In the words of Anna Akhmatova, the 20th century began exactly one hundred years ago. In the hot summer of 1914, the Peace Palace opened in the Netherlands, and already in August the cannons started talking. The immediate reason for this was that on June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, heir to the crown of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was killed in Sarajevo.
The Archduke was to succeed the Habsburgs on the throne Franz Joseph I who ruled the empire for 68 years. It was under him that in 1867 Austria became a dualistic monarchy - Austria-Hungary (that is, the emperor began to be crowned in Budapest as the Hungarian king). The country was divided into Cisleithania and Transleithania (along the Leyte River) between Austrian and Hungarian possessions.
However, many unresolved national issues remained in the monarchy, the main of which remained the Slavic one. Poles, Ukrainians, Rusyns, Croats, Slovenes, Czechs, Slovaks and Serbs did not have their own statehood.
Some peoples, in particular the Poles, sought to create their own state, some - Czechs and Croats - were ready to be content with broad autonomy.
This issue was of particular relevance in the Balkan Peninsula, where radical changes took place in the last quarter of the 19th century. Independent Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania appeared, immediately entering into territorial disputes between themselves and with the former metropolis of Turkey. In Vojvodina, Krajina and northeastern Croatia, Serbs made up a significant percentage of the population and sought to reunite with young Serbia (which became independent after Russian-Turkish war in 1878 by decision Berlin Congress).
The issue of Bosnia and Herzegovina added to the urgency. These two provinces were occupied by Austria-Hungary after Berlin and annexed in October 1908. The local Serb population, however, did not accept the annexation. And then the world stood on the brink of war: Serbia and Montenegro announced mobilization in October, and only the mediation of five countries (Russia, Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy) prevented the conflict from starting.
The Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire then understood that Russia was not ready for war. As a result, by March 1909, St. Petersburg and Belgrade recognized the accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Vienna.
The Bosnian crisis was not the only harbinger of global conflict. Since 1895, when the conflict between Japan and China began, local wars or armed incidents have constantly been going on in the world. Russia in January 1904 began a war with Japan, which ended in a crushing defeat. By 1907, two blocs had formed in Europe: the Entente (“cordial consent”) - the military-political alliance of Russia, England and France and the “Central Powers” (Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary). The traditional Marxist historiography viewed the Entente as a force seeking to preserve the existing order of things in Europe and the world, seeing Germany and its allies as young wolves who want their share.
However, besides this, each country had its own local geopolitical interests, including in the explosive Balkan region. Russia has repeatedly confirmed its desire to take possession of the Black Sea straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Austria-Hungary sought to prevent irredentist sentiment among Serbs and Croats in the crown lands. Germany wanted to move into the Middle East, which needed a strong rear in the Balkans. As a result, any excess on the hot peninsula led to a new round of tension.
Peculiarities of the National Hunt
In addition, it is worth noting that the beginning of the 20th century was the golden age of political terrorism.
In almost every country, radical organizations have used explosions and gunshots for political struggle.
In Russia, the organizations of the Socialist-Revolutionaries (Socialist-Revolutionaries) were especially distinguished on this front. In 1904, Vyacheslav Plehve, the Minister of the Interior of the Empire, died at the hands of a bomber, and in 1905, the Governor-General of Moscow was killed by militants. Grand Duke Sergey Aleksandrovich. Terrorists were active not only in Russia: the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucchini in 1898 killed the wife of Franz Joseph I, Elisabeth of Bavaria (also known as Sissi). Terrorist acts have become a part of life in Southern Europe - in Italy, Spain and the Balkans. Naturally, Serbian activists also used these methods.
Since 1911, the nationalist organization "Black Hand" has been operating in Serbia, striving to unite the Serbian lands into Yugoslavia. It included high-ranking officers of the country, so the authorities were afraid of the "black hands".
It is still unclear to what extent the activities of the Black Hand were controlled by the special services, but it is clear that no consent was given in Belgrade for actions in Bosnia.
Anti-Austrian activists in this province were partly part of the Young Bosnia organization. It arose in 1912 and aimed at the liberation of the provinces from Vienna. One of its members was the Sarajevo student Gavrila Princip.
salute and bomb
It is worth adding that Franz Ferdinand spoke from the standpoint of trialism, that is, he believed that Austria-Hungary should also become the state of the southern Slavs under the Habsburg crown - first of all, this would hit the positions of the Hungarians and the numerous Hungarian nobility who owned lands in Croatia, Slovakia and Transcarpathia.
