Archduke Ferdinand's assassination...
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Gavrilo Princip in prison cell in Theresienstadt
This picture was at one time believed to show Princip's arrest. It was later confirmed that it actually depicted the arrest of a passerby who tried to save Princip from being lynched. It is also interesting, that the passerby here shown, was a German by nationality.Gavrilo Princip (Гаврило Принцип) (July 25, 1894 – April 28, 1918) was a Bosnian Serb nationalist who killed Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, and his wife Countess Sophie in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, prompting the Austrian action against Serbia that led to World War I. Born in Obljaj, Bosansko Grahovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Princip was a member of the group Young Bosnia (Mlada Bosna), and it is thought by some that he was a member of the Black Hand though this latter is not true.
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Assassination
On June 28, 1914 Gavrilo Princip participated in the assassination in Sarajevo. General Oskar Potiorek, Governor of the Austrian provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina had invited Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Sophia to watch his troops on maneuvers. Franz Ferdinand knew that the visit would be dangerous. Just before 10 o'clock on Sunday, the royal couple arrived in Sarajevo by train. In the front car was Fehim Curcic, the Mayor of Sarajevo and Dr. Gerde, the city's Commissioner of Police. Franz Ferdinand and Sophia were in the second car with Oskar Potiorek and Count von Harrach. The car's top was rolled back in order to allow the crowds a good view of its occupants, Franz Ferdinand and his wife.
At 10:10 A.M., when the six car procession passed the central police station, a nineteen year old Black Hand terrorist named Nedeljko Cabrinovic hurled a hand grenade at the archduke's car. After Cabrinovic's bomb missed the Archduke's car, five other conspirators, including Gavrilo Princip, failed to get an opportunity to attack because of the heavy crowds. To avoid capture, Nedjelko swallowed a cyanide pill and jumped into the nearby river, but was hauled out and detained by police. It was beginning to look like the assassination would fail. However, Franz Ferdinand decided to go to the hospital and visit the victims of Cabrinovic's bomb. In order to avoid the city centre, General Oskar Potiorek decided that the royal car should travel straight along the Appel Quay to the Sarajevo Hospital. However, Potiorek forgot to inform the driver, Franz Urban, about this decision. On the way to the hospital, Urban took a right turn into Franz Joseph Street.
Gavrilo Princip had gone into Moritz Schiller's cafe for a sandwich, having apparently given up, when he spotted Ferdinand's car as it drove past, having taken the wrong turn. After realizing the mistake, the driver put his foot on the brake, and began to back up. In doing so he moved slowly past the waiting Gavrilo Princip. Gavrilo Princip stepped forward, drew his gun, and at a distance of about five feet, fired several times into the car. Franz Ferdinand was hit in the neck and Sophia in the abdomen. Sophia, who was later found to be with child at the time of her death, died instantly. Ferdinand, who in disbelief of her death insisted that she wake up, fainted within five minutes and died soon after.
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Capture and imprisonment
Princip tried to kill himself first by ingesting cyanide, and then with his gun, but he vomited the poison (which Cabrinovic had also done, leading the police to believe the group had been deceived and bought a much weaker poison), and the gun was wrestled from his hand before he had a chance to fire another shot. Having been too young at the time of the assassination (19) to face the death penalty, Princip received the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, where he was held in harsh conditions worsened by the war. He died of tuberculosis of the bone on April 28, 1918 at Theresienstadt.
The gun used by Princip was a Browning M 1910 semi-automatic pistol in 7.65×17mm (.32 ACP) caliber. It was recently found and recovered in the home of an Austrian Jesuit family, and is now in display at the Vienna Museum of Military History. The second bullet fired by Princip, killing Ferdinand, is stored as a museum exhibit in the Konopište Castle near the town of Benešov, Czech Republic.
