The Even that Sparked World War I: How it Ended for Gavro Princip

                                                                 Gavro Princip                             
When Nedjo Cabrinovic, Gavro Princip's fellow conspirator in the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on 28 June 1914,  died in January 1916, Gavro Princip was also experiencing a severe decline in his health. He had been treated most harshly up to that point by the prison authorities, and for all of the 16 months since his 20 year prison sentence began was kept in chains and in solitary confinement. Both his hands were shackled to the wall of his dark cell. Gavro could do nothing but sit and stare into the darkness. It is an indirect testimony to the strength of Gavro's character that he did not lose his mental balance after a prolonged solitary confinement.

Soon after Nedjo’s death Gavro tried to commit suicide by hanging, using a towel. He was not successful. The authorities would not let him die. He would live for two more years.

Soon after the unsuccessful suicide attempt the prison authorities brought in the Viennese psychiatrist, Dr. Pappenheim, to interview Gavro (what the poor man probably needed at that time were good nutrition and medical care, and not an interrogation by a psychiatrist).

Pappenheim had a series of interviews with Gavro. As he got to know Pappenheim Gavro took some pleasure in these meetings, but always kept his reserve. He told Pappenheim that he found the solitary confinement extremely hard to cope with, without books (which he loved reading) and without being able to speak to anyone for days on end. His sleep was erratic, he told Pappenheim. He spoke longingly of the small library of books he had built up. Books for me, he said, signify life. If only he could have something to read for 2-3 days, he would be able to express himself more clearly. He slept no more than 4 hours and nights and dreamed constantly. But they were pleasant dreams—‘about life and love’.

When in lucid mind Gavro thought about his country (Serbia). He would hear snippets of information (presumably from prison guards) and was distressed to learn that Serbia no longer existed. (At the beginning of the war the Serbian army was routed by the advancing armies of Germany, Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary, and forced to flee.)

Gavro told Pappenheim that he believed the World War would have started anyway, irrespective of the assassination. He had killed the Archduke for wanting to revenge his people who, in his view, were oppressed terribly by the Austro-Hungarian regime.

Gavro spoke about his suicide attempt. It was about midnight and he was in very low spirits. And suddenly the idea came into his mind to end it all by hanging. It would be stupid to hope, he said.

By this time Gavro was showing unmistakable signs that he was suffering from tuberculosis. Pappenheim noted a fungus like growth on Gavro’s chest and arm.

Pappenheim noted that Gavro was always hungry and nervous. He made the obvious observation that the prisoner ought to have more sun and air. (The good doctor did not make his views known to the prison authorities, presumably thinking it was futile.) Gavro’s demeanour made it obvious to Pappenheim that he no longer had any hopes for anything; his life was finished. Everything that was linked to his ideals, he felt, was destroyed.

Gavro spoke a little bit about the assassination. He told Pappenheim that he was aware that there had been attempts at assassinations before, and the perpetrators were like heroes to young Serbians. He, Gavro, however, so he would tell Pappenheim, had no wish to become a hero. He merely wanted to sacrifice his life for his ideology. Before the assassination, Gavro had read an article by Kroptokin about what one can and should do in case of a worldwide social revolution. Gavro had studied this article and repeatedly talked about it with his friends. He had convinced himself that a worldwide social revolution was possible. (The assassination of Franz Ferdinand was presumably an important first step in the right direction.)

Gavro talked of his friendship with Danilo Ilic, Nedjo Cabrinovic and Trifko Grabez, and how Milan Ciganovic came to be involved. He made it clear that the assassination was not the idea of Major Tankosic (of Komite army and a member of the Black Hand); indeed Tankosic had not been made aware of the target of the assassination until the last minute.

Pappenheim gave Gavro a pen and paper and invited him to write something about the social revolution. Gavro was pleased, not least because it was the first time in almost two years he was holding a pen in his hand. But he could not carry on for long. He said he had to stop because he was feeling ill and his thoughts, he said, were gone from his head.

At one stage Pappenheim asked Gavro whether he thought the assassination of the Archduke was a service in the light of what had happened in its wake (World War). At this Gavro became agitated. He said he could not believe that the Great War was the consequence of the assassination; he did not hold himself responsible for the catastrophe; therefore he could not say whether the assassination had been of service or not.

As Pappenheim continued to meet Gavro he noticed that his wounds were getting worse. The wounds were discharging freely and Gavro was miserable yet resigned. He told Pappenheim that he had no sure means to kill himself and suicide was impossible. He simply had to wait till the end.

Pappenheim asked Gavro—the kind of non sequitur only psychiatrists seem capable of making—how he felt and what he thought about. Gavro would have him believe that for most of the time he was in a philosophical mood. He thought about human soul. In his mind he struggled with questions such as what was the essential in human life—intrinsic will or spirit; and what moved man.

Gavro made it clear to Pappenheim that while many people who talked to him had formed the impression—owing to Gavro’s young age—that he must have been influenced by others, it was not so. People, he felt, formed that impression, because he was not a gifted talker—he was more of a reader—and could not express himself properly.

When Pappenheim met with Gavro for the fourth and last time, Gavro’s health had worsened considerably. The wound on the arm had suppurated. The arm, Pappenheim noted, clinically, would have to be amputated. Gavro looked resigned to his fate and was awaiting death.

The death would not oblige Gavro so easily and so soon. There was further suffering to be endured. Two more years, to be exact.

Dr. Pappenheim took notes of what Gavro said to him. He had apparently no intention of publishing them; but neither did he destroy them. In the 1920s, Dr. Pappenheim was introduced to one Ratko Parezanin, a former Young Bosnian who had settled in Vienna. Parezanin persuaded Pappenheim to publish these notes. Pappenheim agreed, ignoring the views of his wife, who was against the publication. The notes were first published in German. In 1927, they appeared in New York Times Current History (Issue 5), under the headline: ‘Confessions of the Assassin Whose Deed Led to the World War’.

The assassin was dead for nine years by the time Pappenheim’s notes were published.

                                                     Dr. Martin Pappenheim

The last years of Gavro’s life were indescribably horrendous. A doctor named Marsch saw Gavro in his last years, wasted to the bone and several tuberculosis ulcers, some as large as the palm of a hand, on his body. There was little doubt in Dr.Marsch’s mind that Gavro had been carrying the disease before his arrest.