It cannot be said that the heir to the throne was a "hawk" and a supporter of the war - on the contrary, he tried to look for peaceful ways out of the crisis, understanding the difficult internal situation of the country.
It is believed that both Serbia and Russia were aware of the terrorists' desire to shoot the Archduke during his visit to Sarajevo. For them, his arrival on June 28 was an insult: after all, on this day, the Serbs celebrated the anniversary of the defeat from the Turks in Battle of Kosovo. However, the heir to the throne decided to show the power of the Austrian army and conduct maneuvers in Sarajevo. The first bomb was thrown at him in the morning, but it did no harm.
The already mentioned Princip, having learned about the failure of the assassination, went to the center of Sarajevo, where, seizing the moment, shot at Franz Ferdinand at close range. He also killed his wife Sophia.
The response to the assassination was unrest in Sarajevo. In addition to Serbs, representatives of other nations also lived in the city, in particular Bosnian Muslims. During the pogroms in the city, at least two people were killed, cafes and shops belonging to the Serbs were destroyed.
The world community reacted actively to the death of Ferdinand. The first pages of newspapers were devoted to this event. However, there were no direct consequences after the assassination - only in mid-July, Austria-Hungary presented an ultimatum to Serbia. According to this document, Serbia had to close the anti-Austrian organizations operating on its territory, dismiss officials involved in anti-Austrian activities. However, there was one more clause in it - about the admission of an investigative group from Vienna to investigate the murder.
Belgrade refused to accept him - and this was the beginning of the great war.
The question of who exactly could be behind the murder in Sarajevo is still being discussed. Some, noting the strange relaxation of the archduke's guards, believe that the radicals of the Vienna court could have killed the potential federalist monarch. However, the theory about Serbian bombers is still the most popular.
The war began only a month later, in late July - early August 1914. However, after the fact, the assassination of Ferdinand became a symbol of the end of peaceful pre-war European life. "They killed our Ferdinand", - with these words, the anti-war "Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik" by Yaroslav Hasek begins.
AT
On this day, June 28, 1914, a murder was committed, which became the pretext for World War I.
The attempt was made on the life of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Duchess Sophie Hohenberg in Sarajevo by a Serbian high school student Gavrila Princip, who was part of a group of 6 terrorists (5 Serbs and 1 Bosnian), coordinated by Danila Ilic.
Postcard with a photo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand a few minutes before the assassination attempt.
Not everyone knows that before that, a grenade was thrown into the car, which bounced off the soft awning roof, leaving a crater 1 foot (0.3 m) in diameter and 6.5 inches (0.17 m) deep at the explosion site, and injuring a general complexity of 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 position in front of a nearby grocery store, Moritz Schiller's Delicatessen, near 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 9 mm 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 Harrach reported, the last words of the Archduke were: “Sophie, Sophie! Do not die! Live for our children!”; followed by six or seven phrases like "That's nothing" to Harrach's question to Franz Ferdinand about the injury. 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, which 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.
Princip's arrest.
The political goal of the assassination 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 a 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 wrap everything up ... in a war that involved 38 independent states. About 74 million people were mobilized, 10 million of them were killed and died of wounds.
Surprisingly, but again on this day, but in January 1919, an international conference gathered at the Palace of Versailles in France to finalize the results of the First World War. The Treaty of Versailles was signed.
The weapon of Princip, the car in which Franz Ferdinand rode, his bloodied light blue uniform and the couch on which the Archduke died are on permanent display at the museum. military history in Vienna.
The story is still dark. After the assassination of Ferdinand, "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 hard labor and died of tuberculosis in prison. Other members of the organization were sentenced to various prison terms.
different places on the internet.
It poses a number of questions for us. Why did it even start?
