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. For two more, the death penalty was commuted to 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 the 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 the last years before the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, anti-Austrian sentiment rapidly increased. 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.
The First World War redrew the map of the world. It destroyed the 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.
In the Military History Museum in Vienna today you can see a small Browning FN Model 1910, from which nineteen-year-old Serb Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Franz Ferdinand. There is also the car in which Franz Ferdinand was traveling, a bloody light blue uniform and the couch on which the Archduke died. In the Konopiste castle near Prague, where the heir to the Austrian throne lived, the bullet that killed him is kept. It is called the "First Bullet of World War I." The basic outline of the story of the assassination in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 of the Archduke and his wife Sophia Hohenbert and the tragic consequences of this terrorist attack have been well studied. Behind the scenes remain the secret springs of fanatical faith in utopia, which turned the tide of development of all mankind.
Two ideas clash
The wildest fantasies are not enough to imagine the world that could exist today if not for the world wars of the 20th century. And their trigger was the Sarajevo murder. Without it, how far could natural integration and globalization go without the tests of fascism and communism. How European empires could be reformed through federalization and expansion of civil rights. How science and trade would develop, how languages and peoples would mix, how much stronger and more significant would be the role of Europe as a whole and its integral part - Russia...
However, the young Mlada Bosna activist Gavrila Princip, who died in 1918 from tuberculosis in an Austrian prison, hardly thought about such fundamental things, including the future tragedies of the Serbs themselves. “I am a Yugoslav nationalist, and I believe in the unification of all southern Slavs into a single state, free from Austria,” - this is how he explained his act, for which he was ready to pay with his life. Gavrila only slightly did not live to see his dream come true - the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation of Yugoslavia on its ruins. But this state turned out to be fragile and collapsed twice - in the 40s and 90s. Life has shown: despite their common origin and language, the South Slavs are different people in culture and mentality.
But the Archduke killed by Gavrila was also a bearer of the reformist idea. Franz Ferdinand was going to radically redraw the map of the “patchwork empire.” He wanted to turn it into a confederation of semi-autonomous states based on ethnolinguistic principles. The country was supposed to be called the United States of Greater Austria, which, according to the further logic of events, could be joined by the Balkan countries. That is, a single center, but with self-determination for each, even a small nation. Looking at the current state of affairs, it is not difficult to notice the similarity with the principles of building the European Union - an association that has shown much greater stability than Yugoslavia. The trouble is that in order to realize the benefits of such integration, the Balkan peoples had to endure another whole century and many wars.
"Yugoslav" idea
The first ideas of a unified state of the South Slavs arose in the 17th century, not in Serbia, but on the territory of Slavonia and Croatia. They were later developed by Croatian philosophers in the form of the “idea of Greater Illyria” and by the end of the 19th century they had already begun to trouble the Viennese court. After all, by that time the Serbian state had gained independence and significantly strengthened. It could “intercept” the ideas of Croatian intellectuals and begin to collect the lands of the southern Slavs around Belgrade, which actually happened over time.
However, this did not happen immediately. According to the Berlin Peace Treaty of 1878, after the Russian-Turkish war for the liberation of Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary received its preferences: a mandate to occupy and administer Bosnia while maintaining the purely formal sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire. Bosnia was later annexed and became part of Austria-Hungary, although many Serbs lived in its lands. By the beginning of the 20th century, Serbia itself was considered almost an Austrian satellite: the kings of the Obrenovic dynasty, Milan and Alexander, oriented their policies primarily towards Vienna.
The situation changed dramatically after the coup in May 1903, when "patriotic" Serbian officers led by Dragutin Dmitrijevic, the future head of Serbian intelligence and the leader of the secret nationalist organization Black Hand, nicknamed "Apis", carried out a coup.
King Alexander and his wife Draga were brutally murdered in the palace. Here is what Russian journalist Vladimir Teplov reported about the details of this crime: “The Serbs covered themselves not only with the shame of regicide, but also with their truly brutal way of acting in relation to the corpses. After Alexander and Draga fell, the assassins continued to shoot at them and hack at their corpses with sabers: they hit the King with six revolver shots and forty saber blows, and the Queen with sixty-three saber blows and two revolver bullets. The Queen was almost completely chopped up, her chest was cut off, her stomach was opened, her cheeks and hands were also cut, the cuts between her fingers were especially large - the Queen probably grabbed the saber with her hands when she was killed. In addition, her body was covered with numerous bruises from being hit by the heels of the officers. I prefer not to talk about other violations of Draghi’s corpse, they are so disgusting. When the killers had had enough, they threw the corpses through the window into the garden, and Draghi’s corpse was completely naked.” Even the unfortunate monarch had to be buried on the territory of Austria-Hungary.
The new king was Peter from the Karageorgievich dynasty, who reoriented foreign policy towards Russia. Not only were the participants in the conspiracy not punished, but almost all of them became Peter's confidants and received top military positions. It was they who formed the backbone of the secret nationalist organization “Black Hand”.
Disputes with Austria-Hungary (the customs “Pig War” of 1906, the Bosnian crisis of 1908-1909) were resolved unsuccessfully, but the two bloody Balkan wars of 1912-1913, during which the Ottoman yoke was lifted from Macedonia and Kosovo and the dominance of Bulgaria was prevented, Serbia has finally been elevated. By that time, the “Black Hand” already included many Serbian military men and officials, had leverage over the rest - King Peter himself was afraid of it. About Apis, who formally refused high positions, they said: “... no one saw him anywhere, but everyone knew that he did everything.”
The Black Hand was indeed similar to the secret organizations of earlier times - the Carbonari, Camorra and Freemasons, as evidenced by its rituals and symbolism (skull and crossbones, dagger, bomb and poison). The Black Hand borrowed some of the wording of its charter from Mikhail Bakunin’s Revolutionary Catechism.
Members of the organization, obsessed with the Yugoslav idea, decided that it was time to get even with the Habsburgs. They decided to start with terror - a hunt for high-ranking Austrian officials and representatives of the ruling dynasty, which, according to the Black Hand's plan, could provoke an uprising of the Slavs in Austria-Hungary and its collapse. In 1911, Apis sent his comrade-in-arms to Vienna with the task of assassinating the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. In January 1914, the Bosnian Muslim Mehmedbašić was sent to assassinate the Bosnian governor, General Potiorek. But both attempts ended in failure.
In the spring of 1914, Apis chose a new target - Archduke Franz Ferdinand. According to Serbian nationalists, he posed the greatest danger to the Yugoslav idea. The Archduke also irritated Apis because, although he did not like the Russians and even more the Serbs, he categorically opposed the war with Serbia, an ardent supporter of which was, for example, the Chief of the General Staff of the Austrian-Hungarian Army, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf. Such a war, according to the heir to the throne, would inevitably lead to a clash with Russia, which he considered disastrous for Austria-Hungary.