Tuberculosis spread to Gavro’s bones and began corroding his elbow joint. There were suppurating ulcers all over his body. At this stage he was removed to the hospital. He was still considered a ‘dangerous prisoner’ who could escape and there was always a soldier in Gavro’s room! The doctors pointed out that this was unnecessary as Gavro could barely walk at this stage. But the soldier remained.

Dr.Marsch’s observations were similar to those of Dr. Pappenheim. At this stage Gavro had grown a long beard over his two years in prison. However when it was shaved off, the doctor felt that his young face was intelligent and full of expression. He seemed resigned to his inevitable fate. His eyes were sunken and had lost the fire. He told the doctor that his earthly life was finished and was waiting for the end. The only time he appeared to come to life when he spoke of the liberation of his people. He spoke about his ‘short life’ and his family. He never mentioned The Black Hand.

This is how Dr. Marsch noted down Gavro’s appearance:

‘The slim, frail body showed a typical tubercular appearance . . . His chest was covered with tubercular ulcers of hand size and full of pus. The disease had destroyed the elbow joint of his left hand to such an extent that the lower part of the arm had to be connected with the upper part with a silver wire. Why the doctors were forbidden to amputate the lower part of his arm which had become completely useless I am unable to explain to this day.’

Gavro required extensive dressing of his wounds every two days, which was provided. His wounds were so extensive the whole of his upper torso had to be covered, requiring bandages that would have covered five people.

A Jewish doctor (who actually was an inmate after he issued some false health certificate) showed Gavro kindness by bringing his pieces of chocolate he had received from home. That ended when the doctor killed himself, upon learning that his fiancé had died.

In his last year, Gavro’s prison guards were predominantly Czech and came to treat him with sympathy.  Many apparently kept him informed of the events, as the Great War unleashed by the assassination Gavro carried out, entered its last phase.

Gavro’s arm was eventually amputated, although it probably did little to alleviate the pain and misery of his last months.

Gavro did not see out the Great War. He died on 28 April 1918 at 6.30 am. The war would go on for a few more months.

The cause of death given was tuberculosis of bones. At the time of his death, Gavro was three months short of his 24^th birthday.

Gavro did not live to see the misfortune that befell his mother. Gavro’s mother outlived her son by twenty years and ended her days in extreme poverty, begging on streets. She died just before the Second World War.

The prison authorities ordered five prison guards to take Gavro’s body to a nearby catholic cemetery for a secret burial. The guards were led by a young Czech officer, Frantisek Lebl. Lebl had earlier overseen the burials of Nedjo and Grabez, and secretly noted down the locations.

When Lebl arrived at the cemetery he noted that Gavro would be sharing his plot not with his fellow-conspirators but with a young prisoner who had died. The grave was already dug, in the middle of a path, where he would be forever trampled upon by the passing public. (No doubt, one last calculated insults by the Austrians.) That night Lebl made a sketch of the cemetery, noting down the location of the grave. He then posted it to his father in case he was killed in action.

Frantisek Lebl survived the war. After the war he went straight to the cemetery in Terezin and put a Czech flag on Gavro’s grave.

                                 Prison Cell where Gavro Princip was incarcerated. 

The Event that Sparked World War I: The Trial and Outcome

There were a total of 25 defendants. Some of their names are as follows:

There were the six main conspirators (Mehmedbasic, aged 27, was missing).

Gavro Princip (aged 19), Nedjo Cabrinovic (aged 19), Danilo Ilic (aged 24), Trifko Grabez (aged 18), Vaso Cubrilovic (aged 17), and Cvjetko Popovic (aged 16).

Then there were others:

Ivo Kranjcevic (aged 19), who had hidden Vaso’s weapons after the assassination; Lazar Djukic (aged 18) who had introduced Vaso to Danilo; Veljko Cubrilovic (aged 28) the ‘teacher gentleman’ who had helped Gavro and Grabez to smuggle the weapons from Priboj to Tuzla; and Misko Jovanovic (aged 36) the cinema owner from Tuzla who his the weapons in his house.

Then there were the peasants who had helped Gavro and Grabez in their travel. These included Mitar Kerovic (aged 65) and his three sons, Nedjo (aged 28), Jovo (age unknown) and Blagoje (aged 34), and their friend Cvjan Stjepanovic (aged 37) who had accompanied Gavro and Grabez in their cart journey from Tobut to Tuzla.

The other peasants who had helped Gavro and Grabez in their journey were rounded up too. These were Mico Mimic (aged 26), Jakov Milovic (aged 43) and Obren Milosevic (aged 38).

Finally the three unfortunate members of the Croatian family where Ivo Kranjcevic had hidden Vaso’s weapons, the Momicinovics, were in the dock: Ivan Mimocinovic (aged 67), his son-in-law Franjo Sadilo (aged 43), and Franjo’s wife Angela Sadilo (aged 38).

Angela was the only woman in the trial.

The heir to an empire (albeit in its terminal decline) had been killed; someone had to hang. The trouble for the authorities was that all those who had directly participated in the assassination and were caught were all younger than 20 (there would be some uncertainty about Gavro’s age, but that would be cleared in due course and he too would be deemed to be under the age of 20) and, according to Austrian law, could not be executed. Only the main conspirators who had gone out with guns and bombs on that morning on 28 June to assassinate Ferdinand could be charged with murder and all five of them were too young to be hanged. The rest—Veljko, Misko, the peasants, and even Danilo Ilic could only be charged with being accessories to murder; and that was not a capital crime.

The Empire charged five of the defendants (Gavro, Nedjo, Grabez, Popovic and Vaso) with high treason. The rest were charged with being accessories to high treason. High treason was a capital crime and being accessory was also a capital crime. Therefore if any of the five charged with high treason were found guilty, the accessories would be found guilty of capital crimes. And although it still meant that the five could not be executed (being too young) some of the accessories who were in their twenties could be executed.

That’s what happened.

The trial began. There was no jury. Instead the president of the court, a judge named Luis von Curnidali, sat with two fellow judges. (After the trial, Curinaldi retired from public life, went to live in a monastery and became a friar.)

There was no public gallery. None of the relatives of the defendants was allowed to attend.

The Empire provided all the defendants with lawyers; however, with the exception of Dr. Rudolf Cistler, who represented the Cubrilovic brothers, the lawyers seemed almost embarrassed to represent the defendants and, at best, put up a half-hearted defence. (It has to be said though that Gavro’s lawyer conclusively proved to the court that his client was indeed younger than 20 years of age.)