The simplest answer that lies on the surface: because on June 28, 1914, the Serbian terrorist Gavrila Princip, a member of the Mlada Bosna organization, shot the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo during his visit to the capital of the Austrian province, which became part of Austria-Hungary in 1908. Serbian revolutionaries sought to liberate Bosnia from Austrian rule and annex it to Serbia, and for this purpose they committed an act of individual terror against the Austrian heir to the throne. Austria-Hungary did not tolerate such lawlessness, put forward a number of demands on Serbia, which, in its opinion, was guilty of organizing this assassination attempt, and when it did not comply with them, it decided to punish this state. But Russia stood up for Serbia, and Germany stood up for Austria-Hungary. In turn, France stood up for Russia, and so on. The system of alliances began to work - and a war broke out, which no one expected and did not want. In a word, if not for the Sarajevo shot, peace and goodwill would reign on earth.
Since 1908, Europe and the world have been going through a series of political crises and military anxieties. The Sarajevo assassination was just one of them.
Such an explanation is suitable only for kindergarten. The fact is that, since 1908, Europe and the world have been going through a series of political crises and military anxieties: 1908-1909 - the Bosnian crisis, 1911 - the Agadir crisis and the Italo-Turkish war, 1912-1913 - the Balkan wars and disengagement between Serbia and Albania. The Sarajevo assassination was just one such crisis. If it wasn't there, something else would have happened.
Consider the official Austrian version of the involvement of the Serbian government in the assassination attempt on Franz Ferdinand, announced at the Sarajevo trial. According to this version, Colonel of the General Staff Dmitry Dimitrievich (nicknamed Apis) led the assassination attempt. Indirectly, this version was confirmed by the Thessaloniki trial of 1917, when Dimitrievich confessed to his involvement in the Sarajevo assassination attempt. However, in 1953, the Yugoslav court rehabilitated the participants in the Thessaloniki trial, acknowledging that they were not convicted for the crimes they allegedly committed. Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic, neither in 1914 nor later, admitted to being aware of the assassination attempt in Sarajevo. But after 1918 - the victory of the Allies and the death of the Austrian Empire - he had nothing to fear.
In fairness, we note that Dimitrievich was involved in one obvious regicide - the brutal murder of King Alexander and his wife Draga in 1903, and in 1917 he really seemed to be plotting the overthrow of King Peter Karageorgievich and his son Alexander. But this is too indirect evidence of his possible involvement in the organization of the Sarajevo assassination attempt.
Of course, the underage and inexperienced members of the Mlada Bosna organization could not organize themselves for such a difficult task and acquire weapons: they were clearly helped by professionals. Who were these professionals and whom did they serve? Let us assume for a moment that the Serbian authorities were involved in the assassination attempt in order to provoke a Serb uprising in Bosnia or a military clash with Austria-Hungary. How would it look in the context of the summer of 1914?
The ruling circles of Serbia could not fail to understand that a confrontation with Austria-Hungary would be fatal for the country.
Like suicide. Prime Minister Nikola Pasic and his government could not but understand that if the involvement of the Serbian authorities in the assassination attempt was established, in best case it will be a monstrous international scandal with negative consequences for Serbia. The Serbs were already followed by an unkind trail of regicides after the assassination of the Serbian king Alexander Obrenovic and his wife in 1903, to which all the august families of Europe reacted painfully. In the event of the assassination of a representative of a foreign royal house, the reaction of all of Europe (including Russia) could only be sharply negative. And on the part of Austria, this would have been a legitimate reason for military blackmail, which she resorted to against Serbia and on much less convenient occasions, for example, during the Bosnian crisis in 1908-1909 or during the Albanian-Serbian delimitation of 1913 and the Albanian attack on Serbia in the same 1913. Every time Serbia had to retreat before the military-diplomatic pressure of Austria. And it is not a fact that Russia would have stood up for her if there really were strong evidence of the involvement of the Serbian authorities in the assassination attempt. treated political terror sharply negatively. So, when he learned that members of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization were going to poison the water pipes of the leading European capitals in order to thereby contribute to the liberation of Macedonia, he wrote on the report: “People with such views should be destroyed like mad dogs.” So Serbia risked being left alone with Austria. Was she ready for this? The mobilization potential of four million Serbia was a maximum of 400,000 people (and the maximum strength of the Serbian army was 250,000). The mobilization capabilities of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy are 2.5 million soldiers and officers (a total of 2,300,000 people were drafted into the war). The Austrian army consisted of 3100 light and 168 heavy guns, 65 aircraft, in addition, the best arms factories in Europe were located in the Czech Republic. What Serbia alone could oppose to such power? If we take into account the significant losses in the two Balkan wars, the hostility of Albania and Bulgaria, the huge public debt, the situation becomes even more hopeless. So Austria could well put forward an ultimatum with impossible conditions, and in the event of its at least partial rejection, declare war on Serbia, crush it and occupy it. Which is basically what happened afterwards. And either an adventurer or a traitor - a person who did not serve Serbian interests - could go for such a provocation.