Popovich-Ferdinand idea
The best minds of Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the twentieth century understood that it was no longer possible to rely only on suppressing “calls for separatism” with brute force - the growth of national self-awareness of peoples, the development of education, and freedom of the press were shaking the imperial foundations, and the most privileged Germans made up only a quarter of the country’s population.
In 1906, Aurel Popovich (an Austro-Hungarian Romanian by origin) published the book “The United States of Greater Austria,” in which he proposed reorganizing the country, cobbled together from medieval kingdoms and duchies, in the form of a federation. He started from similar ideas of the Hungarian revolutionary Lajos Kossuth, who proposed the same thing half a century ago, but then put it into practice only in relation to the Hungarians and their Transleithania.
Popovich prophetically wrote: “The great diversity of origin, language, customs and way of life of different peoples requires from the Habsburg Empire a form of government that could guarantee that none of the peoples will be oppressed, infringed or oppressed by others in their national politics, self-development, cultural heritage - in a word - in their understanding of life. There is little time left. All the peoples of the monarchy await the saving steps of the emperor. This is a decisive historical moment: will the Habsburg Empire survive or perish? For now, everything can still be corrected and preserved.”
Popovich proposed dividing Austria-Hungary into fifteen equal states on a national-territorial basis: three German-speaking states (German Austria, German Bohemia and German Moravia), Hungary, Czech-speaking Bohemia, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenian-speaking Carniola, Polish-speaking Western Galicia, Romanian-speaking Transylvania, Italian-speaking Trieste and Trentino, Ukrainian-speaking Eastern Galicia, and finally Vojvodina - with both Serbian and Croatian languages. In addition, a number of ethnic enclaves (mostly German) in eastern Transylvania, Banat and other parts of Hungary, southern Slovenia, and large cities (such as Prague, Budapest, Lviv, etc.) were granted special autonomy. It was this plan that Archduke Ferdinand supported.
The Popovic-Ferdinand plan scared not only Serbian nationalists. Domestically, he was most opposed by the Hungarians, who feared losing their privileges in the empire and control over the lands of the Croats, Slovaks and Romanians. The Prime Minister of Hungary, Count István Tisza, threatened: “If the heir to the throne decides to carry out his plan, I will raise a national Magyar revolution against him and wipe him off the face of the Earth.” Later, it was suggested that Hungarian officials could have been involved in the Sarajevo murder, but there are no facts to support this version.
Gavrila served in Mlada Bosna...
It was the Serbs who dealt with the heir to the throne. Bosnia had its own nationalist terrorist organization, Mlada Bosna, which collaborated with the Serbian Black Hand. The difference between “Young Bosna” and the “Black Hand” was that the Bosnians were more “left-wing”, adhered to republican and atheistic ideas, therefore in their ranks there were people from both Serbian and Muslim families. And the “Black Hand” was dominated by the ideas of the supremacy of Serbia and the empire sanctified by Orthodoxy. But on the fundamental issue - the dream of a united Yugoslavia - the organizations agreed.
Mehmedbašić, who tried to kill Potiorek, belonged to Mlada Bosna. Contacts between the Bosnians and the Belgrade military from the “Black Hand” were carried out through Danilo Ilic, who “in the world” worked either as a school teacher, or as a bank employee, or as a hotel administrator and agreed to become the coordinator of the terrorist group.
At the end of 1913, Ilic traveled to Belgrade to meet with Apis, after which he recruited Serbian youths Vaso Cubrilovic and Cvietko Popovic for some high-profile murder “immediately after Easter.” Soon, for these plans, it was decided to involve three more youths from Mlada Bosna - Nedeljko Čabrinović, Trifko Grabež and Gavrilo Princip, who were also from Bosnia, but lived in Serbia. Belgrade's connection with the Bosnians went through a close associate of Apis since the time of the assassination of King Alexander, Major Vojislav Tankosic and his assistant, the former military man Ciganovic.
Later in court they will tell that Tankosic and Ciganovic gave them six hand grenades, four automatic Browning guns, money and ammunition, pills with poison (as it later turned out - poor quality) in case of arrest, a special map with the location of gendarmerie posts marked and provided shooting training . At the end of May, Princip, Grabezh and Čabrinović were sent to Bosnia along secret paths. In crossing the border, the future murderers were helped by the captains of the Serbian border guards Popović and Prvanović, and terrorists and weapons were transported in different ways for conspiracy purposes - for a long time Ilic himself kept pistols and grenades, hiding them under his mother’s sofa.
Only on June 27, on the eve of Ferdinand’s visit to Sarajevo, Ilic began distributing weapons to those who came from Serbia and introducing them to the previously recruited Cubrilovic, Popovic and the “terrorist with experience” Mehmedbašić. Early the next morning, Ilic placed all six of them along the route of the motorcade, calling on them to be brave.
Fatal day
On the morning of June 28, 1914, Archduke Ferdinand arrived by train in Sarajevo at the invitation of the local governor, General Oskar Potiorek, to observe the maneuvers. At the station, the heir to the throne, his wife Sophia and his retinue boarded a motorcade of six cars and drove to the city. The mood was cheerful: June 28 marked the 14th anniversary of the wedding of Ferdinand and Sofia.
This day was also considered a major Serbian holiday (“Vidovdan”, the day of St. Vid, the patron saint of the Serbs), which mystically brought great misfortune to the Balkans more than once. It was on June 28, 1389 that the Serbs were defeated in the Battle of Kosovo, on June 28, 1991, the last great war in Yugoslavia began, on June 28, 2001, Slobodan Milosevic was sent to the prison court in The Hague. June 28, 1914 also did not bring joy.
After a quick tour of the barracks, Ferdinand went to speak at the city hall. The path ran along the embankment, where a chain of terrorists was already waiting for the victim. The first were Mehmedbašić and Cubrilovic, who failed the attack. Next behind them was Chabrinovic, who managed to throw a grenade.
But it bounced off the car - the shrapnel killed the driver of the other car and injured its passengers (including Lieutenant Colonel Merizzi), a policeman and onlookers from the crowd - in total, up to 20 people were injured. Chabrinovich immediately decided to commit suicide and chewed the ampoule of poison by jumping into the river. However, he remained alive - the poison, as already noted, turned out to be “expired,” which is why the terrorist only vomited, and the river became shallow, the water in it was knee-deep (there had been no rain in the mountains for a long time). The townspeople grabbed Nedelko, beat him and handed him over to the police.
Unlike today's big people, who would probably prefer to leave the scene of the attack, and the city itself at maximum speed, the Archduke ordered the car to be stopped and ordered that the wounded be given first aid. The rest of the conspirators tried to take advantage of the turmoil and throw a grenade again, but were unable to approach the cars: they were obscured by a dense crowd of Sarajevans. It seemed that the attempt had failed.
