A Sarajevo pistol shot that opened the Great War’s fuse
On 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo, Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie. Six young assassins, coordinated by Danilo Ilić, had been aided by Serbia’s Black Hand network.
The six young men waiting along the route in Sarajevo were Princip, Nedeljko Čabrinović, Trifko Grabež, Vaso Čubrilović, Cvjetko Popović and Muhamed Mehmedbašić, organised by Danilo Ilić. All but Mehmedbašić were Bosnian Serbs belonging to what became known as Young Bosnia, and every one of them was an Austro-Hungarian subject rather than a citizen of Serbia. Their aim was to break Bosnia and Herzegovina away from Habsburg rule and join it to a united South Slav state. Major Vojislav Tankosić supplied their bombs and pistols and trained them, and they travelled through a covert chain of safe houses run by the Serbian agent Rade Malobabić.
Behind them stood the Black Hand, founded in May 1911 by members of the Narodna Odbrana society, including Dragutin Dimitrijević, head of military intelligence on the Serbian general staff. Dimitrijević had already led the officers who stormed the Belgrade palace in May 1903 and murdered King Alexander Obrenović and Queen Draga. The dynasty that replaced them leaned toward Russia and away from Vienna, and Serbian anger grew after Austria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia in 1908, three decades after the Treaty of Berlin had let it occupy the Ottoman province.
The date carried layered meaning. The archduke had come to watch army manoeuvres and open a museum, and 28 June marked the fourteenth anniversary of his morganatic marriage to Sophie, who could ride beside him in public only when he was on military duty. It was also Vidovdan, the Serbian feast recalling the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, whose legend inspired the plotters. Franz Ferdinand was thought to favour a third, Slavic crown within the empire, and Princip told the court that stopping such reforms was one motive.
Twenty-five people were tried in Sarajevo in October 1914; five of the six assassins were under twenty, which spared Princip execution. In 1917 a Serbian court at Salonika convicted Black Hand leaders of treason on charges now widely thought fabricated, executing three. The killing set off the July Crisis and Austria-Hungary’s war on Serbia.
Source: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