There is a version, defended by Western researchers, that allegedly Russian intelligence pushed the Serbs to organize the assassination attempt. But this version is untenable, if only because all the high-ranking Russian officers responsible for intelligence in the Balkans, by the time of the Sarajevo assassination attempt, were on vacation or were engaged in affairs far from intelligence. In addition, in Russia they could not help but understand that the assassination attempt ultimately meant a war between Russia and Austria and, possibly, Germany. And to her Russian empire wasn't ready. The rearmament of the army and navy was to be completed by 1917. And if Russia was the initiator of the war, then the pre-mobilization state of the army and the country would have been announced much earlier than it actually happened. Finally, if Russian intelligence and the Russian General Staff were really behind the Sarajevo assassination attempt, they would have taken care of coordinating the actions of the Russian and Serbian armies in a future war. None of this was done, Russian-Serbian cooperation during the war was pure improvisation, and, unfortunately, not very successful.
The parade of Austrian troops in Sarajevo, as if on purpose, was scheduled for June 28 - the day of St. Vitus, on the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo.
If we carefully analyze the events of the Sarajevo attentate (as the assassination is called in Serbian), we will see that much is unclean here. For some reason, the parade of Austrian troops in Sarajevo, which was supposed to be received by Archduke Ferdinand, was supposedly scheduled for June 28 - the day of St. Vitus, on the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, moreover, on the day of the round anniversary - the 525th Serbs of their statehood. It seems that the Austrian authorities did not do this by chance and that the situation was heating up purposefully. Moreover, in the heat of the situation, no serious measures for the protection of Franz Ferdinand, despite the fact that the Austrian detective authorities knew about the existence of terrorist organizations and successfully prevented them during the previous five years Act of terrorism"Mlady Bosny": none of them ended in success. Austro-Hungarian officials were involved in the transfer of terrorists and weapons to Bosnia (this was revealed later - at the Sarajevo trial; and there is no complete certainty that all the perpetrators were brought to justice). The next detail: at the right time, there were no police agents around the Archduke's car capable of covering Franz Ferdinand and his wife from terrorist bullets.
Moreover, on the fateful day of the assassination - as if on purpose - Franz Ferdinand was taken around the city by the longest route. And the question arises: did they turn him into a target? And he really became a target: initially, a terrorist ... bomb was thrown into his car, which, however, hit not the Archduke, but the escort car.
It is characteristic how the governor of Bosnia behaved - the hater of the Serbs Oscar Potiorek - after the first unsuccessful assassination attempt, when representatives of the local authorities and the archduke's retinue discussed what to do next. Baron Morsi of Franz Ferdinand's retinue suggested that the Archduke leave Sarajevo. In response, Potiorek said: "Do you think that Sarajevo is infested with murderers?" Meanwhile, after what happened, it was his direct duty to ensure the speedy and safe departure of Franz Ferdinand from Sarajevo.
Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia canceled their visit and decided to visit the wounded in the hospital. On the way to the hospital, they were struck by the bullets of Gavrila Princip. It is noteworthy that at the trial, when asked why he shot Archduchess Sophia, he replied that he did not want to shoot her, but Governor Potiorek. It is strange that such a well-aimed terrorist, who mortally wounded Franz Ferdinand, confused ... a man with a woman. And this begs the question: didn’t Potiorek, through his agents, divert the hand of the terrorists from himself and direct it towards Franz Ferdinand? After all, he was supposed to be the original target of the murder, but a couple of weeks before June 28, Franz Ferdinand was chosen as the victim by the Serbian terrorists of the Black Hand organization, with which Mlada Bosna was connected. And the question arises: why him? And another related to him: who was Franz Ferdinand?
Franz Ferdinand was a supporter of the federalization of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and trialism - the union of the Slavic lands into a single kingdom.