Cistler was a German and put up a spirited, if slightly curious, defence. He challenged the legality of the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina to the Austrian Empire. He claimed that the Empire had never formally completed the annexation of the region. Therefore the region was technically still under Turkish rule. Ergo, none of the defendants could be charged of high treason. It was of no use; the Judges’ minds were made up. Cistler was reprimanded for showing contempt towards the Emperor.

When the defendants were invited to address the court, only Nedjo Cabernovic took up the offer. His voice cracking with emotion, Nedjo gave a long speech.

Nedjo began his speech by saying that they did not hate Austria, but reminded the court that after taking control of the region 33 years ago Austria did nothing for its people. He went on to speak about his own anarchist ideas. He spoke about how the conspirators came to view that Franz Ferdinand as the enemy of the Slavs and, while no one told them directly to ‘go and kill him’ (an indication perhaps that neither The Black Hand nor Young Bosnians were behind the assassination), they came to have idea in the milieu they lived in.

Nedjo concluded his speech with the following words:

‘There is something else I would like to say. Although Princip plays the hero, all of us play the hero. Nevertheless we are very sorry, because we did not know in the first place that the late Franz Ferdinand was the father of a family. We were deeply touched by the words he said to his late wife, “Sophie, stay here, for our children.”

Think what you like of us but we are not criminals. For myself and in the name of my comrades I beg that the children of the late Heir Apparent forgive us; and you render whatever verdict you like. We are not evildoers, we are honest people, honourable, idealistic, we wanted to do good, we loved our people, we will die for our ideals.’

Nedjo was weeping by the time he finished his speech.

As soon as Nedjo finished Gavro leapt to his feet and said that Nedjo was not authorized to speak in his name. It seems that Gavro by this time was conscious of how posterity would judge him and was keen not to be seen as seeking forgiveness.

The judges took five days to reach the verdict.

On 28 October 1914, exactly 4 months after Franz Ferdinand met his end, the verdict was delivered. By that time the Great War was in its third month.

Out of 25 defendants 9 were acquitted, including all members of the Croat family (the Momicinovics) whom Ivo Kranjcevic foolishly involved in the plot.

Gavro Princip, Nedjo Cabrinovic and Trifko Grabez were each sentenced to 20 years of penal servitude.

Vaso Cubrilovic received 16 years while Cvjetko Popovic received 13 years.

All of them were to have their imprisonment intensified by solitary confinement in a dark cell on 28 June each year. Gavro who killed Ferdinand was to, in addition, have one day of fasting each month.

Lazar Djukic and Ivo Kranjcevic were each given 10 years’ sentence.

Old Mitar Kerovic was sentenced to life imprisonment while his son Nedjo and Jakov Milovic were sentenced to be hanged. The sentences of the Kerovics were subsequently commuted to 20 years, while Miovic’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Danilo Ilic, Veljko Cubrilovic and Misko Jovanovic were sentenced to be hanged and were not granted any reprieve or amnesty.

After the conspirators were returned to prison after the verdict, a Jesuit priest visited Nedjo Cabrinovic in his cell. He had with him blanket forgiveness from Franz Ferdinand’s children. The children had forgiven him because he had repented and expressed his regrets. After he handed him the letter the priest proceeded to deliver a lengthy sermon to Nedjo. Nedjo who was an atheist was apparently so surprised that he could not utter a word in riposte.

The Event that Sparked World War I: The Aftermath

Mehmed Mehmedbasic

The day Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on Appel Quay in Sarajevo, the first to disappear from the scene was Mehmed Mehmedbasic. Indeed Mehmedbasic did not wait for Gavro’s shooting. He scarpered as soon as he heard Nedjo’s bomb go off.

As mentioned in a previous posting, Mehmedbasic was the only one of the plotters who had a direct involvement in the assassination who escaped and never stood the trial.

The details of Mehmedbasic’s escape are sketchy. What is clear is that he did not hang about in Sarajevo, indeed Bosnia, after the assassination. He stayed in Sarajevo for two nights, in the company of some Muslim men who were studying to be imams. He left Sarajevo on 30 June 1914. By the time Austrian police identified the entire group Mehmedbasic had reached Montenegro.

The Austrian asked for Mehmedbasic to be arrested and sent to Sarajevo to stand trial. Montenegro was a small kingdom at this time, largely neutral but also pro-Serbian in its outlook.

Mehmedbasic, upon his arrival in Montenegro, had wasted no time in bragging about his role in the assassination, although he, the first in the line of the assassins Gavro and Ilic had lined up on Appel Quay to ‘welcome’ the Heir-Apparent, had not actually acted when presented with the opportunity and had run away from the scene at the earliest opportunity. He was arrested by the Montenegro police and he readily admitted to his culpability.

Mehmedbasic was jailed, but he escaped. It is possible that the jailers abetted his escape.

Montenegro informed the Austrian officials that they no longer knew where Mehmedbasic was. The truth was he was still in Montenegro, but quietly, without advertising his heroic role in the plot.

Mehmedbasic stayed in Montenegro for four more months before making his way to Belgrade, where he joined the Komite army.

It was while he was in the Komite army that Mehmedbasic fell under the spell of the charismatic Colonel Dragutin—‘Apis’—Dmitrijevic. Three years later, when Apis’s fortunes nosedived, Mehmedbasic would be charged with the plot to assassinate the Prince Regent, Alexander. Asseen in an earlier posting, these were trumped up charges and there was no plot to assassinate Alexander (a poetic justice, perhaps, meted out to Mehmedbasic). However, Mehemedbasic escaped the 1914 assassination trial. The other plotters were not so lucky.  

Cvjetko Popovic

Cvjetko Popovic had placed himself at the corner of Cumurija Street when Nedjo’s bomb went off. He was equipped with a bomb and revolver although he used neither even though he must have realised, as the Archduke’s car passed him by after a few minutes that Nedjo’s bomb had failed to kill him.

Soon after the bomb went off Popovic decided to remove himself from the scene. He wanted to run back to his home, but did not want to take the chance of keeping his unused weapons in his home. He returned to Appel Quay and hid his weapons in the basement of the Prosjeta offices. It was from this location that Popovic’s weapons were recovered.

Popovic had resolved to end his life after the assassination, but made no attempt to kill himself afterwards, no doubt the idea appearing less appealing when the moment to act on it arrived.

