It’s not for nothing that Sarajevo is called the city of the First World War. Figuratively speaking, it began in this city in the Balkans with the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Members of Mlada Bosna and the Serbian government that supported them plan to kill the heir
The nationalist organization "Black Hand" began in 1913, when Franz Ferdinand was appointed inspector of maneuvers in Bosnia. They were supposed to take place in Bosnia and Herzegovina in June 1914. After the maneuvers, the Archduke and his wife Sophia planned to open a new building for the National Museum in Sarajevo.
The main purpose of killing the crown prince, who held moderate views, was the exit of the lands inhabited by the southern Slavs, and primarily Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The plot was planned by the chief of Serbian military intelligence, Colonel Dragutin Dmitrievich. The Serbs not only developed the plan, but also supplied the group of six executors, one of whom was 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, with the necessary weapons, bombs and money.
On Sunday morning June 28, 1914, by the way, the 14th wedding anniversary of Franz Ferdinand and Sophia, the day of St. Vitus and the day of the defeat of the Serbs in the battle with the Turks on Kosovo, six young members of Mlada Bosna took pre-arranged places on the route following a motorcade. Bosnian Governor Oscar Potiorek met the heir and his wife in the morning at the Sarajevo train station.
A motorcade of six cars, decorated with the yellow and black flags of the Habsburg Monarchy and the red and yellow national flags of Bosnia, took the noble guests to the center of the Bosnian capital. The Archduke with his wife, Potiorek and Lieutenant Colonel von Harrach found themselves in the third car, an open convertible Graf & Stift 28/32 PS.
The program of the visit of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was known in advance. It was to begin with a visit to the barracks near the station. At 10 o'clock the cortege of cars headed to the town hall, where the Archduke was to give a speech.
Despite careful consideration, the plan failed at the very beginning. The first of the Young Bosniaks whom the Austrian heir passed by was Mohammed Mehmedbašić, armed with a grenade, standing in the crowd near the Mostar cafe. He let the cars pass, just like Vaso Cubrilovic, who was standing several tens of meters away, armed with a revolver and a grenade.
Nedeljko Čabrinović, who took up a position on the embankment of the Milacki River, managed to throw a grenade. She hit the target - the heir's car, but bounced off the convertible top onto the road. The grenade exploded as the fourth car with the guards drove past. Shrapnel killed the driver and injured about 20 people.
In the photo: Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Čabrinović swallowed a cyanide pill and jumped into the river. However, the poison turned out to be expired and only caused vomiting. The townspeople pulled the young revolutionary out of the shallow river, severely beat him and handed him over to the police. The cortege stopped, but the rest of the conspirators were unable to carry out their plans due to the turmoil and crowds of townspeople who covered the Archduke.
The cars with the guests proceeded to the town hall. There, Franz Ferdinand's retinue held a small military council. The heir's assistants insisted on immediate departure from Sarajevo, but Potiorek assured the guest that there would be no more incidents. Franz Ferdinand and his wife followed his advice, but reduced the program of their further stay in Sarajevo to visiting the wounded in the hospital.
Fatal for the Archduke and his wife, Princip and the entire planet was the absence of the assistant governor, Lieutenant Colonel von Merritzi. He was wounded in the hospital and therefore did not convey Potiorek's order to change the route to the driver Loika. As a result of the confusion, the car with Franz Ferdinand turned right onto Franz Joseph Street, and the rest of the cars went to the hospital along the Appel embankment.
Gavrilo Princip by that time already knew about the unsuccessful attempt and, on his own initiative, in the hope of meeting the Archduke on the way back, moved to a new location - at the Moritz Schiller Delicatessen food store next to the Latin Bridge.
Despite the strong excitement, Princip was not taken aback when, leaving the cafe where he was buying a sandwich, he unexpectedly saw a car with Franz Ferdinand driving out of a side street. It was difficult to miss, because he fired from a Belgian-made semi-automatic pistol from a distance of no more than 1.5-2 meters. The first bullet hit Sofia in the stomach, although, as Gavrilo testified at the trial, he was aiming at Potiorek. The second bullet hit Franz Ferdinand in the neck.
The wounds turned out to be fatal. Franz Ferdinand and Sophia died within a few minutes of each other: the duchess on the way to the governor's residence, where doctors were waiting for them, and the Archduke was already in Potiorek's mansion.
Princip also wanted to commit suicide and chewed the ampoule, but the poison turned out to be from the same batch and only caused severe nausea. Spectators tied up the Young Bosnian and beat him so badly that in prison he had to have his arm amputated.
All conspirators and organizers of the conspiracy, with the exception of Mehmedbašić, were detained and convicted. They were accused of high treason, for which the death penalty was imposed. Only minors were pardoned, that is, those who had not yet turned 20 years old on June 28. None of the five direct participants in the assassination attempt was executed for this reason.
Three of the accused were executed by hanging. Two more death penalty replaced by life and 20-year imprisonment. Eleven people, including Princip, who received 20 years, were sentenced to various prison terms. Nine participants in the trial were acquitted.
Many convicts died in Theresienstadt prison from consumption. Vaso Cubrilovic lived the longest, receiving 16 years. He became a prominent Yugoslav historian and lived until 1990.
CRIMINAL
Gavrilo Princip was born in 1894 in the village of Oblyaje in western Bosnia. His father Petar worked as a village postman. The family lived poorly. The only food for the three sons Petar and Maria was often bread and water.
Gavrilo was the middle son. He studied well. At the age of 13 he was sent to study in Sarajevo, where he was imbued with the spirit of freedom. Four years later, the future “arsonist” of the First World War went to study in neighboring Serbia. There he joined the revolutionary organization Mlada Bosna, which fought for the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Of course, they wanted to execute the murderer of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but he shot the heir a month before his 20th birthday. Under Austrian law, the maximum penalty for minors was 20 years' imprisonment.
To enhance the punishment, Gavrilo was not fed one day a month. In prison, Princip fell ill with tuberculosis. He died in the prison hospital on April 28, 1918.
HISTORY WITH GEOGRAPHY
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a region in the western Balkan Peninsula inhabited by Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. In the middle of the 15th century it became part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1878, after the Congress of Berlin, it came under the control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in which Eastern Slavs, despite the common religion, were not treated much better than in Turkey. In 1908, Vienna announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Bosnian crisis, which led to the annexation of the region and brought the continent to the brink of war, was caused by a surge of nationalism in Serbia after Peter I Karadjordjevic came to power in 1903. IN last years Before the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, anti-Austrian sentiment was rapidly growing. The main goal of the nationalist Bosnian Serbs was to separate the region from Austria-Hungary and create Greater Serbia. This goal was to be served by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
CONSEQUENCES
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand became the pretext for the outbreak of the First World War, for which Europe was ready and, one might say, desired. Since Young Bosna was backed by the Black Hand, which consisted mainly of nationalist Serbian officers, Vienna accused Belgrade of organizing the murder and presented it with a humiliating ultimatum. The Serbs accepted its terms, except for paragraph 6, which required “an investigation with the participation of the Austrian government against each of the participants in the Sarajevo murder.”
Exactly a month after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary, incited by Berlin, declared war on Serbia. July 28, 1914 is considered the actual day the First World War began, which involved dozens of countries. The war lasted 1,564 days and resulted in the death of 10 million soldiers and officers and 12 million civilians. About 55 million more were injured, many left crippled.
First World War redrawn the world map. She destroyed four largest empires: Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, which outlived its “gravedigger” Princip by only six months, and Turkey, and also caused two revolutions in Russia and one in Germany.
Sarajevo murder or the murder in Sarajevo - one of the most notorious murders of the 20th century, standing almost alongside the assassination of US President J. Kennedy. The murder took place on June 28, 1914 in the city of Sarajevo (now the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina). The victim of the murder was the heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife Countess Sophia of Hohenberg was killed along with him.
The murder was carried out by a group of six terrorists, but only one person fired the shots - Gavrilo Princip.
Reasons for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand
Many historians still debate the purpose of killing the heir to the Austrian throne, but most agree that the political purpose of the murder was the liberation of the South Slavic lands from the rule of the Austro-Ugric Empire.Franz Ferdinand, according to historians, wanted to forever annex the Slavic lands to the empire through a series of reforms. As the killer, Gavrilo Princip, would later say, one of the reasons for the murder was precisely the prevention of these reforms.
Planning a murder
A certain Serbian nationalist organization called the “Black Hand” developed the murder plan. Members of the organization were looking for ways to revive the revolutionary spirit of the Serbs; they also spent a long time looking for who among the Austro-Ugric elite should become a victim and a way to achieve this goal. The list of targets included Franz Ferdinand, as well as the governor of Bosnia, Oskar Potiorek, great commander Austro-Ugric Empire.At first it was planned that a certain Muhammad Mehmedbašić should carry out this murder. The assassination attempt on Potiorek ended in failure and he was ordered to kill another man, Franz Ferdinand.
Almost everything was ready to kill the Archduke, except the weapons that the terrorists were waiting for whole month. To ensure that the young group of students did everything right, they were given a pistol to practice with. At the end of May, the terrorists received several pistols, six grenades, maps with escape routes, gendarme movements, and even poison pills.
The weapons were distributed to the terrorist group on June 27. The very next morning, terrorists were placed along the route of Franz Ferdinand's motorcade. The head of the Black Hand, Ilic, told his people before the murder to be brave and do what they must do for the sake of the country.
Murder
Franz Ferdinand arrived in Sarajevo by train in the morning and was met at the station by Oskar Pitiorek. Franz Ferdinand, his wife and Pitiorek got into the third car (the motorcade consisted of six cars), and it was completely open. First, the Archduke inspected the barracks, and then headed along the embankment, where the murder took place.The first of the terrorists was Muhammad Mehmedbašić, and he was armed with a grenade, but his attack on Franz Ferdinand failed. The second was the terrorist Churbilovich, he was already armed with a grenade and a pistol, but he was unsuccessful. The third terrorist was Čabrinović, armed with a grenade.
At 10:10 Čabrinović threw a grenade at the Archduke's car, but it bounced off and exploded on the road. The explosion injured about 20 people. Immediately after this, Chabrinovic swallowed a capsule of poison and threw it into the river. But he started vomiting and the poison did not work, and the river itself turned out to be too shallow, and the police caught him without difficulty, beat him and then arrested him.
The Sarajevo murder seemed to have failed as the motorcade sped by high speed past the rest of the terrorists. The Archduke then went to the Town Hall. There they tried to calm him down, but he was too excited, he did not understand and constantly insisted that he had arrived on a friendly visit, and a bomb was thrown at him.
Then his wife calmed Franz Ferdinand and he gave a speech. Soon it was decided to interrupt the planned program, and the Archduke decided to visit the wounded in the hospital. Already at 10:45 they were back in the car. The car headed towards the hospital along Franz Joseph Street.
Princip learned that the assassination attempt had ended in complete failure and decided to change his location, settling near the Moritz Schiller Delicatessen store, through which the Archduke’s return route passed.
When the Archduke's car caught up with the killer, he suddenly jumped out and fired two shots at a distance of several steps. One hit the Archduke in the neck and pierced the jugular vein, the second shot hit the Archduke's wife in the stomach. The killer was arrested at the same moment. As he later said in court, he did not want to kill Franz Ferdinand’s wife, and this bullet was intended for Pitiorek.
The wounded Archduke and his wife did not die immediately; immediately after the assassination attempt they were taken to the hospital to receive assistance. The Duke, being conscious, begged his wife not to die, to which she constantly replied: “It’s normal.” Referring to the wound, she consoled him as if everything was fine with her. And immediately after that she died. The Archduke himself died ten minutes later. The Sarajevo murder was thus crowned with success.
Consequences of the murder
After their deaths, the bodies of Sophia and Franz Ferdinand were sent to Vienna, where they were buried in a modest ceremony, which greatly angered the new heir to the Austrian throne.A few hours later, pogroms began in Sarajevo, during which everyone who loved the Archduke brutally dealt with all Serbs, the police did not react to this. A huge number of Serbs were brutally beaten and wounded, some were killed, and a huge number of buildings were damaged, destroyed and looted.
Very soon all the Sarajevo murderers were arrested, and then the Austro-Hungarian military were also arrested, who handed over the weapons to the murderers. The verdict was passed on September 28, 1914; everyone was sentenced to death for high treason.
However, not all participants in the conspiracy were adults under Serbian law. Therefore, ten participants, including the murderer Gavrilo Princip himself, were sentenced to 20 years in a maximum security prison. Five people were executed by hanging, one was imprisoned for life and another nine were acquitted. Princip himself died in 1918 in prison from tuberculosis.
The murder of the heir to the Austrian throne shocked almost all of Europe; many countries took the side of Austria. Immediately after the murder, the government of the Austro-Ugric Empire sent a number of demands to Serbia, among which was the extradition of all those who had a hand in this murder.
Serbia immediately mobilized its army and was supported by Russia. Serbia refused some important demands for Austria, after which on July 25, Austria broke off diplomatic relations with Serbia.
A month later, Austria declared war and began mobilizing its forces. In response to this, Russia, France, and England came out for Serbia, which served as the beginning of the First World War. Soon all the great countries of Europe had chosen sides.
Germany took the side of Austria, Ottoman Empire, and later Bulgaria joined. Thus, two huge alliances were formed in Europe: the Entente (Serbia, Russia, England, France and several dozen other states that made only a small contribution to the course of the First World War) and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria and Belgium (the Ottoman Empire soon joined them). empire).
Thus, the Sarajevo murder became the reason for the outbreak of the First World War. There were more than enough reasons for it to start, but the reason turned out to be just that. The fields that Gavrilo Princip fired from his pistol are called “the bullet that started the First World War.”