Contrary to the assertions of Marxist historiography, he was by no means a hater of the Slavs or Serbs, on the contrary, he was a supporter of the federalization of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and trialism - the union of the Slavic lands of the Austrian Crown into a single kingdom. The explanation that he was killed by Serbian terrorists in order to prevent the implementation of a trialistic project that threatened the unification of Serbian lands within the framework of the Serbian Kingdom does not stand up to criticism: the implementation of this project was not on the agenda, since it had powerful opponents: the Austrian Chancellor, the commander-in-chief the Austrian army Konrad von Getzendorf, the governor of Bosnia O. Potiorek and, finally, the emperor Franz Joseph himself. Moreover, the murder of one of the representatives of the House of Habsburg, who sympathized with the Serbs, could seriously complicate their situation, which happened, since immediately after the death of Franz Ferdinand, bloody Serbian pogroms began throughout Austria-Hungary, and especially in Sarajevo.
After the death of the Archduke, Austria acted out the mourning of the world, but in reality the Austrian officials did not mourn too much. Here is just one significant fact: when the news of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand reached the Russian embassy in Serbia, the Russian envoy Hartwig and the Austrian envoy were playing whist. Having learned the terrible news, Hartwig ordered to stop the game and declare mourning, despite the protests of the Austrian ambassador, who really wanted to win. But it is the Austrian envoy who will bring Hartwig to a heart attack, falsely accusing him of Russia's involvement in the Sarajevo assassination and supporting Serbian extremism. The funeral of Franz Ferdinand and his wife was organized in a humiliatingly modest ceremonial. And although most members of other royal families planned to take part in the mourning events, they were defiantly not invited. The decision was made to organize a low-key funeral attended by only close relatives, including the three children of the Archduke and Archduchess, who were excluded from the few public ceremonies. The officer corps was forbidden to salute the funeral train. Franz Ferdinand and Sophia were buried not in the royal crypt, but in the Attenstadt family castle.
Given the tragic nature of the death of Franz Ferdinand, all this testifies to the most real hatred towards him on the part of a number of representatives of the Habsburg house and hostility on the part of the emperor. One gets the impression that Franz Ferdinand was the victim of rivalry between court cliques, and that his death was a move in a political combination designed to solve state problems Austria, in particular the destruction of Serbia.
The comparatively lenient sentence to the members of the Mlada Bosna organization and those involved in the assassination is indicative. At the trial in Sarajevo in October 1914, out of 25 defendants, only 4 people were sentenced to death, and only three sentences were carried out. The rest received various prison terms, including the murderer of the Archduke Gavril Princip, and nine defendants were acquitted altogether. What does such a verdict mean? About much. Including the fact that the terrorists worked into the hands of the Austrian authorities.
The death of Franz Ferdinand was 100% used to start a war against Serbia. The judicial investigation has not yet been completed, all the more so, the trial did not pass when on July 23 a humiliating ultimatum was put forward to Serbia, in which the Austrian government accused the Serbian authorities of involvement in the murder of the Archduke and demanded not only to stop any anti-Austrian propaganda, but also to close all the publications involved in it. , to dismiss from service all officials seen or suspected of anti-Austrian views, and most importantly, to allow Austrian officials to investigative actions on Serbian territory. Such demands meant the destruction of Serbian sovereignty. Such an ultimatum could only be issued defeated country. However, Serbia, on the advice of Russia, accepted almost all the requirements of the Austrians, except for the last one. Nevertheless, on July 25, Austria-Hungary broke off diplomatic relations with Serbia, and on July 28 began hostilities against it.
So, if, finding out the reasons for the Sarajevo assassination, we pose the question: “Who benefited from this?”, Then the answer is clear - Austria-Hungary.
Reich Chancellor of the German Empire T. Bethmann-Hollweg, one of the supporters of the war, stated in 1914: "Now we are ready as never before."
But this is only the first level of the problem. It is clear that Russia would stand up for Serbia. Austria could not go to war without Germany's willingness to help her ally. And in the summer of 1914 militant moods reigned in Berlin. Chancellor T. Bethmann-Hollweg, one of the supporters of the war and the occupation of living space in the East, said: "Now we are ready as never before." The military party, represented in addition to him by generals Moltke Jr., Hindenburg, Ludendorff, warned Kaiser Wilhelm that after two or three years the advantages of Germany would come to naught due to the rearmament of Russia and France. Accordingly, if the Sarajevo assassination attempt was a provocation by the Austrian secret services, who "blindly" used fanatical and narrow-minded Serbian revolutionaries, led by the ideals of romantic nationalism, then it would not have been possible without, at a minimum, coordination with Berlin. And Berlin was ready for war.
