Trifko Grabez
Trifko Grabez had a direct involvement
in the plot to assassinate Franz Ferdinand. Apart from Gavro Princip and Danilo Ilic who
hatched the plot, Trifo Grabez (together with Nedjo Cabrinovic) had the longest
involvement (approximately a few months) in the plot.
Grabez helped Gavro to smuggle the weapons from Serbia into Bosnia. He was Gavro’s constant companion throughout
this ‘mystic journey’.
Gavro Princip recruited Trifko Grabez into
the plot, in Belgrade, in the Spring of 1914.
Originally from the town of Pale (near
Sarajevo), Grabez had studied first in Sarajevo and then in Tuzla.
Grabez was a short-tempered,
hot-headed young man who had spent two weeks in jail for assaulting his
professor who he thought had laughed sarcastically at him. After the assault he
was barred from Tuzla and expelled from Bosnia.
Like many other disaffected, angry
young Serbs, Grabez made his way to Belgrade where he spent time frequenting
cheap cafes and plotting revenge on the Austrians.
When Gavro Princip arrived in Belgrade
in March 1914 (his last visit to the Serbian capital), he met Grabez,
born, ironically enough, on 28 June, the day the Archduke
Ferdinand would be assassinated.
Gavro and Grabez knew each other from
before when both lived in Sarajevo.
Grabez’s father was a priest and
Grabez himself was a believer. In his trial Grabez said that he wanted
unification as Yugoslavia and political freedom. When asked what he meant by
political freedom he answered that he did not know, as he was not familiar with
the term. The court suggested that he did not use terms he did not know the
meaning of.
Gavro recruited Grabez to their plot
to assassinate Ferdinand. Grabez agreed readily. It was a duty, he said, of
every Bosnian to ‘welcome’ the Heir-apparent. During one of his earlier visits
to Sarajevo, Grabez had read the hints in the newspapers that Austria might
attack Serbia. When he read that Grabez made up his mind that Ferdinand had to
be killed.
Gavro informed Grabez that Nedjo
Cabrinovic too was fully committed to the assassination.
The would-be assassins then got a
message from Milan Ciganovic that Major Vojislav Tankosic, the leader of the Komite army, wanted to meet them. Gavro
had already met with Ciganovic and negotiated obtaining weapons from him.
However, he would not go to see Tankosic (even though it was Tankosic who had
given the final authorization that the plotters be provided with the weapons)
because he had not forgiven the major for dismissing him when he had
volunteered to join the Komite at the
time of the First Balkan War. Nedjo Cabrinovic would not go because he had a tendency to
laugh at the most inappropriate times and annoy the other person ( so he said). In
the end Ciganovic took only Grabez to meet major Tankosic.
Tankosic asked Grabez whether he could
shoot. Grabez told the major he couldn’t. Indeed none of the aspiring assassins
could shoot. Tankosic then took out a gun, gave it to Ciganovic and told him to
teach the ‘boys’ how to shoot.
Grabez and Gavro smuggled the weapons
from Serbia to Sarajevo. This was the arduous journey which took them through
Priboj and Tuzla. Nedjo Cabrinovic accompanied them for part of their travels,
but, after a quarrel with Gavro, Nedjo made his way separately to Tuzla, after
handing his weapons to Gavro and Grabez. In this journey (which Gavro described
as a mystic journey during the trial) Grabez and Gavro were helped by Veljko Cubrilovic, Misko Jovanovic and a number of peasants, all of whom were arrested
and meted out severe punishment.
Grabez arrived in Sarajevo, in the
company of Gavro Princip in June 1914. He consorted closely with Gavro and Danilo Ilic.
As mentioned in a previous posting, Ilic seemed to have developed doubts about
the advisability of their endeavours in the last three weeks before 28 June.
He most probably tried to dissuade Grabez in vain from participating in the
assassination on more than one occasion.
Grabez was one of the seven plotters
(including Danilo Ilic) who took a direct part in the assassination. He was given
his weapons by Danilo Ilic. Ilic took Grabez to his (Ilic's) mother’s house and gave him
a bomb and a revolver. He did not give him the cyanide pill, probably believing
that he had successfully put Grabez off the mission.
Perhaps Danilo’s exhortations had their
effects. Because it would appear that Grabez changed his mind more than once as
to what he was going to do. In the trial he said that even as he received the
weapons he promised Ilic that he would not carry out the shooting, nor would he
kill himself. He would keep himself alive for working for the revolution. But,
so he informed the trial, it was all sham; he just wanted Ilic off his back.
Grabez would live, but not for long.
And the remainder of his short life he would not be spent working for any revolution.
On the day the Archduke met his end
Grabez was one of the six assassins waiting for him on his route.
After collecting his weapons from
Iliac, Grabez went to Appel Quay to carry out his part in the assassination. In
his trial he said that he went there with the intention of locating Gavro. He,
Grabez, was going to throw the bomb and create a diversion while Gavro was
going to carry out the actual shooting. (It is not clear whether the two had
met before the assassination and had actually discussed this, or whether this
was something Grabez had in his mind but had not discussed with Gavro.)
However, when he reached the Quay,
Grabez was unable to find Gavro and assumed that he must have been arrested.
Grabez then took up his position by
the Emperor’s Bridge which was on the direct route to the Governor’s building
(Konak) where a lunch in honour of Ferdinand was arranged. Grabez reckoned that
if Nedjo Cabrinovic failed to kill the Archduke with his bomb, the chauffeur
would want to bring him to Konak by the quickest route where, by the Emperor’s
Bridge, he would be waiting for the royal couple.
Grabez was standing near the bridge
for a few minutes when he heard an explosion. Nedjo’s bomb had gone off. Grabez
was sure that it was Nedjo who had thrown the bomb, as the others, so he would
say at the trial, were Bosnian youths of weaker qualities (presumably he meant
Vaso Cubrilovic and Cvjetko Popovic).
Grabez was still at the Emperor’s Bridge when
the Archduke’s cavalcade returned to Appel Quay an hour later, after Nedjo’s
bomb failed to kill him. However Ferdinand avoided Grabez because of a last minute
change to his route following Nedjo’s unsuccessful attempt on his life, only
for the Royal chauffer to make an error and turn into a side-street (Franz
Joseph Street, named after the Emperor) where Gavro Princip was waiting forhim.
The above was Grabez’s account to the
chief of the trial.
Grabez gave two different accounts
from the one above: one before and one after his interview with the chief of
trial.
In the pre-trial interview Grabez
denied that he had agreed to take part in the assassination.
Finally, when the trial began, Grabez
changed his version yet again. He said that even though he had stopped trusting
Ilic (who tried to dissuade him at the last minute from taking part in the
assassination attempt), he had decided not to take part; he had never gone even
to Appel Quay on the day the Archduke was assassinated; he had collected the
weapons only to remove the evidence from Ilic’s house. (He wrapped the weapons
into an awkward shaped package.) He had no intention of assassinating anybody.
He said he had lied before (when he gave evidence to the chief of trial) about
being at the Emperor’s Bridge on the day of assassination because he wanted to
hide the identity of someone he had been with that day.
Grabez dug his grave even deeper by
these repeated changes of his account. The trial became more and more sceptical
as Grabez changed his versions. ‘That is the third time you’ve changed your
story,’ the trial reminded Grabez. ‘What are we to believe?’
