On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, Gavrilo Princip, a member of the nationalist group Young Bosnia (or Mlada Bosna), killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife Countess Sophie Chotek, in when their accession to the throne seemed imminent[1]. This attack in Sarajevo was the triggering event of the First World War.
Historical and geopolitical context
The Latin Bridge (which was later temporarily renamed to Pont Princip), in front of which the assassination took place.
The Latin Bridge (which was later temporarily renamed to Pont Princip), in front of which the assassination took place.
Since 1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina had been occupied by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, which annexed it in 1908. Many inhabitants, especially Serbs, refused this occupation and wanted reunification with Serbia or other countries. slavs. This resentment eventually led to this attack.
The Austrian authorities chose June 28, 1914, the day of Vidovan (an important religious holiday among Orthodox Serbs, which celebrates St. Vitus), as the date of the Archduke's visit. This date also corresponded to the fourteenth wedding anniversary of the royal couple. The Habsburgs considering Sophie Chotek, according to the Statute of the House of Habsburg, although of high and old Czech nobility, as of insufficient birth to marry the heir to the imperial throne, these had been forced into a morganatic marriage, and Sophie had since led a retired life in the city of Vienna. On June 28, François-Ferdinand therefore took advantage of this visit to appear publicly with his wife, which had dramatic consequences.
The circumstances of François-Ferdinand's inspection trip following the major maneuvers organized in Bosnia-Herzegovina seem to have favored the assassins. The day chosen, June 28, was the anniversary of the defeat of the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389 against the Ottomans. The trip of the Hereditary Archduke, Inspector General of the Armed Forces, was considered by the Serbian minority as a provocation. Bilinski, Minister of Finance of the Monarchy, in charge of the administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Vienna, also refused to heed the warning of the Serbian ambassador in Vienna, Jovan Jovanovic, that an attack was in preparation.
Prince Montenuovo's order not to render military honors and therefore to withdraw the troops (40,000 men) from Sarajevo, on the grounds that the Duchess of Hohenberg, not being a member of the Imperial Family, could not receive them, deprived the military protection couple. Finally, the route error, after the first attack two hours earlier, forcing the car to stop in the middle of the crowd, put the couple under fire from Princip.
All this suggested that the assassination of François-Ferdinand suited many people. Count Tisza, Prime Minister of Hungary, was even suspected of having taken part in it because on the announcement of the death of François-Ferdinand, who was frankly hostile to him, he exclaimed in the middle of Parliament in Budapest:"The will of God has come to pass!" However, this suspicion seems unfounded. It does, however, give an idea of the atmosphere of the time.
The plot
Young Bosnia, a group of young anarchists of various nationalities [ref. necessary], was equipped with pistol models from 1910, issued from the FN Herstal, and bombs supplied by the Black Hand, a secret society linked to the Serbian government.
The degree of Dark Hand involvement is disputed. Some believe that this organization was responsible for the attack, and that the members of Young Bosnia were only the executors. Others consider that Young Bosnia was ideologically far removed from the Black Hand, and was so inexperienced, that the Black Hand believed the plot would never have succeeded. However, most agree that the Dark Hand supplied the weapons and cyanide to the assassins.
Direct links between the Serbian government and the action of terrorists have never been proven. There are in fact indications that the Serbian government tried, in good faith, to stifle terrorist threats in Serbia, since it avoided arousing the wrath of the Austro-Hungarian government, after the backlash of the Balkan wars. According to another theory, the Okhrana participated in the attack with the Black Hand.
Relations between Austria-Hungary and Serbia in 1914 were good, the Serbian Prime Minister, Nicolas Pasic particularly attached to this good neighborliness, which was reproached to him by the partisans of a tougher pan-Slavic line hostile to the Austrian presence in the Balkans.
The assassination
Here again, no source can determine with certainty what really happened. The minutes of the trial, however, make it possible to know how the plot was organized and carried out. Leaving from Belgrade, where they were exercising, the conspirators were able to cross the border without incident with the certain complicity of agents in the service of Serbia and stay in Sarajevo a few days before the arrival of the princely couple.
The seven conspirators had no experience in the handling of weapons, and it was only by an extraordinary succession of coincidences that they achieved their end. At 10:15 a.m., the six-car parade passed the first member of the group, Mehmedbašić, who tried to aim from an upper-story window, but failed to get a good angle of fire, and decided against it. shoot so as not to jeopardize the mission. The second member, Nedeljko Čabrinović, threw a bomb (or a stick of dynamite, according to some reports) at Franz Ferdinand's car, but missed it:the prince took the bomb in his hand and threw it on the ground [2]; the explosion destroyed the next car, seriously injuring its passengers, as well as a policeman and several people in the crowd. Čabrinović swallowed his cyanide pill and jumped into the Miljacka River. The procession then hurried towards City Hall, and the crowd panicked. The police pulled Čabrinović out of the river, and he was violently beaten by the crowd before being taken into custody. The cyanide pill he had taken was old or of too low dosage, so it had not had the desired effect. In addition, the river was not more than 10cm deep, and he could not drown in it. Among the other perpetrators of the plot, some fled upon hearing the explosion, presuming that the Archduke had been killed.
The remaining conspirators did not have the opportunity to attack because of the mob movements, and the assassination was on the verge of becoming a failure. However, the Archduke decided to go to the hospital to visit the victims of the Čabrinović bomb. Meanwhile, Gavrilo Princip, for whom the main motive for the attack was "Revenge for all the suffering that Austria is causing the people to endure" had gone to a nearby shop to buy a sandwich (because he had resigned himself, or else because he had mistakenly believed that the Archduke had died in the explosion), and he saw François-Ferdinand's car passing near the Latin Bridge, the prince wanting to get himself even news of the wounded officer. Princip caught up with the car, then fired twice:the first bullet went through the edge of the car and hit Sophie in the abdomen; the second bullet hits François-Ferdinand in the neck. Both were taken to the governor's residence where they died of their injuries fifteen minutes later.
Princip attempted suicide, first by ingesting the cyanide and then with his pistol, but he vomited the poison (which had also happened to Nedeljko Čabrinović, which led the police to believe that the group had been sold a much too weak poison), and the pistol was snatched from his hands by a group of onlookers before he had time to use it.
Consequences
During their interrogation, Princip, Čabrinović, and the others disclosed nothing of the conspiracy. The authorities considered that the imprisonment was arbitrary, until one of the members, Danilo Ilic, during a banal check of papers, took fright, lost his control, and revealed everything to the two agents who had him. questioned, including the fact that the weapons were supplied by the Serbian government.
Austria-Hungary accused Serbia of the assassination and, during the Crown Council of July 7, 1914, issued an ultimatum. One of the points of this ultimatum was particularly unachievable, so that Serbia could not accept all the conditions. Only Count Tisza opposed it. The next day, July 8, 1914, he wrote a letter warning Franz-Josef:"An attack on Serbia would very likely lead to the intervention of Russia and a world war would ensue." On July 25, 1914, supported by Russia, the Serbian government refused the participation of Austrian police officers in the investigation on Serbian territory. Diplomatic relations between the two states are severed. On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, which, through the interplay of alliances, led to the First World War. During the war, the Russian Revolution broke out, then the German defeat and the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the coming to power of the Nazis, the Second World War and the Cold War, a cycle which only ended in 1991 with the disappearance of the USSR. The whole story of the century changed by 2 shots.
Yet in the Wiener Zeitung of July 29, 1914, Franz-Josef declared to his subjects:"I have examined everything and weighed everything; it is with a clear conscience that I set out on the path indicated to me by my duty."