However, this is not the last level of the problem. At the beginning of the 20th century there was a state where the sun never set and whose word decided, if not everything, then a lot - the British Empire. It was her intervention or warnings in previous years that often stopped what was about to begin. world war. In the summer of 1914, there was no such timely warning. It sounded only on August 4, at a time when nothing could be stopped or corrected. Why? We will look at this in the next article. Apparently, there was some kind of Grand Plan to draw the states of Europe into the war, and it is possible that the intelligence service of the British Empire - Intelligent Service - could also be involved in the Sarajevo assassination attempt and unleashing the First World War. We will talk about this Grand Plan in the next article.
Sarajevo is called the city of the First World War for a reason. Figuratively speaking, it began in this city in the Balkans with the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Planning the assassination of the heir, members of Mlada Bosna and the Serbian party that supported them
The nationalist Black Hand organization began as early as 1913, when Franz Ferdinand was appointed inspector of maneuvers in Bosnia. They were supposed to pass in Bosnia and Herzegovina in June 1914. After the maneuvers, the Archduke and his wife Sofia planned to open a new building for the National Museum in Sarajevo.
The main purpose of the murder of 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 a plan, but also supplied a group of six performers, 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, on the day of the 14th wedding anniversary of Franz Ferdinand and Sofia, on the day of St. Vitus and the day of the defeat of the Serbs in the battle with the Turks on the Kosovo field, six young members of Mlada Bosna took pre-arranged places on the way following a motorcade. Bosnian governor Oskar Potiorek met the heir with his wife in the morning at the Sarajevo railway station.
A cortege 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 distinguished 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 for 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 for the town hall, where the Archduke was to make a speech.
Despite careful elaboration, the plan failed at the very beginning. The first of the Young Bosnians, passed by the Austrian heir, was Muhammed Mehmedbašić, armed with a grenade, standing in the crowd near the Mostar cafe. He let the cars pass, as did Vaso Čubrilović, who was standing a few dozen meters away and armed with a revolver and a grenade.
Nedeljko Čabrinović, who took up position on the embankment of the Milyacka River, managed to throw a grenade. She hit right on target - the car of the heir, but bounced off the convertible top onto the road. The grenade exploded when a fourth car with guards drove by. Shrapnel killed the driver and injured about 20 people.
Pictured: Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Čabrinović swallowed a potassium cyanide pill and jumped into the river. However, the poison was expired and caused only vomiting. The townspeople dragged the young revolutionary out of the shallow river, beat him badly and handed him over to the police. The cortege stopped, but the rest of the conspirators could not carry out their plans due to the turmoil and the accumulation of townspeople who closed the archduke.
Cars with guests proceeded to the town hall. There, the retinue of Franz Ferdinand held a small council of war. The assistants of the heir insisted on an 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 to the governor, Lieutenant Colonel von Merrici. He ended up in the hospital with a wound and therefore did not convey to the driver Loika Potiorek's order to change the route. As a result of the confusion, the car with Franz Ferdinand turned right onto Franz Josef Street, and the rest of the cars drove 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, he moved to a new place - at the Moritz Schiller's Delicatessen grocery store next to the Latin Bridge.
Despite the great excitement, Princip was not at a loss when, leaving the cafe where he was buying a sandwich, he suddenly saw a car with Franz Ferdinand leaving 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 Sophia 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 were fatal. Franz Ferdinand and Sofia died a few minutes apart: the duchess on the way to the governor's residence, where doctors were waiting for them, and the archduke was already in the Potiorek mansion.
Princip also wanted to commit suicide and gnawed the ampoule, but the poison turned out to be from the same batch and caused only severe nausea. Spectators twisted the Young Bosnian and beat him so badly that he had to amputate his hand in prison.
