In one of Geoffrey Household’s short stories, a man recollects how he inadvertently caused World War I by directing the assassin Gavrilo Princip to the exact spot where he is able to shoot Archduke Franz Ferdinand (and his Duchess Sophia) on that June day that changed the world forever. The actual assassination did indeed only happen through fortuitous (as it were) circumstances. Princip was an ill 19-year-old man with tuberculosis who was devoted to the cause of Serb nationalism. He belonged to ‘Young Bosnia’, a group of Serbs dedicated to the overthrow of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s rule in the Balkans, and received training in the dark arts of sabotage and killing by the Serb secret society popularly known as the ‘Black Hand’ (or more prosaically, ‘Union or Death’), who provided the ordnance for the deed.
Franz Ferdinand, in his capacity as inspector general of the imperial army. paid an official visit to Sarajevo, and arrived in Sarajevo railway station at 10 AM on 28 June. This is St Vitus’ Day, a day sacred to many Serbs: exactly 525 years previously, the Serbs had suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Ottomans at the battle of Kosovo. The symbolic importance of the day contributed to the resolve of a bunch of would-be assassins waiting for Ferdinand, consisting of Princip and five others. When Ferdinand’s motorcade passed, one of the gang threw a fizzing bomb that Ferdinand actually warded off with his arm, and which went under the car following before exploding. The injured were taken to hospital.
Ferdinand and his group arrive at Sarajevo Town hall and debated what to do next. Amazingly, Ferdinand – after trying to persuade his wife not go along – decided they should go back long the same route and visit the hospital where the wounded were being treated (there is a photograph of them entering the car for the return journey). On the way back – for reasons that are still unclear – Ferdinand’s chauffeur took a wrong turning and managed to stop just beside a surprised Princip who pulled out his automatic pistol – as fate would have it, Ferdinand’s bodyguard was on the other side of the car – and shot first Sophie and then Ferdinand, his two bullets severing arteries in both victims. Ferdinand called to Sophie, ‘Don’t die! Live for our children’, and said ‘It is nothing’ when asked if he was in pain. They died in minutes.
What Happened Next
At his trial, Princip denied wanting to shoot Sophie. Her killing was an ‘accident’. He was too young to execute, and was sentenced to 20 years in jail. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, which led to other treaties being called in, and so World War I began. Princip became a hero to many Serbs, and his pistol shots set off a war in which around 15 million people died before its end in November 1918. Princip died of his tuberculosis earlier that year, in April.