Assassination in Sarajevo: Encyclopedia - Assassination in Sarajevo

Assassination in Sarajevo

On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Countess Sophie were killed in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Bosnian nationalist group Young Bosnia. The event, known as the Assassination in Sarajevo, was one of the triggers of World War I.

Assassination in Sarajevo - Background

Bosnia and Herzegovina had been occupied by Austria-Hungary in 1878 and annexed in 1908. Many Bosnians, particularly Bosnian Serbs, resented the occupation and preferred unification with Serbia and/or other South Slavic lands. This resentment culminated in the assassination.

The Austrian authorities picked 28 June, the date of Vidovdan, an important Serbian Orthodox holiday that commemorates St. Vitus, for the Archduke's visit. It was also the royal couple's fourteenth wedding anniversary. The Habsburg family had not considered Sophie to be of an appropriate rank to marry the heir to the throne; the two were forced to have a morganatic marriage, and Sophie led a withdrawn life in Vienna. Franz Ferdinand took the visit as an opportunity to appear in public ceremonially with his beloved wife. Her anniversary treat led to her death at her husband's side.

Assassination in Sarajevo - Conspiracy

Young Bosnia, a group of young Bosnian anarchists of various nationalities, was equipped with Fabrique Nationale de Herstal model 1910 pistols and bombs supplied by the Black Hand, a Serbian secret society with links to Serbian government.

The level of involvement of the Black Hand is disputed. Some believe that it directly organized the attack and that Young Bosnia was in fact a subsidiary organization. Others point out that Young Bosnia was ideologically different from the Black Hand and so inexperienced that the Black Handers never really believed the attempt would be successful. Most people do agree that the Black Hand supplied the weapons and cyanide to the assassins.

Direct links between the Serbian government and the terrorists action have never been proven. There is in fact evidence that the Serbian government tried in good faith to prevent terrorist infiltration of Bosnia, as they were attempting to avoid provoking the Austro-Hungarian government in the aftermath of the successful Balkan wars. Another theory postulates the involvement of the Okhrana with the Black Hand.

Assassination in Sarajevo - The assassination

Note: The exact course of events was never firmly established, mostly due to inconsistent stories of witnesses.

The seven conspirators were inexperienced with weapons, and it was only due to an extraordinary set of coincidences that they were successful. At 10:15 the parade of 6 cars passed the first member of the group, Mehmedbašić, who attempted to shoot from an upstairs window, but couldn't get a clear shot and decided to hold fire so as not to jeopardize the mission by alerting the authorities. The second member, Nedeljko Čabrinović, threw a bomb (or a stick of dynamite, according to some reports) at Ferdinand's car, but missed. The explosion destroyed the following car, severely wounding the passengers, a policeman and several members of the crowd. Čabrinović swallowed his cyanide pill and jumped into the River Miljacka. The procession sped away towards the Town Hall, and the crowd turned into chaos. Police dragged Čabrinović out of the river, and he was severely beaten by the crowd before being taken into custody. His cyanide pill was either old or of too weak a dosage and had not worked. The river was also only 4 inches deep and failed to drown him. Some of the other assassins left upon hearing the explosion, under the assumption that the Archduke had been killed.

The remaining conspirators didn't get an opportunity to attack because of the heavy crowds, and it was beginning to look like the assassination would fail. However, the Archduke decided to go to the hospital and visit the victims of Čabrinović's bomb. Meanwhile, Gavrilo Princip had gone to a nearby shop for a sandwich, either having given up or wrongly assuming that the Archduke had died in the explosion, when he spotted Ferdinand's car as it drove past near the Latin Bridge, having taken a wrong turn. After dashing up to the car, Princip fired twice: the first round went through the side of the car and hit Sophie in the abdomen, and the second hit Ferdinand in the neck. They were driven to the governor's residence where they died from their wounds.

Princip tried to kill himself first by ingesting the cyanide, and then with his gun, but he vomited the poison (which Čabrinović had also done, leading the police to believe the group had been deceived and sold a much weaker poison), and the gun was wrestled from his hand by a mob of on lookers before he had a chance to fire another shot.

Assassination in Sarajevo - Consequences

During interrogation, Princip, Čabrinović and all the others maintained their vow of silence. The authorities thought the imprisonment would be arbitrary, until one member, Danilo Ilic, lost his patience and told the authorities everything, including the fact that the guns were supplied by the Serb government.

Austria-Hungary blamed the government of Serbia for the assassination and issued an unrealistic ultimatum, which was known as the July Ultimatum. Austria-Hungary insisted that Serbia had to accept all of the conditions. To the surprise of most of Europe, Serbia accepted all of the ultimatum except one point. Austria-Hungary then declared war on July 28, 1914. It was the immediate cause of World War I.

All of the members were sentenced to prison (except Danilo Ilić, who was hanged). Čabrinović and Princip died of tuberculosis in prison.

Assassination in Sarajevo - Relics

The bullet fired by Gavrilo Princip, sometimes referred to as "the bullet that started World War I", is stored as a museum exhibit in the Konopiště Castle near the town of Benešov, Czech Republic. Princip's weapon itself, along with car the Archduke was riding in, his bloodstained uniform, and the chaise lounge on which he was placed while being attended to by physicians, are kept as a permanent exhibit in the Museum of Military History, Vienna, Austria.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Assassination in Sarajevo", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki