Black Hand

1 ANSWERS

1. Brett
   

   The Hapsburg heir to the Austro Hungarian throne was joyously greeted by the inhabitants of the provincial capital that Sunday morning, June 28, 1914. But shortly after 10 A.M. a bomb was thrown at the open car in which Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, the duchess of Hohenberg, were riding through the streets of Sarajevo. Raising his arm to shield Sophie from the flying object, the archduke deflected the missile so that it bounced off their vehicle to explode in the street behind them.
   
   Although several onlookers and passengers in the following car were slightly injured by bomb fragments, it was decided that the motorcade should proceed to the welcoming ceremonies at the city hall.
   
   "Do you think there will be any more bomb throwing?" the angry Francis Ferdinand asked his host, Bosnia's military governor General Oskar Potiorek. Trying to make light of the incident, the general in turn asked his royal guest, "Does Your Highness think the streets are filled with assassins? "Nonetheless, it was decided to alter the previously published route for the remainder of the motorcade. No one informed the driver of the change in plans.
   
   "What is this? This is the wrong way!" the general shouted, as the archduke's automobile turned off the broad Appel Quay into Francis Joseph Street. Confused, the driver abruptly stopped to back his vehicle out of the narrow street. The maneuver put his royal passengers directly in the assassin's line of fire. Two shots were fired. One bullet pierced Francis Ferdinand's neck the other ripped into Sophie's abdomen. Both were pronounced dead within a few minutes.
   The gunman was instantly seized, as had been the bomb thrower an hour earlier - their attempts at suicide thwarted by outraged bystanders. The two proved to be Gavrilo Princip and Nedeljko Cabrinovic, adherents of a revolutionary movement among South Slavic youth called Young Bosnia. Taking inspiration from contemporary Russian revolutionaries, these young men were dedicated to the liberation of Bosnia and the neighboring province of Herzegovina from Austro Hungarian rule and unification with the kingdom of Serbia. Along with four other youthful conspirators, Princip and Cabrinovic had stationed themselves along the route of the motorcade with the intention of killing the archduke, the hated symbol of Hapsburg domination.
   
   While students in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, the two had hatched their plot sometime early in the spring upon learning of the archduke's intended visit to Sarajevo. After enlisting a third youth, Trifko Grabez, the conspirators sought arms from an older Bosnia nationalist named Milan Ciganovic. He trained them to fire pistols, instructed them in the use of bombs, and provided them with cyanide capsules for committing suicide after their deed was done. Meanwhile Princip had written to Danilo Ilic, a teacher and writer in Sarajevo, who recruited three other assassins and assumed leadership of the plot.

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