I wonder what's in the museum military history in the city of Vienna, everyone can look at the car in which the Archduke was riding, at his uniform with traces of the blood of Franz Ferdinand, at the pistol itself that started the war. And the bullet is kept in the small Czech castle of Konopiste.
If Ferdinand and his wife had been immediately taken to the clinic, they could have been saved. But the courtiers close to the royals behaved extremely ridiculously and decided to take the wounded to the residence. Franz Ferdinand and his wife died along the way from loss of blood. All the rebels who participated in the murder were detained and convicted (the main organizers were executed, the rest received long prison sentences).
After the assassination of the Archduke, anti-Serbian pogroms began in the city. The city authorities did not oppose this in any way. Many civilians were injured. Austria-Hungary understood the true meaning of the assassination attempt. This was the “final warning” of Serbia, which was striving for independence (although the country’s official authorities did not take responsibility for the murder in Sarajevo).
Austria-Hungary even received warnings about the impending assassination attempt, but chose to ignore them. There is also evidence that not only Black Hand nationalists, but also Serbian military intelligence were involved in the assassination attempt. The operation was led by Colonel Rade Malobabic. Moreover, the investigation revealed evidence that the Black Hand was directly subordinate to Serbian military intelligence.
After the assassination of the Archduke, a scandal erupted in Europe. Austria-Hungary demanded that Serbia thoroughly investigate the crime, but the Serbian government stubbornly rejected any suspicion of participation in a conspiracy against the Austro-Hungarian heir. Such actions led to the recall of the Austro-Hungarian ambassador from the embassy in Serbia, after which both countries began to prepare for war.
IN
On this day, June 28, 1914, a murder was committed, which became the reason for World War I.
The assassination attempt was made on Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Duchess Sophia of Hohenberg in Sarajevo by Serbian high school student Gavrilo Princip, who was part of a group of 6 terrorists (5 Serbs and 1 Bosnian) coordinated by Danilo Ilic.
Postcard with a photo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand a few minutes before the assassination attempt.
Not everyone knows that before this, a grenade was thrown into the car and bounced off the soft awning roof, leaving a crater with a diameter of 1 foot (0.3 m) and a depth of 6.5 inches (0.17 m) at the explosion site, and generally wounding complexity 20 people. But after the unsuccessful assassination attempt, we went to the Town Hall, listened to official reports, and then decided to visit the wounded in the hospital, on the way to which Princip was waiting.
The terrorist took up a position in front of a nearby grocery store, Moritz Schiller's Delicatessen, not far from the Latin Bridge.
The first bullet wounded the Archduke in the jugular vein, the second hit Sophia in the stomach...
The terrorist fired from a Belgian FN Model 1910 9mm pistol. Terror at that time was considered the most practical and effective method solving political problems.
On the left, Gavrilo Princip kills Franz Ferdinand.
As Count Harrah reported, the Archduke's last words were: “Sophie, Sophie! Do not die! Live for our children!”; This was followed by six or seven phrases like “It’s nothing” in response to Harrach’s question to Franz Ferdinand about the wound. This was followed by a death rattle.
Sophia died before arriving at the governor's residence, Franz Ferdinand ten minutes later...
Within hours of the assassination, anti-Serb pogroms broke out in Sarajevo and were stopped by the military.
Two Serbs were killed and many were attacked and wounded; about a thousand houses, schools, shops and other establishments belonging to the Serbs were looted and destroyed.
The arrest of Princip.
The political goal of the murder was the separation of the South Slavic territories from Austria-Hungary and their subsequent annexation to Greater Serbia or Yugoslavia. Members of the group were in contact with the Serbian terrorist organization called the Black Hand.
Report of the Russian military agent in Austria-Hungary, Colonel Wieneken, about the murder. June 15 (28), 1914.
Austria-Hungary then presented an ultimatum to Serbia, which was partially rejected; then Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. And that's it... in a war in which 38 independent states were involved. About 74 million people were mobilized, 10 million of them were killed or died from wounds.
Surprisingly, again on this day, but in January 1919, an international conference met at the Palace of Versailles in France to finalize the outcome of the First World War. The Treaty of Versailles was concluded.
Princip's weapon, the car in which Franz Ferdinand rode, his bloody light blue uniform and the couch on which the Archduke died are on permanent display at the Museum of Military History in Vienna.
The story is still dark. After Ferdinand's assassination, Young Bosnia was banned. Ilic and two other participants in the assassination attempt were executed.
Gavrila Princip was sentenced as a minor to 20 years of hard labor and died of tuberculosis in prison. Other members of the organization were sentenced to various prison terms.
Various places on the Internet.