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 due. Only minors were pardoned, that is, those who on June 28 were not yet 20 years old. 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 was replaced with a life sentence and a 20-year sentence. 11 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 Chubrilovich 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 Obljaje in western Bosnia. His father Petar worked as a village postman. The family lived in poverty. The only food of the three sons of 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.
The murderer of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, of course, wanted to be executed, but he shot the heir a month before his 20th birthday. Under Austrian law, the maximum penalty for juveniles was 20 years in prison.
To increase the punishment, one day a month Gavrilo was not fed. While in prison, Princip contracted tuberculosis. He died in the prison hospital on April 28, 1918.
HISTORY WITH GEOGRAPHY
Bosnia and Herzegovina is an area in the west of the Balkan Peninsula, inhabited by Bosnians, Croats and Serbs. In the middle of the 15th century, it became part of Ottoman Empire. In 1878, after the Berlin Congress, 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 Karageorgievich came to power in 1903. AT last years before the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, anti-Austrian sentiments rapidly intensified. The main task of the nationalist Bosnian Serbs was the separation of the region from Austria-Hungary and the creation of Greater Serbia. This purpose was to be served by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
EFFECTS
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand became the pretext for unleashing the First World War, for which Europe was ready and, one might say, desired. Since the "Black Hand" was behind the "Young Bosna", consisting mainly of nationalist Serbian officers, Vienna accused Belgrade of organizing the assassination and presented him with a humiliating ultimatum. The Serbs accepted its terms, except for paragraph 6, which demanded "an investigation with the participation of the Austrian government against each of the participants in the Sarajevo murder."
Exactly one month after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary, incited by Berlin, declared war on Serbia. July 28, 1914 is considered the actual day of the beginning of the First World War, which involved dozens of countries. The war lasted 1564 days and resulted in the death of 10 million soldiers and officers and 12 million civilians. About 55 million more were injured, many were left crippled.
The First World War redrawn the map of the world. She destroyed four largest empires: Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, which survived its "gravedigger" Princip by only half a year, and Turkey, and also caused two revolutions in Russia and one in Germany.
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand served as a pretext for war Photo from eldib.wordpress.com
This murder took place in the capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo. The victim is the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand. His tragic death was the reason for the outbreak of the First World War, which some forces have long wanted to unleash. Why was Franz Ferdinand killed, and who and why craved war?
Why Franz Ferdinand?
Slavs living in Bosnia and Herzegovina harbored a hatred for Austria-Hungary since 1878, when it took over these countries. Associations appeared there, wishing to get even for the occupation. How exactly? The radical student group "Mlada Bosna" decided to kill the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne during his visit to Bosnia. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was supposed to reign under the name of Franz II, was "guilty" of being a prominent figure in Austria-Hungary, hostile to the Slavs, and therefore it was decided to eliminate him.
Franz Ferdinand's mistake - a visit to Sarajevo
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie arrived by train in the capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo. The authorities had information from the secret services that an assassination attempt was being prepared on the Archduke. Therefore, Franz Ferdinand was offered to change the program of the visit, but it remained unchanged. Even the police guards were not strengthened.
How the murder happened
At the same time, one of the active members of the Mlada Bosna student group, student Gavrilo Princip and his associates arrived in Sarajevo at the same time. The purpose of the visit, based on the above, is clear.
During the passage of the Archduke's motorcade through the city, the first assassination attempt was made. However, the bomb thrown by the conspirator did not reach the target and only injured one of the escorts and several onlookers. After visiting the town hall, Franz Ferdinand decided to call on the victims at the hospital, despite the fact that this required crossing almost the entire city again. During the journey, the cortege turned into one of the alleys and got stuck in it.
What happened next, Princip himself told in court. The killer said that he learned about the route of the Archduke from the newspapers and was waiting for him near one of the bridges. When the car of the heir was in close proximity, Gavrilo took a few steps and shot twice at the heir and his wife. Both were killed on the spot.
Court and sentence
The Ministry of Justice of Austria-Hungary dealt with the terrorist quite correctly. Although the exact date of his birth has not been established, Princip was tried as a minor and sentenced to twenty years in prison. Four years later, he Gavrilo died in prison from tuberculosis, only a few months before the collapse of Austria-Hungary. After the end of World War I, Princip was declared a national hero in Yugoslavia. Even today there is a street in Belgrade that bears his name.
