Black Hand: Encyclopedia - Black Hand

Black Hand

Black Hand, or Crna ruka (Црна рука), officially Ujedinjenje ili Smrt (Уједињење или смрт) ("Unification or Death") was a secret association founded in Serbia in May 1911 as part of the pan-Serbian nationalist movement, with the intention of uniting all of the territories containing Serb populations (notably Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed by Austria-Hungary in October 1908). The society's implication in the June 1914 assassination in Sarajevo of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria helped spark World War I.

The group encompassed a range of ideological outlooks, from conspiratorially-minded army officers to idealistic youths, sometimes tending towards republicanism, despite the acquiescence of nationalistic royal circles in its activities (the movement's leader, Col. Dragutin Dimitrijević or "Apis", had been instrumental in the June 1903 coup which had brought King Petar Karađorđević to the Serbian throne following 45 years of rule by the rival Obrenović dynasty). The group was denounced as Nihilist by the Austro-hungarian press and compared to the Russian People's Will and the Chinese Assassination Corps which, like the Black Hand, used assassination to achieve anti-imperialist political goals.

Just prior to World War I, the Black Hand supplied weapons and assistance to fifteen people in a plot to assassinate the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand while he was visiting Bosnia. Only three of the assassins actually made an attempt, and only one, Gavrilo Princip (who was not actually a member of the gang), succeeded in killing him. The refusal of Serbia to turn over the Archduke's assassins resulted in Austria-Hungary's declaration of war, effectively starting WWI. Three assassins were later imprisoned and one was hanged for the deed.

In May 1917 Dimitrijević was tried on charges of plotting against the royal government, then exiled in Thessaloniki, Greece following Serbia's occupation by Austro-Hungarian, German, and Bulgarian forces in late 1915. His subsequent execution signaled the Black Hand's eclipse by the monarchist White Hand, which was to dominate the political outlook of military leaders in the inter-war Yugoslav kingdom.

Category: Serbian history

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