Popovic stayed on in Sarajevo that night. The next day he left Sarajevo for Zemum where his father and step-mother lived.

Popovic would enjoy five more days of freedom. On 3 July he would be summoned and an accusation of his involvement in the plot would be read out to him. ‘Yes,’ Popovic would reply. ‘Everything is true.’

Trifko Grabez

Trifko Grabez was at the Emperor’s Bridge on Appel Quay when he heard two clear shots, one after the other. Soon after, the news that the Heir Apparent had been assassinated began to circulate rapidly.

Grabez decided that he had to get away from Appel Quay. He went to his uncle’s house in Sarajevo and hid the bomb under the seat in the bathroom and gun under the roof. He then went back to the streets and strolled, happy as a Larry, on Appel Quay.

Grabez spent the next day at the home of another uncle in Sarajevo, but then returned to his parents’ home in Pale. He felt completely calm, he later told the trial, when he was in Pale.

Grabez had a girl friend at that time, a woman named Leposava Lalic. Lalic was to go on travelling the next day and Grabez decided to join her. He decided to go to Visegrad, a town near the Serbian border. He did not inform his parents that he was leaving.

Grabez was arrested later the same day because he was travelling without an official permit. He had a legitimate passport with him. The passport showed that Grabez had entered Bosnia from Serbia on 30 May. This aroused suspicions of the police. He was returned to Sarajevo and put in jail.

The above account suggests that it was Grabez's bad luck that he got arrested. If he had a valid permit he might not have been arrested. However, it seems likely that his name would have been mentioned when the other plotters were arrested, and, had Grabez still been in Bosnia, he probably would have been arrested. If, on the other hand, he had crossed the border and entered Serbia, he might have been able to avoid the arrest.

Vaso Cubrilovic

Vaso Cubrilovic, like Mehmedbasic, did not did not hang about on Appel Quay for the shooting. After Nedjo’s bomb went off, he left Appel Quay to a pre-arranged rendezvous to meet Ivo Kranjcevic, and gave Kranjcevic his weapons. The day after the assassination Vaso went out on the streets with his friends and, as was his nature, began boasting about the killing of the previous day. He even declared facetiously that it was he who had fired the shots that killed the Archduke.

Vaso then left Sarajevo. He was arrested on 3 July, the same day Popovic was arrested, in the town of Dubica.

Ivo Kranjcevic

Kranjcevic, in the meanwhile, had hidden the weapons at a family friend’s place without the knowledge of the head of the family. Kranjcevic was lucky that the head of the family was not at home when he arrived at the doorsteps with a bomb and revolver, and was let in by the women. The family head was furious when he came to know what Kranjcevic had done. His family (the name was Momiconovic) was Catholic and ostensibly loyal to the Emperor. In the aftermath of the assassination a filthy anti-Serb mood had gripped Sarajevo; there were anti-Serb demonstrations and riots all over the city. Momiconovic called at Kranjcevic’s place and demanded that the weapons be removed from his house.

At the trial, Kranjcevic’s father, who was a retired sergeant from the Austrian police force, was at a loss to explain how his son, from a Catholic Croat family, loyal to the Empire, had come to identify with Serb nationalism. ‘He was misled,’ was all that Kranjcevic’s father could offer by way of explanation. This was exactly the same phrase the Emperor Franz Ferdinand had used in his Imperial Manifesto, released in the wake of Archduke’s assassination. The killing, the manifesto said, was carried out by eine kleine Schar irreg eliten—a small group of the misled. Nothing to do with the Austrians.

Gavro Princip

Gavro Princip in the meanwhile had been brought to the police station. He was initially questioned by Leo Pfeffer, a relatively inexperienced member of the Austrian judiciary. This is how Pfeffer remembered Gavro when he was brought to him:

‘The young assassin, exhausted by the beatings, was unable to utter a single word. He was undersized, emaciated, sallow and sharp featured. It was difficult to imagine that so frail an individual could have committed so serious a crime.’

The clear blue eyes of the ‘assassin’, according to Pfeffer, were piercing and burning; but there was nothing cruel or criminal in them. They spoke of innate intelligence.

After firing the two shots Gavro had turned the gun inwards and was about to shoot himself. However, a spectator standing nearby saw what Gavro was about to do. He lunged at Gavro and snatched the revolver away from him. In the ensuing chaos Gavro swallowed the cyanide, but, just as Nedjo’s cyanide didn’t work, Gavro’s didn’t either. He merely began vomiting as he was being dragged to the police station and received severe beatings on the way. Gavro’s plan of killing the Archduke was successful, but he could not become, as he had wished, a martyr immediately. That would have to wait for a few more years.

Gavro confessed that he had vowed two years previously to avenge the death of Bogdan Zerajic (who had tried to assassinate General Varesanin). When he heard of the Archduke’s arrival, he had decided to take his revenge because he considered the Heir-Apparent as the embodiment of the power that exercised terrible pressure on the Yugoslavs.

At the time of this conversation neither Gavro nor Pfeffer knew that Ferdinand was dead. Gavro was formally charged with murder later in the evening after the Archduke’s death was confirmed.

At this stage the Austrians knew of only two conspirators: Gavro and Nedjo Cabrinovic, both of whom had been arrested straightaway after their attempts of Ferdinand’s life. They had not yet made the connection that Gavro and Nedjo were in the plot together.

NedjoCabrinovic

Nedjo was arrested immediately after his unsuccessful attempt to kill Franz Ferdinand when he threw a bomb at the Archduke’s car.

Nedjo was interviewed by a different judge in the afternoon of 28 June. This is what Nedjo told him:

‘I am an adherent of the radical anarchist idea, which aims at destroying the present system through terrorism in order to bring in a liberal system in its place. Therefore I hate all representatives of constitutional systems, as the bearers of powers which oppress people. I have educated myself in this spirit by reading socialist and anarchist writings, and I can say that I have read almost all literature available in the Serbo-Croat language.’

Nedjo initially said that he had acted alone, as he could not trust anyone. However he later accepted his connection with Gavro. Typical of Nedjo that he gave the game away while trying to suggest that the two attempts were a coincidence.

Finally, on 30 June Nedjo admitted that he had conspired with Gavro in Belgrade to assassinate the Archduke.