The death of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary served as a spark from which a flame flared up
The Austro-Hungarian government understood that the assassins of Franz Ferdinand were supported by the Serbian army and official authorities. Although there was no direct evidence of this, Austria-Hungary decided that it was necessary to restore order in the troubled Balkans and take radical measures against Serbia (autonomous Bosnia and Herzegovina were under its protectorate).
But the question arose: what measures should be taken? The offended Austria-Hungary had options. For example, she could put pressure on Serbia and simply investigate the assassination attempt, and then demand the extradition of those who were behind it. But there was another option - military action. For several days in Vienna they hesitated as to how to act. The government sought to take into account the position of other European states.
European politicians were against the war
Major European politicians were full of hope to resolve conflicts peacefully, negotiating with each other all their actions. The effectiveness of this approach was confirmed by the course of the two Balkan wars, when even very small states coordinated their steps with the hegemons, trying to prevent the escalation of the conflict.
Austria-Hungary consulted with Germany, which, before the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, was against military operations in Serbia
Today, the fact has been proven that consultations were held with the Germans. Even then, Germany understood that the attack of Austria-Hungary on Serbia would lead to a pan-European war. German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann said that "if Vienna enters into an armed conflict with Serbia, it will cause a war in all of Europe with a 90% probability." Austrian politicians also understood this, so they did not immediately decide on an armed conflict.
A year earlier, in February 1913, German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg shared his fears with the Austrian-Hungarian Foreign Minister that Russia would definitely intercede for Serbia in the event of decisive action against Serbia. “It will be absolutely impossible for the tsarist government,” the chancellor wrote in 1913 and repeatedly repeated his idea in his later Reflections on the World War, “to pursue a policy of non-intervention, since this will lead to an explosion of public indignation.”
When European diplomacy was engrossed in the war in the Balkans in October 1912, Kaiser Wilhelm II wrote that "Germany will have to fight the three strongest states for its existence. Everything will be at stake in this war. The efforts of Vienna and Berlin," added Wilhelm II, — should be aimed at ensuring that this does not happen in any case.
Unlike politicians, the German and Austrian military were for the war even before the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.
The military of Germany and Austria-Hungary also knew very well that the conflict with Serbia would inevitably lead to a pan-European massacre. In 1909, the head of the German General Staff, Helmut Moltke, and his Austrian colleague, Konrad von Getzendorf, came to the conclusion in their correspondence that Russia's entry into the war on the side of Serbia would be inevitable. Without a doubt, the king will be supported by France and other allies. Thus, the scenario that was realized in Europe five years later was also not a secret for the military.
However, Austrian and German military leaders wanted to fight. The head of the Austrian General Staff, Goetzendorf, kept talking about the need for a "preventive war" against Britain, France and Russia, which would strengthen the power of Austria-Hungary.
Only in 1913-1914 his demands were rejected at least 25 times! In March 1914, Goetzendorf discussed with the German ambassador in Vienna how to start hostilities as soon as possible under some plausible pretext. But the plans of the Chief of the Austrian General Staff were opposed primarily by Kaiser Wilhelm II and Franz Ferdinand. After the assassination of the latter, Getzendorf had only to convince the German Kaiser.
The chief of the German General Staff, Moltke, was also a supporter of "preventive war." Moltke, regarded by his contemporaries as a doubtful and swayable man, was not alone in his aspirations. A few days after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Moltke's deputy, Lieutenant-General Georg Waldersee, issued a statement that Germany considered war "very desirable".
After the death of Franz Ferdinand and politicians supported the military. The war has begun
The incident in Sarajevo immediately resolved all the contradictions: the opponent of the war, Franz Ferdinand, was killed, and Wilhelm II, who had previously advocated peace, was furious at what had happened and supported the position of the military.
On diplomatic correspondence, the irritated Kaiser wrote several times with his own hand: "Serbia must be done away with as soon as possible." All this resulted in the famous letter of Wilhelm II to the Austrian leadership, where he promised the full support of Germany if Austria-Hungary decided to go to war with Serbia.
This letter canceled his own orders of 1912 (they were discussed above), which stated that Germany should by all means avoid war in Europe. On July 31, 1914, Wilhelm II, just a few days after the publication of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, signed a decree by which Germany entered the First World War. Its consequences are known to all today.