After reading Ferdinand’s speech in the town hall, one of the courtiers suggested that Potiorek push the crowd away from the streets, but ran into the governor’s offense: “Do you think Sarajevo is infested with murderers?” And the Archduke went to the hospital to see the wounded Merizzi and other victims again through the crowd - it was decided to only slightly change the route. But they forgot to inform the driver about this, which became a fatal circumstance.
Assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife. Reproduction by an unknown newspaper artist
The lost driver stopped on one of the streets near the Latin Bridge and began to turn around. At that moment, the car was noticed by Gavrila Princip, who was buying a sandwich in a cafe.
He ran up and opened fire - the first bullet hit Queen Sofia in the stomach, who decided to support her husband in difficult times and was riding in the same seat with him. Princip later admits that he did not want to kill the “queen”, but was aiming at Governor Potiorek. But it just so happened... But the second bullet hit Franz Ferdinand himself in the neck.
Like Chabrinovich, Princip also decided to commit suicide, chewed the ampoule, but again everything was limited to ordinary vomiting. Then he tried to shoot himself, but the people who ran up grabbed the Browning, beat the terrorist (so severely that in prison Princip had to have his hand removed) and also handed him over to the police. The wounded Ferdinand and his wife were transported to the governor's residence, but medicine was powerless - Ferdinand's wife died on the way, he himself died ten minutes after they were laid on the couch. As Count Harrah reported, the Archduke's last words were: “Sophie, Sophie! Do not die! Live for our children!”
Two ships
All the conspirators except Mehmedbašić were arrested. One of them (probably Ilić himself) was broken down, and he gave details of the preparations, including the participation of Serbian officials, and stated, among other things, that the weapons were "provided by the Serbian government." What political consequences this had is known.
The investigation also became aware of the names of other members of Mlada Bosna and their sympathizers who helped transport terrorists and weapons, among whom were Bosnian Serb officers and officials in the service of Austria-Hungary. They were also arrested and tried for the murder of the Archduke.
According to the verdict of the Austrian court, four, including Ilic, were hanged. Two were sentenced to life imprisonment. But the direct perpetrators of the assassination attempt could not be sentenced to death, since according to Austrian laws they were still considered minors, and almost all of them suffered from tuberculosis. Gavrila Princip, Nedeljko Čabrinović and Trifko Grabezh were sentenced to 20 years in prison (all three died a few years later from then incurable consumption in Theresienstadt prison). Vaso Čubrilović received a 16-year sentence, but lived until the collapse of Austria-Hungary, was released, became a prominent Yugoslav historian and died in 1990. Popovich received 13 years in prison.
The organizers of the murder from the “Black Hand”, who dragged their people into a catastrophic war, met with retribution three years later at the hands of the Serbs themselves. In 1917, when the entire territory of Serbia had already been captured by the Austrians and the remnants of the Serbian army continued to resist at the front near Thessaloniki, Apis and several other prominent members of the Black Hand were arrested, charged with treason by a Serbian court and shot.
It is believed that the future Yugoslav king Alexander had a hand in this, who, unlike his father, did not owe anything to the military, feared their enormous influence, considered them to be the culprits of the current state of affairs, and in general - saw them in a coffin, in white slippers. An opportune moment to “shorten” the remnants of the “Black Hand” arose, perhaps under pressure from Austria-Hungary.
There is a version that the French, together with the Serbs, began secret separate negotiations at the end of 1916, to which the then heir to the Serbian throne, Alexander, sent his confidant (and lover) Petar Zivkovic. And the categorical condition of the Austrians was the condemnation of Dmitrievich to death.
Major Tankosic, whose extradition Austria-Hungary demanded in the famous “July Ultimatum,” had already atoned for his guilt with his own blood: he was mortally wounded in the battles for Pozarevac in 1915.
During the Black Hand trial in Thessaloniki, Apis and other defendants admitted their role in organizing the Sarajevo murder. When the three death row inmates were taken to the execution site, Apis remarked to the driver: “It is now absolutely clear to both me and you that I should be killed today with Serbian rifles only because I organized a protest in Sarajevo.” Dmitrievich also named another name - Rade Malobabich, who headed the secret operations of Serbian military intelligence against Austria-Hungary - they say, this “silovik” was not only aware of the plans of the “Black Hand”, but was also under its influence and took part in the organization murders.
Was there a “Russian trace”?
They say that during the investigation Dmitrievich allegedly said “forty barrels of prisoners” in relation to Russia: that not only senior officials in Belgrade, but also in St. Petersburg knew about the impending assassination attempt. That Russian military attaché Artamonov promised Russia's protection from Austria-Hungary if Serbia's intelligence operations were exposed, and that Russia even financed the assassination.
Artamonov himself denied all this - they say that he was not even in Serbia on the eve of the murder, and the assistant Alexander Verchovsky, who was left on duty, although he did have daily contact with Apis, learned about his sinister role in the murder of Franz Ferdinand only after the war.
Is there other evidence that Russia could know about the plans of the “Black Hand” and provide them with at least indirect support? In addition, the fact that Russia really did not abandon Serbia in trouble and got involved in the war is very ambiguous. Baron De Schelking, the author of a work on the end of the Russian monarchy, wrote: “On June 1 (14), 1914, Emperor Nicholas had a conversation with King (of Romania) Charles in Constanta.
I was there at the time... as far as I could judge from a conversation with members of [Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov's] entourage, he [Sazonov] was convinced that if the Archduke [Franz Ferdinand] stepped aside, peace in Europe would not be under threat."
After the murder, the Serbian Ambassador to France Milenko Vesnic and the Serbian Ambassador to Russia prepared statements in which they noted that Serbia knew about the impending murder and warned Austria-Hungary. Perhaps this really could have happened, since not all Serbian officials were delighted with the plans and, especially, the methods of “work” of the “Black Hand”. Many wanted to maintain peace and relations with Austria-Hungary.
On 18 June, a telegram ordered the Serbian ambassador in Vienna, Jovan Jovanovic, to warn the Austro-Hungarian authorities that Serbia had reason to believe that there was a plot to assassinate Franz Ferdinand in Bosnia. The ambassador fulfilled his duty, and on June 21 he conveyed a request through the Austrian Minister of Finance, a Polish national, Leon Bilinsky: “The Archduke, as heir, runs the risk of suffering from the inflamed public opinion in Bosnia and Serbia. Perhaps some accident will happen to him personally. His journey may lead to incidents and demonstrations that Serbia will condemn, but this will have fatal consequences for Austro-Serbian relations."
But official Belgrade, represented by Prime Minister Pasic, denied the statements of its own ambassadors, although Serbian Education Minister Ljuba Jovanovic later recalled that at the end of May Pasic discussed the possibility of the upcoming murder with members of the cabinet.
Justification by socialism
Years after not only the First, but also the Second World War, already in socialist Yugoslavia, it was decided to reconsider the Thessaloniki trial of Apis and his associates. And from a legal point of view, they were acquitted and rehabilitated, the streets of Yugoslav cities were named after them - Broz Tito’s country needed its “spiritual bonds” for the “Yugoslav idea.” Despite the colossal sacrifices of both the peoples of Yugoslavia and all of humanity, no correct conclusions were drawn: “it is possible to kill the Archdukes,” the people’s court decided. Conflicting attitudes towards Dragutin Dmitrievich persist to this day - some say that he is an adventurer and a terrorist. Others say that he is a great Serbian patriot. As for the perpetrator of the murder, Gavrilo Princip, he is still revered in Serbia today as a symbol of resistance and is even depicted on street graffiti. Gavrila’s footprints are “cast in granite” on the very spot in Sarajevo where the first shot of the war was fired.
On June 28, 1914, the Austrian Archduke (heir to the throne) Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo (Bosnia). The attempt on his life was carried out by the Serbian youth revolutionary organization “Young Bosnia” (“Mlada Bosna”), led by Gavrila Princip and Daniil Ilic. This murder became the formal reason for the start of a major war between two coalitions of great powers.
Why did the war start?
The three shots that led to the death of the heir to the Austrian throne along with his wife Sophia could not have led to such a catastrophic result as the start of a pan-European war. A big war could have started much earlier. There were two Moroccan crises (1905-1906, 1911), two Balkan wars (1912-1913). Germany openly threatened France, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire began mobilization several times. However, Russia each time took a restraining position. She was also supported by Britain, which was not yet ready for a big war. As a result, the Central Powers were hesitant to go to war. Conferences of great powers were convened, conflicts were resolved through political and diplomatic means. True, from crisis to crisis, Germany and Austria-Hungary became more and more impudent. Petersburg's readiness to make concessions and seek compromises began to be perceived in Berlin as proof of Russia's weakness. In addition, the German Kaiser believed that the armed forces of the empire, especially the navy, were not ready for war. Germany adopted a large-scale naval program in defiance of the British. Berlin now wanted not only to defeat France, but to seize its colonies, and for this they needed a powerful fleet.
They were confident of victory on the land front in Berlin. The Schlieffen Plan, based on the difference in the timing of mobilization in Germany and Russia, made it possible to defeat the French troops before the Russian armies entered the battle. Taking into account the highest readiness of the German army for war (the command of the fleet asked for more time), the date for the start of the war - the summer of 1914 - was set in advance. This date was announced at a meeting of Emperor Wilhelm II with the military leadership on December 8, 1912 (the topic of the meeting: “The best time and method of launching a war”). The same period - the summer of 1914 - was indicated in 1912-1913. in the reports of Russian agents in Germany and Switzerland Bazarov and Gurko. German military programs, originally designed until 1916, were revised - with completion by the spring of 1914. The German leadership believed that Germany was best prepared for war.
Significant attention in the plans of Berlin and Vienna was paid to the Balkan Peninsula. The Balkans were to become the main prizes of Austria-Hungary. Back in 1913, the German Kaiser, in the margins of a report on the situation in the Balkan region, noted that a “good provocation” was required. Indeed, the Balkans were a real “powder keg” of Europe (as it still is today). The reason for war was easiest to find here. Back in 1879, after the Russian-Turkish war, all the prerequisites for future armed conflicts were created. The conflict involved the Balkan states, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia and England. In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, which formally belonged to Istanbul. However, Belgrade also laid claim to these lands. In 1912-1913 Two Balkan wars took place. As a result of a series of wars and conflicts, almost all countries and peoples were dissatisfied: Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, Austria-Hungary. Behind each side of the conflict were great powers. The region has become a real breeding ground for games by secret services, terrorists, revolutionaries and outright bandits. One after another, secret organizations were created - “Black Hand”, “Mlada Bosna”, “Svoboda”, etc.
Still, Berlin was only thinking about provocation; The real reason for the war for the Germans was created by the terrorist-nationalist organization “Black Hand” (“Unity or Death”). It was headed by the head of Serbian counterintelligence, Colonel Dragutin Dmitrievich (pseudonym “Apis”). The members of the organization were patriots of their homeland and enemies of Austria-Hungary and Germany, dreaming of building a “Greater Serbia”. The problem was that Dmitrijevic, Tankosic and other leaders of the Black Hand were not only Serbian officers, but also members of Masonic lodges. If Apis carried out direct planning and management of operations, then there were other leaders who remained in the shadows. Among them is the Serbian minister L. Chupa, a prominent hierarch of the “free masons”. He was associated with Belgian and French Masonic circles. It was he who stood at the origins of the organization and supervised its activities. Propaganda was carried out with purely patriotic, pan-Slavist slogans. And achieving the main goal - the creation of “Greater Serbia”, was possible only through war, with the obligatory participation of Russia. It is clear that the “behind-the-scenes structures” of that time (Masonic lodges were part of them) were leading Europe to a big war, which was supposed to lead to the construction of the New World Order.
The organization had enormous influence in Serbia and created branches in Bosnia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria. King Peter I Karadjordjevic of Serbia and Prime Minister Nikola Pasic did not share the views of the Black Hand, but the organization was able to achieve great influence among the officers; it had its own people in the government, assembly and at court.
It was no coincidence that the victim of the terrorist attack was also chosen. Franz Ferdinand was a tough realist in politics. Back in 1906, he drew up a plan for transforming the dualistic monarchy. This project, if implemented, could extend the life of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, reducing the degree of interethnic contradictions. According to it, the monarchy was transformed into the United States of Greater Austria - a triune state (or Austro-Hungarian-Slavia), 12 national autonomies were established for each large nationality living in the Habsburg empire. The ruling dynasty and the Slavic peoples benefited from the reform of the monarchy from a dualistic to a trialistic model. The Czech people received their own autonomous state (modeled on Hungary). The heir to the Austrian throne did not like Russians, and even more so Serbs, but Franz Ferdinand was categorically against a preventive war with Serbia and a conflict with Russia. In his opinion, such a conflict was fatal for both Russia and Austria-Hungary. His removal freed the hands of the “war party.”
Another interesting fact is that before the actual assassination attempt, terrorists are brought to Belgrade, they are trained in shooting at the royal park shooting range, and they are armed with revolvers and bombs (Serbian-made) from the state arsenal. It’s as if evidence is being deliberately created that the terrorist act was organized by Serbia. On July 15, 1914, as a result of an internal political crisis (palace coup), the military forced King Peter to abdicate the throne in favor of his son, Alexander, who was young, inexperienced and, in part, under the influence of the conspirators.