The Austrians put Nedjo and Gavro in chains in isolated cells at the military prison. Their cells were positioned such that they suffered the full glare of the sun. Neither was given water. Their cells looked on to a courtyard where Serbian students, businessmen and peasants who were arrested as a result of the assassination were kept.

Available evidence suggests that neither Gavro nor Nedjo gave away the names of the other conspirators.

Danilo Ilic

Danilo Ilic was arrested fairly soon after Gavro’s arrest. At that time the authorities had no inkling of his involvement in the assassination. Ilic was one of the many radical young Serbs who were arrested that evening. Ilic had a cyanide pill on his person (the one he did not give to Grabez) when he was arrested.

It is generally believed that Danilo Ilic revealed the names of other plotters to the Austrian authorities.

Veljko Cubrilovic

Veljko Cubrilovic, the ‘teacher gentleman’ and Vaso’s elder brother, was rounded up, together with Misko Jovanovic, following Ilic’s disclosures.(Misko Jovanovic was the 'good Serb' in Tuzla who his the weapons Gavro Princip and Trifko Grabez had smuggled into Bosnia from Serbia, and passed them on to Ilic.)  

In due course all the peasants who had helped Gavro and Grabez in smuggling weapons into Bosnia were also arrested. Unlike the main conspirators, all these men were married with families. Veljko, for example, just before his arrest, had become a father for the first time.

Available evidence suggests that Veljko Cubrilovic could have avoided (or at any rate delayed) his fate by escaping to Serbia. He chose not to. It was his sense of honour that stopped him from seeking an escape. In his letter from prison to his wife Veljko wrote: ‘What would have my peasants thought of me if I had fled and left them alone in those trying days?’

Both Veljko and Misko felt (amongst others) that Danilo Ilic had betrayed them.

                                                              Misko Jovanovic

The Event that Sparked World War I: The Plot and Plotters

                                                            Gavro Princip

Gavro Princip was the man who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand. With two shots he changed the course of European history.

For a man who, albeit unwittingly, came to have a profound impact on the history of modern world (Europe at any rate), Gavro would appear to have left little trace of himself. He remains an enigmatic figure, shrouded in mystery. Apart from the evidence he gave during his trial, only a handful of letters he wrote, plus the notes of a Viennese psychiatrist who interviewed him in prison, survive.

Early Years and Childhood

Gavro was born in 1894 in the village of Oblaj in the Grahovo valley (on the Western border of Bosnia and Hercegovina) close to Croatia. The valley was a home to ethnic Serbs for hundreds of years until 1995, when they were driven out by the advancing Croats during the multi-ethnic conflict in the Balkans involving Serbs, Muslims and Croats.

Gavro was 4^th amongst 9 children of his parents, Peter and Maria. Only 3 of the 9 children survived infancy.

The child was named Gavrilo—Gabriel in English—(soon shortened to Gavro), the choice of the local priest who overruled the mother (who wanted to name him Spiro after her dead brother) as he was born on St Gabriel’s day.

Gavro was born on 13 the July. This date, the correct date of his birth, was entered in the parish register. However, in the civil register, a wrong date, 13^th June, was entered as his date of birth. This mistake nearly got Gavro hanged 20 years later. Gavro assassinated Archduke Ferdinand on 28 June 1914. At the time of Archduke’s assassination Gavro was two weeks short of his 20^th birthday, and, according to Austrian law, he could not be hanged. If, on the other hand, the wrong date (13 June) was accepted as his date of birth, he would have been just over 20 at the time of assassination and therefore old enough to be executed.

As it happened Gavro was not hanged. He was sent to prison where, four years later, he died in abominable conditions, his body wrecked by tuberculosis.

In the prison Gavro was interviewed by Dr. Martin Pappenheim, a Viennese psychiatrist.

Gavro told Dr. Pappenheim that his father was a farmer and had no interest in politics.  Gavro’s father Peter came from a large clan which once owned a large land. However, after the death of Peter’s father, the land and property were divided and Peter owned only four acres of land.

According to Dr. Pappenheim’s notes, Gavro was a quiet and sentimental child. He was a loner and did not mix much with other school-children. He was interested in books and art from an early age, and participated regularly in the village gatherings where he read out poems praising the heroics of Serbian men.

Teenage Years and Politicization

Gavro’s father wanted him to start working in the fields soon after he turned ten. He owed his further education to the interventions of his mother and his eldest brother Jovo. Jovo was considerably older than Gavro and was living and working in Hadzici, a town near Sarajevo. Jovo was keen that his younger brother continued with his education.

It was Jovo who arranged and paid for Gavro’s entry into the military school in Sarajevo when Gavro was 14. Jovo had high hopes for his younger brother. Gavro would however disappoint Jovo. He would not complete higher education; instead he would be embroiled in revolutionary politics.

Gavro arrived in Sarajevo in 1907; he was 13. Jovo arranged for him to stay with a widow who was looking for tenants. The widow’s name was Stoja Iliac. Gavro shared a room with Stoja’s only child, Danilo Iliac. It was Danilo, four years older than Gavro and a proud possessor of a collection of revolutionary literature, who seven years later planned the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Danilo Iliac would be tried for his role in the conspiracy and pay dearly.

The first year away from home was probably unsettling for young Gavro and, at Jovo’s house, where he had to move after a few months as Jovo was unable to pay Stoja Iliac’s rent, he would sleep-walk in the night, one of the many reasons he did not make a favourable impression on Jovo’s wife.

It was in Sarajevo that Gavro became politicized, like many young Bosnian Serbs of his generation. By this time the Hapsburg Empire, following the Berlin treaty of 1878, was controlling Bosnia and had come to be despised by the Serbs almost as much as they despised the Turks who had ruled Bosnia for 500 years prior to that. When, in 1908, the Empire formally annexed Bosnia and Hercegovina the Serbs were furious.

The Turning Point, 1911

After three years at the Merchant school in Sarajevo, in 1910, Gavro requested his brother to shift him to a classical high school in the nearby town of Tuzla. Jovo relented. This would turn out to be a fateful decision.

In those days Tuzla was a hotbed of young Serbian students, their heads full of revolutionary ideas, considered seditious by the Hapsburgs. In Tulza Gavro became friends with a boy three years younger than him: Vaso Cubrilovic. Four years later Vaso would be Gavro’s ally in the conspiracy to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand. Vaso Cubrilovic was one of the only two conspirators, directly involved in the assassination attempt, who lived into old age. Years after the assassination, Vaso, in an interview, described Gavro as a ‘stuha’—a restless spirit.

