Indeed, each recruit was even issued a cyanide capsule since, like Žerajić, none were expected to survive.įranz Ferdinand arrived in Sarajevo on 25 June 1914. According to a later testimony from Mehmedbašić, Ilić had kept the identities of the Belgrade recruits a secret until the eve of the assassination itself. The trio subsequently returned to their homeland in May. Three of these youths, Nedeljko Čabrinović (1895-1916), Trifko Grabež (1895-1916) and Gavrilo Princip (1894-1918), who were resident in Serbia’s capital Belgrade in 1914, received money, weapons and basic training from Black Hand operatives. Over the following months, Ilić recruited from among Young Bosnia’s most radical student members. Moreover, the timing of the Archduke’s visit was perceived as a calculated snub by the provincial government since it coincided with the Serbian national and religious holiday of St. As the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand’s proposals for greater political autonomy within the Monarchy’s South Slav territories posed a direct challenge to Serbian nationalist ambitions. In March 1914, however, a new target had been chosen: Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este (1863-1914), who would be visiting Bosnia-Herzegovina in June 1914 to observe local military manoeuvres. Drawing on intelligence gathered by its chief operative in Sarajevo, Danilo Ilić (1891-1915), the society’s leaders initially proposed that Muhamed Mehmedbašić (1887-1943), a Bosnian Muslim affiliate, attempt to assassinate Potiorek. The new governor’s efforts to suppress anti-Habsburg activities, following Serbia’s success during the Balkan Wars, brought Young Bosnia under the influence of the Serbian nationalist Black Hand Society. This was compounded by the appointment of the politically ambitious General Oskar Potiorek (1853-1933) as Varešanin’s successor in 1911. Inspired by the Bosnian Serb Bogdan Žerajić’s (1886-1910) attempted assassination of the provincial governor General Marijan Varešanin (1847-1917) in June 1910, so-called “cultural organisations”, such as “Young Bosnia” ( Mlada Bosna), became increasingly militant. Nevertheless, the early 1910s witnessed a continual escalation in tensions surrounding the Monarchy’s actions, coupled with rising economic and socio-political unrest within its now expanded borders. In October 1908, seeking to prevent the revolution from spreading northwards while reasserting political dominance over Serbia, Vienna took advantage of the political chaos within the Ottoman Empire and Russia’s diminished military capabilities, following the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, and announced that it would be formally annexing Bosnia-Herzegovina.ĭespite the initial diplomatic backlash, Austria-Hungary’s reckless actions were ostensibly successful by 1909, even Russia and Serbia had formally recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina’s transfer of sovereignty. The Young Turk Revolution in July 1908 subsequently served as the catalyst for direct action by the Monarchy. Petersburg renege on its earlier agreements at the regional level, Austria-Hungary’s difficulties were further exacerbated by the overthrow of Serbia’s pro-Habsburg Aleksander Obrenović, King of Serbia (1876-1903) in 1903 and the appearance of ethnic nationalism as an integral factor in Bosnian politics by 1905. The 1894 accession of Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia (1868-1918), however, saw St. In 1881, Vienna had sought, and initially obtained, Germany and Russia’s approval for the future political annexation of its new Balkan protectorate. Moreover, by the turn of the 20 th century, the province increasingly existed at the heart of a convoluted web of rising geopolitical tensions. ![]() Among these, Serbian nationalists proved the most antagonistic, perceiving Bosnia-Herzegovina’s large Serb minority as an integral part of a historic “Greater Serbia”. Over the following decades, the Dual Monarchy’s presence in the territory, still nominally under the rule of the Ottoman Sultan, brought it into conflict with various regional actors. The Sarajevo incident represented the culmination of a complex series of historical processes originating in Austria-Hungary’s occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina under the Treaty of Berlin of 1878.
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