Apparently, certain circles in Austria-Hungary also clashed between Belgrade and Vienna. The Serbian Prime Minister and the Russian Ambassador to Serbia Hartwig, through their agents, learned about the preparation of the assassination attempt. Both tried to prevent it and warned the Austrians. However, the Austrian government did not cancel Franz Ferdinand's visit to Sarajevo and did not take adequate measures to ensure his safety. So, on June 28, 1914, two assassination attempts occurred (the first was unsuccessful). A bomb thrown by Nedeljko Gabrinovic killed the driver and injured several people. This assassination attempt did not become a reason to strengthen security or immediately evacuate the Archduke from the city. Therefore, the terrorists received a second opportunity, which was successfully implemented.
Berlin took this murder as an excellent reason for war. The German Kaiser, having received a message about the death of the Archduke, wrote in the margin of the telegram: “Now or never.” And he ordered Moltke to begin preparations for an operation against France. England took an interesting position: while Russia and France took diplomatic steps towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, the British remained evasive and aloof. London did not besiege the Germans and did not promise support to the allies. As a result, the Kaiser was of the opinion that England had decided to stay out of the fray. This was not surprising given London's traditional policy towards Europe. The German ambassador to England, Lichniewski, met with British Foreign Secretary Gray and confirmed this conclusion - Britain would not interfere. However, the British intervened, but with a serious delay. This happened on August 5, when the German corps were already crushing Belgium, and it was impossible to stop the massacre. For Berlin, Britain's entry into the war came as a surprise.
Thus began the World War, which claimed 10 million lives, redrew the political map of the planet and seriously changed the previous value systems. England, France and the USA received all the benefits from the start of the war. The so-called “financial international” made colossal profits from the war and destroyed the aristocratic elites of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Russia, which were “outdated” and stood in the way of building the New World Order.
The Sarajevo murder as a pretext for the outbreak of the First World War
The reason for the outbreak of the First World War was, as is known, the murder of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia Hohenberg by Serbian terrorists in Sarajevo.
Sarajevo incident
Early in the morning of June 28, 1914, after the end of military maneuvers in Bosnia, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, arrived in Sarajevo, the capital of the united principalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Archduke was a great lover of antiquities and wanted to visit the museum, as well as explore local attractions. However, the choice of the date of arrival of the high-ranking tourist was not entirely successful. It could have been taken as a challenge: it was St. Vid's Day, when the Serbs celebrated the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. There, in 1389, the Turks defeated the Serbian army, and the country fell under the Turkish yoke for many centuries. There, the Turkish Sultan Murad I was killed by the Serbian warrior Milos Obilic, who became a national hero.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
All local newspapers officially reported on the visit of Archduke Ferdinand to Bosnia and his intention to visit Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. In addition, on June 24, the route of the Archduke’s trip around the city was published, indicating the time of stops in certain places, which was almost never done. The terrorists decided to take advantage of this.
Six members of the Mlada Bosna organization, led by Danilo Ilic and Gavrilo Princip, armed with revolvers and bombs, positioned themselves along the route of the motorcade. Of the six bombers, only one Nedeljko Čabrinović was able to throw a bomb hidden in a bouquet. But the bomb rolled off the Archduke's car and exploded behind it. As a result of the explosion, the driver of the next car was killed, more than 10 retinue officers, a policeman from the cordon and several street onlookers were injured.
Chabrinovich was captured and taken to the police, the rest of the terrorists scattered throughout the city.
Franz Ferdinand, healthy and unharmed, went to listen to the mayor's speech at the city hall. At about 11 a.m., he changed his route and went with his wife to the hospital to visit those wounded in the assassination attempt. The Archduke and Duchess rode in the second car of the motorcade. The officers of the retinue rode in the first, and the duke's car was followed by a car with security and police officers. Suddenly, the first car, without informing about the change in route, turned into some alley. The Archduke's driver followed her, the guards lagging behind. General Potiorek, who was responsible for receiving the Archduke in Sarajevo, demanded that the driver stop, turn back and wait for the cars with guards and police to arrive.
The engine of the car making a U-turn stalled, and then it was accidentally noticed by the terrorist Gavrila Princip, who was in a nearby store. He rushed to the car and shot first at Ferdinand’s pregnant wife (she was shielding the Archduke), and then hit Ferdinand himself in the neck.
The terrorist was immediately captured by the police who arrived. Archduchess Sophia died immediately upon arrival at the residence, and her husband also died at 11.45 the same morning.
At first, almost no one attached much importance to the tragic event in Sarajevo. The Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph (Ferdinand's uncle), as can be seen from the diaries of his daughter Marie Valerie, "endured this shock without much suffering." “For me,” he said, “it’s one less thing to worry about.” There was no mood of mourning in Vienna; music was playing in the Prater.
Of course, in all European capitals, including Belgrade, appropriate mourning events and ceremonies were held. But they were carried out and forgotten at the same hour. It was time for summer vacation. As the American historian Charles Seymour noted, few Englishmen could find Sarajevo on a map, and even fewer had heard of the Archduke. The news of his murder made no more impression in London than “the voice of a tenor in a boiler room.”
As Russian diplomat Yu.Ya. recalled. Soloviev, foreign diplomats from Spain, France, even Austrian ones, and “no one at all” gave the news of the assassination attempt in Sarajevo all its fatal significance. In the distant USA, news of the assassination attempt on the Archduke became a fleeting sensation in the newspapers. The State Department considered it insignificant and did not comment. Even the messages from the ambassador from Vienna said nothing about possible profound consequences.
However, exactly a month later, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, accusing it of organizing this assassination attempt. A few days later, the First World War began, which included Germany, Russia, England, France, almost all of Europe, then Japan and China, and in 1917 the United States.
Historiography of the issue
The prominent Italian historian Luigi Albertini wrote: “The Serbian terrorist not only shot at the chest of the Austrian prince, he aimed at the very heart of Europe.” This, of course, is a strong exaggeration: the causes of the First World War were of a deeper nature. However, Gavrilo Princip's shot played an ominous role. It is no coincidence that more than four thousand historical studies have been written about the Sarajevo conspiracy; it is reflected in literary works known throughout the world, and interest in this tragic event has not waned to this day.
Historians have carefully studied the Sarajevo incident and its consequences down to the smallest detail. The main questions, of course, were: who killed the Archduke and why, who was behind the killers, did they understand what they were doing, why the consequences of the assassination attempt turned out to be so tragic and grandiose?
Over the hundred years that have passed since the Sarajevo murder, a huge historiographical complex dedicated to this event has developed. More than 400 works were published in Yugoslavia alone, and in total about 3,000 titles of studies and scientific monographs, not counting articles, notes, reviews, etc. Collections of documents and memoirs of contemporaries were published in a number of countries. Works of fiction based on factual material also appeared.
Of the domestic historians, the first to study the Sarajevo “case” in detail was N.P. Poletika. His first book was called “The Sarajevo Murder as a Diplomatic Cause for War.” However, Poletika accepted the erroneous concept of M.N. as the basis for the entire study. Pokrovsky, who exposed Tsarist Russia as the main culprit for the outbreak of the world war. Relying on unpublished documents from the archives of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as on materials from the trial of terrorists in Thessaloniki (1917), Poletika, often contrary to the facts, tried to prove that the murder was organized at the instigation of the Serbian special services by the secret conspiratorial organization of Serbian officers associated with them, the Black hand". The Serbian government knew about this. It facilitated the assassination attempt, relying on the approval and support of Russian diplomacy and intelligence.
This version was immediately subjected to convincing criticism, but its final debunking occurred only in the 1930-50s, when the documents seized from it were returned to the Black Hand case and the court decision of 1917 was officially protested.
In the 1970s, works by academician Yu.A. Pisarev, who thoroughly studied the history of the events in Sarajevo, found a number of new sources and energetically refuted the thesis about the involvement of the Serbian government, and especially Russia, in organizing and carrying out the terrorist attack in Sarajevo. It must be admitted, however, that in the richly documented studies of Yu.A. Pisarev there are still “blank spots”, proving that Sarajevo history also has its secrets and mysteries, its unexplored pages.
Writers also responded to the Sarajevo Affair. Valentin Pikul devoted enough space to the Sarajevo assassination attempt in his novel “I Have the Honor.” The writer relied on the works of N.P. Poletiki created a real adventure novel about the adventures of “spies”, secrets of the special services, etc. Captivated by the topic, Pikul allowed himself a number of serious inaccuracies and even distortions. Academician Yu.A. Pisarev was forced to make a special appearance in the press so that the reader of the novel would not be “captured” by an overly free literary presentation of real historical facts.
“Qui prodest?” (who benefits)
In the vast literature about the assassination attempt in Sarajevo, only three versions of the preparation of the conspiracy can be clearly distinguished.
First version voiced by the son of the murdered Archduke Maximilian Hohenberg in an interview with the Paris Soir Dimanche newspaper on June 16, 1936. He put forward the hypothesis that his father was liquidated by the German secret service: the heir to the Viennese throne interfered with the implementation of the great power plans of Wilhelm II, did not want a war with Russia, was married to a Czech woman and was not at all Slavophobic. The transformation of the Austrian monarchy into the Austro-Hungarian monarchy only temporarily and partially weakened the severity of interethnic conflicts in the state. Frictions with Hungary did not stop. It was they who forced Franz Ferdinand to turn to the idea of trialism, that is, to granting autonomy to the southern Slavs. Austria-Hungary could soon become Austria-Hungary-Slavia, which would certainly smooth out the contradictions between the Slavic and German populations of the country. On this basis, the Archduke wanted to find a common language with Nicholas II and try to restore the alliance of the three emperors. He said: “I will never wage a war against Russia. I will sacrifice everything to avoid this, because the war between Austria and Russia would end with either the overthrow of the Romanovs, or the overthrow of the Habsburgs, or perhaps the overthrow of both dynasties.” And further: “A war with Russia would mean our end. If we do anything against Serbia, Russia will take its side, and then we will have to fight the Russians. The Austrian and Russian emperors should not push each other off the throne and open the way to revolution.”
Ferdinand directly pointed out those who would benefit from such a war, warning the Chief of the General Staff, Konrad von Getzendorf, who was eager to fight. “War with Russia must be avoided because France is inciting it, especially the French Freemasons and anti-monarchists who seek to cause a revolution to overthrow the monarchs from their thrones.”
It is known that on the eve of his visit to Sarajevo, the Archduke met with Kaiser Wilhelm. No one knew what they were talking about, but if Franz Ferdinand began to develop the ideas of trialism in front of the Kaiser and admit his sympathies for the House of Romanov, it is unlikely that Wilhelm II would like it. According to contemporaries, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was known as a tough, strong-willed, and quite stubborn person. It was almost impossible to convince him. If he ascended the throne, Germany could lose such an ally as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But removing the Archduke from the political arena, and even at the hands of young Serbian nationalist patriots, is an excellent reason to pit Austria and Russia against each other, unleashing a world war.
Although the version of the murder of Ferdinand by German agents was partly refuted in the scientific literature, it looks quite logical and has a well-known basis: the Archduke was killed with the full connivance of his guards. It was as if they had deliberately exposed him to a terrorist’s bullet, having described in detail the route of his movement around the city in the local press.
Let us remember that during the visit of the elderly Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph to Sarajevo, the local authorities took very effective security measures: a massive “cleansing” was carried out in the city (unreliable elements were expelled, entry was prohibited without special passes, the streets were patrolled by soldiers, etc.). Under these conditions, no bombers could approach the government motorcade within a cannon shot, and Franz Joseph returned safely to Vienna.
The heir to the Austrian throne, one might say, was not guarded at all. During his visit to Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand’s retinue consisted of court officers, “parquet shufflers” who were not suitable for security functions. To help them, Vienna allocated three (!) civilian detectives who did not know the city. There was no usual escort of the Life Guards squadron. The Sarajevo police were mobilized, but they numbered no more than 120 people. This turned out to be not enough to protect the distinguished guest on narrow humpbacked streets, with dead ends, walk-through courtyards, etc. As a result, the Archduke and his wife turned out to be an excellent target for a lone terrorist, who was momentarily distracted from buying a sandwich in a city store, so that between business to fire seven bullets at them from your pistol.
Second(the most common) version was heard at the trial in Thessaloniki (March-June 1917). Austrian and German propaganda insisted on the participation of the Serbian secret officer organization “Unification or Death,” also known as the “Black Hand,” in the assassination of the Archduke. The Serbian government and the Russian general staff allegedly patronized this conspiracy.
By organizing the trial, the Serbian government pursued three goals: to crush the opposition represented by the secret but powerful officers' union, to improve the situation in the army and at the same time to blame the Sarajevo murder on the “Black Hand” in order to open the way to peace negotiations with Austria-Hungary, which were planned in 1917.
The trial was conducted with gross violations of the law, behind closed doors, the defendants did not have defense attorneys, and the military tribunal widely used false witnesses. After the trial, the government published the collection "Secret Conspiratorial Organization", including only the materials of the prosecution, which gave the publication a one-sided character.
The former head of Serbian counterintelligence D. Dmitrievich (Apis), wanting to save his life and hoping for a commutation of the sentence, wrote a confession (a document known in the literature as the “Report”), in which he assumed full responsibility for directing the actions of the “Black Hand” during the assassination attempt in Sarajevo. Dmitrievich was shot by court verdict, and this very controversial document, drawn up by a man driven into a corner, appeared for a long time as the “queen of evidence.”
According to modern historians, Dmitrievich’s “Report” is nothing more than a self-incrimination, moreover, addressed to distant descendants. The “report” was compiled with deliberate, completely ridiculous factual errors (for example, Dmitrievich indicated that the principle did not shoot from a Browning gun), and all the details of the preparation of the crime reported by Dmitrievich seemed to be taken from an adventurous spy novel. Nevertheless, it was on this document that for many years the mythological version of the conspiracy of the Serbian and Russian governments against the unfortunate Franz Ferdinand was built.
Today everyone understands that in 1914 it was not beneficial for either Russia or Serbia to quarrel with the Habsburgs, much less to kill the heir to the throne, who did not want a war with Russia and cherished plans to grant the Slavs autonomy in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For Serbia, a war with Austria would be suicidal. And its government, which accepted almost all the conditions of the July Ultimatum of Austria-Hungary in 1914, demonstrated not only its unpreparedness for war, but also its desperate fear of the upcoming conflict.
In 1917, the situation changed radically, and Serbia found it very convenient to shift all the blame onto its Russian patrons in order to get out of the war as quickly as possible and with the least losses. It was also important for the Bolsheviks to give legitimacy to the myth of the anti-people policy of the tsarist government, accusing it of unleashing the First World War. This justified the “peace-loving” policy of the Bolshevik government, which concluded the shameful Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and unleashed an equally bloody Civil War in Russia.
Finally, third concept proceeds from the fact that the Sarajevo assassination attempt was the work of the national revolutionary organization “Mlada Bosna” (“Young Bosnia”), a terrorist response to the forcible annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary in 1908.
The secret society of Bosnian youth "Mlada Bosna" was created in 1910, shortly after the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Turkish provinces in which the Serb population lived. The French newspaper “Action” wrote: “Conquering Bosnia and Herzegovina with fire and sword, Count Aehrenthal (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria-Hungary), before going to his grave, put weapons into the hands of terrorists and prepared the murder of the military chief of the Austrian Empire. The assassination attempt of 1914 was only a tragic reflex of the blow of 1908. When an entire people is oppressed, one must expect a popular explosion.” Gavrila Princip testified at the trial: “The main motive that guided me was the desire to avenge the Serbian people.”
In addition to Serbs, the Mlada Bosna organization included Croats and Muslims. It was created following the example of Young Italy and was conspiratorial in nature. In the specialized literature there were very interesting versions about the connections of Mlada Bosna with Serbian counterintelligence, and that allegedly the head of the Serbian intelligence services D. Dmitrievich (Apis) used young people for his own purposes, hiring Princip and others to assassinate the Archduke. The connection between Mlada Bosna and the Serbian intelligence services has been repeatedly denied by historians of Yugoslavia. Academician Pisarev also spoke about the independent activities of the organization in his studies. However, many historians who provided convincing evidence of contacts between the Black Hand officer organization and terrorists did not find direct indications that the Serbian intelligence services in one way or another sponsored Young Bosna or gave terrorists an “order” to kill the Archduke.
Modern historical science has officially recognized that there is also no evidence of direct or indirect participation of the Serbian government in the Sarajevo incident.
The Sarajevo assassination attempt was conceived and organized exclusively by the young terrorists of Mlada Bosna. One of the perpetrators of the murder was a 19-year-old high school student, an unbalanced fanatic, and also a tuberculosis patient, Gavrila Princip. The rest of the terrorists also did not have the experience or sufficient endurance and composure to carry out a successful assassination attempt. Some of them didn't even know how to shoot. The success of the Sarajevo murder was undoubtedly accidental. The complete lack of professionalism of the performers was compensated only by a successful coincidence of circumstances and criminal connivance on the part of Franz Ferdinand’s security. If intelligence services (Serbian, German or even Russian) had been involved in the case, the picture of the crime would have been completely different.
In this regard, it is worth mentioning the version of the American researcher L. Cassels, who, relying on Dmitrievich’s “Report”, already mentioned by us, believed that there were connections between Mlada Bosna and the Black Hand, but they were purely formal. The very existence of a terrorist organization of young patriots could not be a secret for the intelligence services of Serbia, as well as Austria-Hungary. It is possible that the Black Hand organization, associated with Serbian counterintelligence, actually supplied the terrorists with weapons and ampoules of poison in case of arrest (neither Čabrinović nor Princip managed to commit suicide, because the poison turned out to be old). Perhaps the Serbian (or other) intelligence services helped the group of Ilic and Princip cross the border, but all further actions of Mlada Bosna were not controlled by their patrons in any way. According to Cassels, the young people were supposed to carry out only an assassination attempt, that is, to scare the Austrians, sow panic, make noise, etc. This behavior suggests, rather, the idea of a “small provocation” than a carefully planned murder. The failed assassination attempt, in which no one was injured, was supposed to prove to the Austrian Archduke that Serbia had not given up and would fight Austria for the territories inhabited by the Slavs. It could not have occurred to the secret leaders of the action that the Austrian prince would be practically unguarded, that his car would stall in a deserted alley, and the psychopathic high school student G. Princip would be able to approach the Archduke at arm's length.
The members of the Mlada Bosna organization themselves, when carrying out an attempt on the life of the heir to the Austrian throne, also could not imagine that their action would lead to a pan-European war.
At the trial, which took place from October 12 to 22, 1914, and during the investigation, the young terrorists immediately named all their accomplices and did not deny either the plot to kill Franz Ferdinand or their participation in the crime. But, despite the pressure, all those accused in the Sarajevo case firmly denied any connection between their organization and the Serbian government, as well as its contacts with official Serbian authorities.
However, Austrian and German propaganda deliberately exaggerated the incident in Sarajevo, using this event for aggressive purposes. The trial was precisely intended to prove the connection of the terrorists with the Serbian government, but the defendants took everything upon themselves, declaring that they acted only for ideological reasons, out of love for their people.
The verdict was handed down on October 22. D. Ilic, M. Jovanovic and V. Cubrilovic were sentenced “for high treason” to death by hanging; J. Milovic and M. Kerovich - to life imprisonment. G. Princip, N. Chabrinovic and Tr. For robbery, the death penalty was replaced with imprisonment for a term of 20 years, due to their minority, which in the empire began at 20 years. All three died in prison from hunger, exhaustion, beatings and tuberculosis. They were buried secretly, and their graves were razed to the ground. Princip died at age 21 in a military prison in the spring of 1918 and was buried in secret. But later they managed to find his grave, and he was reburied with honor in the new Yugoslavia. The Gavrilo Princip Museum was opened in Sarajevo after 1945.
And if we again try to answer the question of who benefited from the Sarajevo murder, then all ends will again lead to Austria-Hungary and its allies - the powers of the Triple Alliance. Of all the “suspected” participants in the events, only Austria-Hungary and Germany were mature and ready to start a war in 1914. Only these countries benefited from the elimination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as an inconvenient figure on the way to their militaristic plans. Hence the chain of provocations committed by the authorities in Sarajevo, the strange leniency towards those responsible for the safety of the Archduke during the visit (they were not punished), etc. Until now, the possibility of contact between Mlada Bosna and the group of direct perpetrators of the murder has not been seriously studied with Austrian or German counterintelligence. The possibility of the existence of a provocateur in the organization connected with persons interested in eliminating Archduke Ferdinand, and not another significant person, was also not studied. Unfortunately, apart from the suspicions of the Archduke's relatives, there is not a single document indicating the correctness or incorrectness of this version. And today, a hundred years later, we can say that the mystery of the Sarajevo murder still remains a mystery. Its solution is yet to come.
This is how the war began
As already mentioned, Europe had virtually no reaction to the assassination of the Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo. However, already on July 5, 1914, Germany promised support for Austria-Hungary in the event of a conflict with Serbia. The media of Germany and Austria-Hungary are actively inflating the Sarajevo incident into a conspiracy of all Entente powers against the Habsburgs.
On July 23, Austria-Hungary, declaring that Serbia was behind the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, announces an ultimatum, in which it demands that Serbia fulfill obviously impossible conditions, including: purge the state apparatus and army of officers and officials found in anti-Austrian propaganda; arrest suspects of promoting terrorism; allow the Austrian-Hungarian police to conduct investigations and punishments for those responsible for anti-Austrian actions on Serbian territory. Only 48 hours were given for a response.
On the same day, Serbia begins mobilization, but agrees to all the demands of Austria-Hungary, except for the admission of the Austrian police to its territory. Germany is persistently pushing Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia. July 26 Austria-Hungary announces mobilization and begins to concentrate troops on the border with Serbia and Russia.
Germany begins hidden mobilization: without officially announcing it, they began sending out summonses to reservists at recruiting stations.
On July 28, Austria-Hungary, declaring that the demands of the ultimatum had not been fulfilled, declared war on Serbia. Austro-Hungarian heavy artillery begins shelling Belgrade, and Austro-Hungarian regular troops cross the Serbian border.
Russia says it will not allow the occupation of Serbia. Furloughs are ending in the French army.
On July 29, Nicholas II sent a telegram to Wilhelm II with a proposal to “transfer the Austro-Serbian issue to the Hague Conference.” “Cousin Willie” did not respond to this telegram.
On the same day, a “war threat” was declared in Germany. Germany presents Russia with an ultimatum: stop conscription, or Germany will declare war on Russia. France, Austria-Hungary and Germany announce general mobilization. Germany is massing troops to the Belgian and French borders.
On August 1, Germany declared war on Russia, and on the same day the Germans invaded Luxembourg without any declaration of war. The First World War has begun.
Could Russia have avoided participation in World War I?
The First World War became a kind of starting point in the history of most European powers. It determined the path of political development of the entire European civilization throughout the 20th century, and for Russia its consequences ultimately turned into a national catastrophe.
Could Russia have avoided this catastrophe? Could it not get involved in a global battle for the interests of the leading European powers and not participate in the overdue redivision of an already divided world? This question has been causing heated debate among domestic historians for decades. But there is still no definite answer to it.
Currently, both in the scientific community and among various kinds of analysts, whose opinions are constantly heard in the domestic media, there are two views on the problem of Russia’s participation in the First World War.
Some researchers believe that Russia in 1914 certainly could and had every chance to remain aloof from European conflicts. In their opinion, in the first decade of the 20th century the country experienced an unprecedented economic boom. It did not need new colonial conquests, and for a long time nothing seriously threatened the territories annexed to it. The strengthening of a united Germany also could not cause much concern to the government of the Russian Empire. On the contrary, by entering into an alliance with Kaiser Wilhelm II, Russia could gain much more only in military supplies to the powers of the Triple Alliance, without sending a single soldier to the front. Without any clearly expressed national interests in this war, such a great power as Russia could give up a little of its political prestige after the Sarajevo murder and leave the Serbs at the mercy of the Habsburgs. Perhaps this decision would have made it possible to delay the start of a pan-European war, as well as avoid even more enormous bloody casualties.
From this point of view, the weak-willed Emperor Nicholas II was drawn into the world war on the side of the Entente solely by agents of England and France, who had enormous influence on the Russian generals. It was they who benefited from such an ally as Russia and wholly disadvantaged Russian neutrality in the coming war.
The second point of view on these events admits that in 1914 Russia could have avoided entering into a world war. But that would only be a delay. Having defeated the small European allies of the Entente, the powers of the Triple Alliance (and especially aggressive Germany) would never have stopped before a new redivision of the world, which could not but affect Russia’s interests in Asia, the Balkans, the Middle and Far East. In this case, the main theater of military operations would move from central Europe to the Balkans. Immediately after defeating the French army in Europe, the Germans would establish control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles. And 90% of Russian bread exports passed through the Black Sea straits. Russia, willy-nilly, would have to participate in the war alone, because it would be a question of protecting its national and economic interests from the claims of a strengthened Germany and its allies. Perhaps it would have been a completely different war, but it is also difficult to judge the results and consequences of such a confrontation today. Many researchers now claim that Russia could have secured victory in the Balkans without the help of the Entente. But it is unlikely that Germany and Austria-Hungary would have refused to send sealed carriages with revolutionaries and other ideological sabotage, as was done in 1917. Sowing political chaos, changing the government, withdrawing Russia from the war on terms favorable to oneself - remained the only worthy way out for the almost lost side. And they used this chance.
In our opinion, the second point of view on this issue is more legitimate. Russia could only delay its entry into a pan-European war. However, it would never have been able to completely avoid participation in the new redistribution of the world, taking the position of the “third rejoicing”, like some small Switzerland, Holland, or even the backward and distant USA. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Empire, with all its unresolved foreign policy problems and internal contradictions, firmly retained its status as one of the leading world powers. Like any great power, it had something to lose, in addition to world prestige and political status. But the majority of the population of this great power, armed with populist slogans of political saboteurs-internationalists, did not want to understand the intricacies of world politics, and could not. It was this global internal contradiction that played a cruel joke on both the Tsarist government and the Provisional Government that replaced it, plunging Russia into many years of chaos of revolutions and Civil War.
Compilation of Elena Shirokova
Literature:
Poletika N.P. The emergence of the First World War. (July crisis of 1914). M., 1964.
It's him. Behind the scenes of the trial in Thessaloniki of the organization “unification or death” (1917) // NNI. 1979. No. 1.;
It's him. Balkans and Europe on the threshold of the First World War // NNI. 1989. No. 3;
It's him. Russian counterintelligence and the secret Serbian organization “Black Hand” // NNI. 1993. No. 1.
Vishnyakov Ya.B. The Balkans – the grip of the “Black Hand” // Military History Journal. 1999. No. 5. pp. 35-39, 45.
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.