In his prison interview to Dr. Pappenheim, Gavro described 1911, the year he turned 17, as the critical year in his life. He began reading avidly anarchist, nationalist and socialist literature. He also began reading fiction of Walter Scott, Alexander Dumas, and detective stories of Sherlock Homes. A fellow-student later recalled that no one amongst them knew literature as much as Gavro. He remained a loner, though, choosing to spend time in the library than with other students.

Gavro also began writing poetry but was unsure of its literary merits. The most substantial piece of written work Gavro left behind is a long entry in a tourist’s visitor book at a lodge in the mountains outside the town of Hadzici (where his brother, Jovo, lived).

Back in Sarajevo, 1912

Perhaps because of the radical atmosphere around him in Tuzla, Gavro began challenging the system; he also became irreligious. He felt that his professors mistreated him, and he requested his brother to transfer him back to a school in Sarajevo. Once again Jovo relented.

In Sarajevo Gavro continued to lead an isolated existence which, he would recall later, did not bother him unduly. (Some biographers believe that in his desperately sad last years of life, when he spoke to Dr. Pappenheim, Gavro might have romanticised his past isolation as a coping mechanism).

It was in Sarajevo, sometime in the summer of 1912, that Gavro became friends with a man who, on 28 June 1914, would throw a bomb at Archduke Ferdinand’s car in the hope of killing him (he missed). He was Nedejko—Nedejo—Cabrinovic. 

Nedjo, whose family lived in Sarajevo, took Gavro to his home from time to time. Gavro most probably had a crush on Nedjo’s bright and vivacious younger sister Vukosava. He wrote many a lyrical letter to Vukosava. (Vukosava kept these letters with her for thirty years after the assassination. In the 1940s Vukosava lived with her doctor husband in Croatia The childless couple had to flee the town when they were informed that Utasa fascists were planning to come to their house and kill them. They left behind all their possessions—among them Gavro’s letters—which were lost.)

First Visit to Belgrade, Serbia and attempts to take part in the First Balkan War (1912)

Gavro was getting into trouble in Sarajevo. He was getting poor grades in his studies, probably because he was not concentrating on them. He was instead participating in student demonstrations against the Hapsburg Empire. The inevitable happened: he was expelled from the Sarajevo school. Gavro did not tell his family, not even his brother Jovo, what had happened. Instead he left for Belgrade in the first half of 1912. He walked 300 kilometres and, so he would later say, kissed the soil when he entered Serbia. He had no money—either to stay or come back to Sarajevo. He wrote to Jovo asking for money. Jovo refused to help. Gavro survived for the next few weeks in Belgrade on credit and kindness of friends.

A roommate of Gavro in the hostel where he lived recalled him as someone who was always reading. He frequently had to sell his books to subsist, although he always tried not to sell his favourite books. He would occasionally go out for walks with other hostelites and recite Serbian poetry.

After a few weeks of aimless drifting in Belgrade Gavro realised that the only way to get his life back on track and to get back into the good books of his brother, Jovo, was to resume his education and take exams. He visited the Department of Education in Belgrade on 2-3 occasions to seek permission to sit his exams. The Minister for Education, Ljuba Jovanovic, remembered Gavro: ‘I remember him well. He was slight, broadish in shoulders with a broad though somewhat pinched countenance. He spoke without nervousness.’ 

Gavro was allowed to take his exams which also helped him to reconcile with Jovo. Jovo started sending Gavro money and Gavro was back in the Belgrade cafes, debating revolution. He took his exams and failed.

This was also the prelude to the First Balkan War which would begin towards the end of 1912 and last for roughly seven months. The First Balkan War which pitted the Balkan League nations (Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and Bulgaria) against the Ottoman Empire, would result in a victory for the Balkan league nations and the Ottomans would lose what little control they had over the territories of Eastern Europe.

Gavro was more than keen to fight for Serbia against the Ottomans and wanted to join the Komite, the Serbian regular army of volunteers, led by Major Vojislav Tankosic, a Bosnian Serb who, by this time, had become an influential figure in Serbia with close links with some of the Serbian army officers. Tankosic would play a crucial role, two years later in the assassination of Ferdinand.

                                                          Major Vojislav Tankosic

Gavro went from Belgrade to the border town of Prokulpje where Tankosic was based. Tankosic dismissed Gavro within seconds with a wave of his hand. He was ‘too small and too weak’. Dejected, Gavro returned to Belgrade and from there to Hadzici where Jovo was living.

Over the next year Gavro travelled between Hadzici and Belgrade. He also spent a lot of time in Sarajevo.

1913—plans to assassinate General Potiorek

In May 1913, Oskar Potiorek, the Austrian general of Bosnia and Hercegovina, announced the repressive ‘Exceptional measures’. Gavro, together with Danilo Ilic, occupied himself plotting Potiorek’s assassination. However, the plans had to be kept on hold when, within a month, the Second Balkan War began and Danilo decided to join the Komite army. Gavro did not go, presumably thinking, following his unsuccessful interview with major Tankosic the previous year, that his chances of getting recruited into Komite were less than slim. He was still small of stature and sickly.

Danilo did not last long in the Komite either, and was back in Sarajevo in the autumn of 1913. Upon his return he fell sick and needed hospitalization. The two friends decided to put Potiorek’s assassination on hold once again, this time for more lofty reasons. They were going to build up a pro-Serbia grass-root organization. They would let Potiorek live until the organization was up and running.

Throughout his stay in Sarajevo Gavro led a hand-to-mouth existence. He was always short of money. What little money he did earn (or borrow from Danilo) he would spend on books. He lived at Danilo’s house free of rent. Just as in Belgrade, he read voraciously in Sarajevo, mainly about Russian revolutionaries and about wars and battles.

In his prison interview to Dr. Pappenheim Gavro would declare that during this period he increasingly came to view assassination as a justifiable means to achieve the end. 

In February 1914, Gavro went for the last time to his home in Grahovo where his parents still lived; the trip was financed by Jovo. Gavro stayed with his parents for two weeks. Maria found her middle son, the last time she saw him, even more brooding and quieter than usual. He spent most of the time in the company of his cousin (Vladeta Bilbija) and the two left for Belgrade after two weeks.

