Gavrilo Princip: Two Shots, 12 Million Dead

The Archduke and his Wife

The first opportunity to assassinate the Archduke fell to Mohamed Mehmedbasic, a Bosnian Muslim, but as the car brushed past him he failed to throw his grenade. A loss of nerve he later denied. As the Archduke’s cavalcade neared its destination, Sarajevo City Hall, it slowed almost to a stop. This presented Nedjelko Cabrinovic with his opportunity. He threw his grenade but he had forgotten that it had a ten second fuse. It bounced off the bodywork of the Archduke’s car rolling beneath the car behind before it exploded seriously injuring its occupants. The Archduke’s car sped off and Cabrinovic fled the scene with the police in hot pursuit. He bit into his phial of cyanide but it failed to work so he leapt into the River Miljacka hoping to drown himself. But it was only 4 inches deep. He was arrested.

Archduke Ferdinand was furious at his reception and his notorious temper now came to the fore. He thundered during a speech given in his honour: “What is the good of your speeches? I come to Sarajevo on a visit, and I get bombs thrown at me. It is outrageous!” After dinner at City Hall, the Archduke decided that he wanted to visit those injured in the earlier attack in hospital. General Piotorek, who would be travelling in the same car as the Archduke and his wife, suggested an alternative route avoiding the city centre, but no one told the driver. He took the same route as before. Noticing this, Piotorek started remonstrating with the driver. Having entered the logjam that was Franz Joseph Street he now decided to try to turn the car around and by an alternative route, but it stalled.

His Murderer

Gavrilo Princip, believing that the assassination attempt had failed, was in a cafe in Franz Joseph Street eating a sandwich. Glancing out of the window he could not believe his luck. Just a few yards away from where he was sitting stuck in a traffic jam was his intended victim. He left the cafe and walked unimpeded to within 5 feet of the Archduke’s car took out his Browning pistol and fired twice. The first bullet hit the Archduke in the neck, the second penetrated his wife’s abdomen. Sophie was heard to scream, “Heavens! What’s happening? What’s happened to you? ” she then slumped to her knees. The Archduke then shouted “Sopherl! Sopherl! Don’t die!” A bodyguard travelling on the frame of the car asked “What’s wrong?” To which the Archduke replied “It’s nothing”, a phrase he kept repeating until his head slumped forward. They were both dead.

Princip made no attempt to flee the scene but instead tried to turn the gun on himself but was restrained by someone in the crowd. He was then dragged away by some of the many policemen present and severely beaten.

Eight men were charged with the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie. Under Austro-Hungarian law the penalty for murder was death. But because they could not determine Princip’s exact date of birth he was judged to be under 20, therefore a juvenile and too young to be hanged. Instead he was imprisoned for the maximum 20 years allowed. Because of the poor state of his health there was little possibility of him completing his sentence? When he died on 28 April, 1918, he was to weigh only 6 stone.

Protesting at being constantly moved from one prison to another he spoke these words. They were to be his last recorded statement and epitaph:

“There is no need to carry me to another prison. My life is already ebbing away. I suggest that you nail me to a cross and burn me alive. My flaming body will be a torch that will light my people on their path to freedom.”

Instead, what he did on that hot overcast summer day was, as the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Grey, was to remark just a few week later, ” Put the lights out across Europe.” Never to be lit again for a generation.