.
After the WWI began, Princip was put on trial and convicted of murder.
Within hours, he appeared in court.
Danilo Ilic’s confession nearly brought down their house of cards, but during the trial (in which all the defendants were present)
Princip was quietly able to exercise his leadership. The code of silence held.
in the Sarajevo courtroom. Left to right: Trifko Grabez, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, Gavrilo Princip, Danilo Ilic, and Misko Jovanovic.
Danilo Ilic and the others were tried in October 1914.
While the other six were under 20 years old, and therefore not eligible for the death penalty.
Some of the defendants expressed remorse over their crime, Princip maintained his silence and with a stoic detachment,
his final statement in court was short.
” In trying to insinuate that someone else has instigated the assassination, one strays from the truth.
The idea arose in our own minds, and we ourselves executed it. We have loved the people. I have nothing to say in my defense.”
Princip was found guilty.
Whether he would receive the death penalty or a prison term, hinged on his exact birthday.
One account had him turn 20 days before the crime, another that he turned 20 a few days after .
The court gave Princip the benefit of the doubt, and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
He died in the hospital of Theresienstadt prison in April of 1918, from tuberculosis of the bone.
Cabrinovic expressed tearful remorse for his acts.
The humanity of his victim apparently broke through the youthful wall of idealism, when he heard Franz Ferdinand’s words to his dying wife read in the court.
“We have profound regrets…we did not know that the late Franz Ferdinand was a father.”
Cabrinovic was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He died in January of 1916 of tuberculosis.
Cabrinovic confessed to his crimes, but believed himself a Serb hero and true anarchist, claiming:
‘We are not criminals. We are honest people, animated by noble sentiments; we are idealists; we wanted to do good; we have loved our people; and we shall die for our ideals.’
During the trial of the men accused of the assassination of Ferdinand and his wife, Čabrinović was the only defendant to express regrets and apologize to the children of the victims.
Princess Sophie and her two brothers are sometimes described as the first orphans of the First World War
Princess Sophie, Max and Ernst, were told about Čabrinović’s apology and wrote a letter to him.
In the letter, they said they had heard about his apology and stated that his conscience could be at peace because they forgave him for his role in the murder of their parents.
Sophie and Max signed the letter; Ernst refused.
The letter was delivered personally to Cabrinovic, by the Jesuit Father Anton Puntigam, in his cell at Theresienstadt.
On 23 January 1916, Sophie, Max and Ernst were informed that Čabrinović had died
As he was still a minor, he was not executed, but was sentenced to twenty years in prison.
He died on 20 January 1916 of tuberculosis in a Terezín prison.
He was secretly buried by Austro-Hungarian officials in Sarajevo in a cemented grave right after his death.
Two years later, when Gavrilo Princip died, also of tuberculosis, they were buried in the same grave.
Both assassins died before the “Great War” ended and without seeing the defeat and collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
After Čabrinović’s arrest, his mother also ended up in prison in Sarajevo, where she died.
His father was interned in the BosanskaKrajina.
Čabrinović’s father died in 1930, the result of torture in a Sarajevo prison.
For his role in the assassination, Ilic was found guilty.
While the other six were under 20 years old, and therefore not eligible for the death penalty, Ilic (23), was sentenced to death.
He was executed by hanging on February 3rd, 1915, in a Sarajevo prison.
Even after death, Sophie’s social troubles followed her.
Stiff protocol would not permit her coffin to lie in state, in the same chapel as a Hapsburg.
Only the personal intervention of Emperor Franz Joseph, allowed her coffin to lie beside her husband’s.
Protocol would not be completely denied, however.
Her coffin was set lower and with far less decoration, lest anyone forget her lesser station.
She was not permitted to be buried in plots reserved for Hapsburg royalty, so both she and her husband, were buried in crypts beneath the chapel of Franz Ferdinand’s castle — Artstetten.
In March 1917, “Apis” was arrested in a government crackdown on the Black Hand.
Several theories exist for why.
One, is that Prime Minister Pasic and the Prince Regent were preparing to negotiate a separate peace with Austria and that they feared Black Hand reprisals.
Another theory was that Pasic wanted to eliminate “Apis” and the others because they could expose government involvement in the Sarajevo murders.
Yet another theory is that “Apis” was actively subverting the government.
For whatever reason, “Apis” and many others received a rigged trial before a military tribunal.
“Apis” and three others were sentenced to death for treason.
Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic was shot at sunrise on June 24, 1917.
Prison terms, death sentences and acquittals were as follows:
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie lying in state