March 1914—final visit to Belgrade

Gavro arrived in Belgrade on 13 March 1914. This would be his last visit to Belgrade. When he left Belgrade 10 weeks later, on 28 May, he would be carrying guns and bombs on his person.

It is very likely that when Gavro arrived in Belgrade, probably even before that, when he left Sarajevo to visit his parents, his mind was made up to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand whose visit to Bosnia to oversee military manoeuvres in the summer of 1914 was announced.

As was his wont, Gavro spent a lot of time in Belgrade reading and fraternizing with ‘Young Bosnians’ (more about this organization later), talking their heads off about revolution. He took up rooms on Carigradska Street in Belgrade where he ran into an old friend. The friend was Trifko Grabez. Grabez had dropped out of high school and arrived in Belgrade to earn a living.

With little difficulty Gavro recruited Grabez to the plot. When Gavro left Belgrade for Bosnia on 28 May, Grabez was with him, carrying weapons.

Another old friend Gavro looked up in Belgrade was the perineal rabble-rouser Nedjo Cabernovic. Nedjo had been billeting in Belgrade for 10 months after causing too much trouble for himself and his family in Sarajevo. Gavro had no difficulty in recruiting Nedjo, who, in any case, was daydreaming on a daily basis about assassinating some or the other luminary of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to his plot.

Acquires Weapons

Gavro and Nedjo began discussing in earnest how they were going to obtain weapons for their forthcoming assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Gavro accepted the responsibility of finding weapons. Gavro and Nedjo met every day in cafes to check the progress. Gavro also kept himself up-to-date with the current events by reading newspapers.

It would appear that Nedjo and Gavro, although they met each other daily, did not fully keep each other abreast of what they were up to. Both of them met separately Milan Ciganovic, a popular fighter in the Komite who had won medals for bravery in battles. 
   

                                    Milan Ciganovic with Gavro Princip and Nedjo Cabrinovic

Ciganovic was close to influential figures both in the Komite (Major Vojislav Tankosic, who had deemed Gavro unfit for military duties earlier) as well as the Serbian army (Colonel Dragutin Dimitrivij, who was nicknamed ‘Apis’). All three of them—Ciganovic, Tankosic, and Dimitrivij—were also members of a dreaded secret Serbian organization called the ‘Black Hand’ (more about it later), and did not frown upon using terror tactics to further their cause. 

                                                          Dragutin Dimitrivij (Apis)

Involvement of Ciganovic, Dimitrivij (Apis) and Tankosic in the plot to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand led to the accusation from the enraged Austrians of direct involvement of the Serbians in the assassination, leading, within weeks of the assassination, to the First World War.

Gavro—who seemed to have a talent for seeking out and becoming friends with dodgy characters—had made friends with a man named Djuro Sarac, who, like Gavro, was a ‘Young Bosnian’. Sarac, who once nursed dreams of becoming a priest, had ended up in a profession involving duties which couldn’t have been further removed from those of a priest. Sarac was the personal bodyguard of Major Tankosic. Through Sarac, Gavro managed to get an audience with Ciganovic. The young Serb revolutionary informed Ciganovic of his audacious plan and asked him to provide bombs, saying that he would find revolvers himself. Ciganovic said after a pause, ‘We’ll see.’ He said that he would need to discuss this further with a gentleman. That gentleman (in the loose sense of the term) was Major Tankosic. Ciganovic kept the young assassin on tenterhooks for a while. This was because around that time (April 1914) the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Franz Joseph, who was 84, became seriously ill, which meant the Heir-Apparent’s visit to Sarajevo might be cancelled. Eventually Ciganovic provided Gavro with bombs, warning that they were not reliable and there was a delay of several seconds before they exploded (It was this delay, of 10-12 seconds, which Nedjo would not take into account when he threw the bomb and Ferdinand would be temporarily reprieved). The kindly Ciganovic also provided Gavro—because ‘he was so poor’ (!)—with some revolvers. The conspirators received, in total, 4 revolvers and 6 bombs.

It was now mid-April in 1914. The countdown to assassination had begun.

Receives training in Shooting

Ciganovic, upon Tankosic’s instructions, trained Gavro and Grabez in shooting. Nedjo who was working overtime did not receive this training. On 28 June 1914 when Franz Ferdinand met his end, there were several plotters waiting for him, armed with bombs and revolvers, except Nedjo who carried with him only bombs.

Gavro now wrote to Danilo Ilic in Sarajevo, who had been in on the conspiracy right from the beginning. Writing in a code and using allegory (the poet in him surfacing, perhaps) Gavro informed Danilo that the weapons had been obtained and the assassination was going ahead.

In the letter Gavro also asked Danilo to recruit more people to the plot, the second ‘cell’ if you will. By now four young men had committed themselves to assassinating Ferdinand: Gavro himself, Danilo Ilic, Trifko Grabez and Nedjo Cabrinovic. Apparently that was not enough. Gavro felt he needed more. How many more? Three. Danilo would find them.

The Mystic Journey—the weapons are smuggled into Bosnia

The weapons were in hand. All that was needed was smuggling them into Bosnia. That wouldn’t be easy. The plotters were skint. And there would be gendarmes and police at every step. Ciganovic had warned them to avoid local administration at all cost, as they would be arrested and sent back to Serbia. The Serbian Interior Ministry was not to get so much as a whiff of the plot.

Once again Ciganovic, the Good Samaritan, came to rescue. He provided the plotters with money. He also gave them names of ‘good Serbs’ in Bosnia, who would help them.

Ciganovic advised that the young men should head first to the Bosnian town of Tuzla (where Gavro had studied two years earlier). If they encountered difficulties in smuggling weapons into Sarajevo from there, they should contact a Serb named Misko Jovanovic, who lived in Tuzla. Misko would not turn them down.

Trifko Grabez plotted the route. Gavro, Nedjo and Grabez met the following morning, a beautiful, sunny morning (Nedjo would recall later), revolvers in their pockets and bombs tied to their waists.

During his trial Gavro described the journey from Belgrade to Sarajevo as a ‘mystic journey’. When asked to explain he refused. The mysticness of the journey, one would have to assume, related not so much to the actual route (which was very arduous) as to the state of Gavro’s mind once he arrived in Sarajevo. It may be that during this journey Gavro Princip had the revelation that while there were at least five more in their group (provided Danilo managed to recruit three more to the plot, which he did), it would be he who would bring the life of Franz Ferdinand to an end.

During their travels, the three would-be-assassins fell out. Nedjo, who was always the wild card among the plotters, was not discriminate about their mission. At one stage during the journey he sent half a dozen post cards to his friends and family and wrote lines of heroic Serbian poetry on them, celebrating the victory of Serbs over Turks 110 years earlier. Gavro was annoyed as he felt Nedjo was giving away the secret, and the two had an argument. From this point on Gavro came to regard Nedjo, good friend he might have been, as a liability. During their trial Gavro made light of the fight and described it as a ‘friendly quarrel’; however, after the quarrel, Gavro and Grabez travelled together while Nedjo travelled on his own, bizarrely enough, on Grabez’s passport and calling himself Trifko Grabez! He did not have weapons on him, as Gavro and Grabez took them from him.

The three men decided to meet in Tuzla. Since Nedjo would be travelling without weapons and legitimately (on a false passport!) he would reach Tuzla early. He was to wait for the other two in Tuzla. As the men crossed the border between Serbia and Bosnia, they were helped by Sergeant Rade Grabic (probably linked to Ciganovic). Grabic introduced Gavro and Grabez (the real Grabez) to two Serbian peasants, Mico Mimic and Jakov Milovic who would help them find their way to Tuzla. On their way, they also sought help from a friend of Milovic, named Obren Milosevic.

Plotters go to Priboj, Bosnia—meeting with Veljko Cubrilovic

Gavro and Grabez wanted to go straightaway to Tuzla after they crossed the border and entered Bosnia. The trouble was Tuzla was still many kilometres away and the journey was arduous. It was suggested that Gavro and Grabez should go to the town of Priboj in the first instance, where they should look for a school teacher. The school teacher was described by Obren Milosevic as a ‘teacher gentleman’. He was Veljko Cubrilovic, the elder brother of Vaso Cubrilovic, whom Gavro had become friends with a few years earlier when he studied in Tuzla.

How did the peasants know the ‘teacher gentleman’? It is probable that Veljko was known in the area for his work with a local Serb cultural group (Sokol). Equally likely, the peasants had known of him because of his connections with a Serb ‘cultural’ organization called Narodna Odbrana (more about it later). All three of the peasants had acted as couriers for the Serbian organization.

After 21 hours of continuous travel on foot the plotters arrived in Priboj. Gavro (or Trifko Grabez) told the peasants, ‘Okay; go and tell the teacher we are here and you get yourself home.’ (All three men— Mimic, Milovic and Milosevic would be arrested and stand trial for helping the plotters. They, fighting for their lives during the trial, would portray themselves as illiterate farmhands who did not grasp the enormity of their conduct; the main accused—Gavro and Grabez—would try their best to protect the three men. Mimic and Milosevic would be acquitted, while Jakov Milovic would die in prison.)

Gavro and Grabez, exhausted and muddy following continuous seven days of walking on foot, met with Veljko Cubrilovic. The day was 3 June 1914. But there was no time to rest. Priboj was 40 kilometres away from Tuzla.

Journey from Priboj to Tuzla

Veljko, Gavro and Grabez—Veljko on horseback, the other two on foot—travelled onwards to a village called Tobut. Here they met with the family of a peasant, Mitar Kerovic whom Veljko knew. (Mitar and his three sons, Blagjoe, Jovo and Nedjo would be arrested and stand trial; Veljko would describe Mitar as a hard working peasant during the trial.) Mitar was 65 at the time. At Veljk’s behest Mitar agreed, after initial reluctance, to give his cart to the ‘students’ (as they were described by Veljko) so that they could travel onwards to Tuzla in some comfort.

Gavro and Grabez rested at Mitar Kerovic’s house and then travelled onwards to Tuzla to meet the ‘good Serb’, Misko Jovanovic. Misko was known to Veljko as he too was connected with Narodna Odbrana. Only Veljko knew where Misko lived in Tuzla and he gave the address to the ‘students’.

Arrival in Tuzla—leaves the weapons with Misko Jovanovic

Gavro and Grabez set off for Tuzla in a cart with Mitar Kerovic’s son, Nedjo (not to be confused with Nedjo Cabrinovic, one of the plotters), and a family friend, Cvijan. After a midnight’s ride the ‘students’ and peasants reached the outskirts of Tuzla. The students cleaned themselves by the river and sent the peasants ahead with the weapons to Misko Jovanovic’s house.

Misko Jovanovic was 36 years old at the time. Recently married, he had become a father (Veljko Cubrilovic was the baby’s godfather). Misko belonged to a prosperous and prominent Serb family in Tuzla. He had started off in his father’s business but had soon branched out, opening Tuzla’s first cinema. He was the president of the local Sokol (he had joined it in 1912 at Veljko’s behalf) and a local representative of Narodna Odbrana.

On 4 June the doorbell of Misko’s house rang; the misfortune had arrived at his doorstep. Outside were standing Nedjo (Mitar’s son) and Cvijan. They had with them weapons and note from Veljko Cubrilovic which had one sentence: ‘Dear Misko, keep these.’ The peasants told Misko that the weapons belonged to two students who would be visiting him shortly.

Misko hid the weapons in the attic. Then the ‘students’ arrived. Gavro told Misko that they were students from Belgrade and the plan was to smuggle the weapons into Sarajevo. By this time Oskar Potiorek’s Emergency Measures were in place all over Bosnia, and neither Gavro nor Grabez had passports. Gavro asked Misko to take the weapons into Sarajevo himself as it was much safer for him; if he was not prepared to do that, he should hide the weapons in his house and Gavro would send someone later to collect them.

Misko was not happy to smuggle the weapons into Sarajevo, but agreed to hide the weapons in his house. Gavro sent Danilo Ilic to collect the weapons. (During the trial Misko would claim that Gavro threatened him and forced him to hide weapons. Gavro accepted that he had indeed threatened him as he had noticed that Misko was afraid. Whether Misko was really threatened or whether Gavro, who by this time knew he was doomed, was taking the blame for everything so that others could be saved, will forever remain unknown. At any rate, this did not save Misko.)

Gavro and Trifko met with Nedjo Cabrinovic, who had arrived earlier in Tuzla and had made himself at home in a local inn.

June 1914—Plotters arrive back in Sarajevo

The three conspirators boarded the train for Sarajevo. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Heir-Apparent of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had less than 4 weeks to live.

                                         Princip (centre) in Custody surrounded by Austro-Hungarian Guards