Sarajevo
Page 10
firing on the crowd and killing Salim Agié, a young
Moslem.
On 8 June, 1912, another young Bosnian student, Luka
Jukic, made an unsuccessful attempt upon the life of
Cuvaj in the streets of Zagreb, killing in the process the
Chief of the Croatian Department of Education and one
of the policemen who tried to arrest him. Though this
outrage was followed by numerous arrests of students,
the exasperated feeling which prevailed is shown by the
fact that 270 Jugoslav students in Prague signed with
their own names a letter of open menace and defiance
to the Dictator. The scattered student groups at the
various
Universities
had
already
begun
to
organise
themselves,
the
"
Serbo-Croat
Nationalist-Radical
Youth " being formed at Vienna in December 1911.
Now a whole series of new student organs began to appear
- — Val in Zagreb, to replace the all too anaemic Hrvatski
Djak; Prepored in Ljubljana; Ν ovi Srbin at Sombor
1 ibid., p. 51.
This fact was brought out at the trial of the assassins, several of whom
admitted the influence of the pamphlet upon their minds. Cf. " Jugoslovenstvo
sarajevekih Atentatora," by P. Süjeptevic (Nova Europa, 1 June, 1925, p. 501).
72
and Pancevo; Srpska Omladina in Sarajevo; Ujedinjenje
at Split.1
In all these groups feeling, of course, varied according
to temperament. Even the most moderate among them
went considerably beyond the most advanced of the
political leaders, and all were firmly convinced of an
impending crisis in European affairs, upon whose issue
the fate of their own nation would depend. But, though
probably a great majority already looked upon Zerajic
and Jukic as national heroes, there still were a tiny
handful who actually dabbled in terrorist plans. In
August 1913 a young Croat student named Dojcic, who
had come all the way from America for the purpose,
inflicted a severe, though not dangerous, wound upon
the new Ban, Baron Skerlecz; and in March 1914 another
Croat, Jakob Sefer, was caught red-handed at the Zagreb
Opera, when waiting to shoot Skerlecz in company with
the Archduke Leopold Salvator.
By this time not merely the University students, but
the middle school youth in most Jugoslav towns of
Austria-Hungary, were thoroughly infected by revolu-
tionary
ideas. They
continually took part in street
demonstrations against the Cuvaj regime and the Buda-
pest
Government,
and
disciplinary
methods
or
the
expulsion of individual pupils sometimes led to sym-
pathetic
strikes
in
neighbouring schools. The unrest
in the schools was deliberately fanned by young agitators
from the Universities, who went secretly from town to
town and encouraged the formation of student societies
or clubs. When the Balkan War broke out, and the
whole South blazed with enthusiasm for the cause of
Serbia and her allies, some of the wilder spirits swam
across the Drina to Serbia or slunk by night over the
1 In 1914 three more began their brief existence: Zastava at Split (Spalato),
edited by Oskar Tartaglia, the present Mayor; Vihor at Zagreb, and a more
ambitious
monthly
review
entitled
Jugoslavia at
Prague,
with
whom
one
of
the moving spirits was Ljuba Leontic" (since the war founder of a widespread
patriotic Jugoslav organisation on semi-Fascist lines, known as the " Orjuna ").
73
Montenegrin frontier, and joined the irregular volunteer
bands which served as outposts for the Serbian Army as
it invaded Macedonia. It was thus that the first real
contact was established between the ringleaders of the
Bosnian movement and the most reckless elements in
Serbia. This was still further promoted by the policy
of the Austro-Hungarian authorities; for in a good many
cases
youths who were expelled
from all
Bosnian
gymnasia, and expressly disqualified from entering any
school in Austria or Hungary, had no choice left but to
renounce all further education or to throw themselves
on the mercy of their free kinsmen in Serbia.
This overcharged atmosphere was admirably suited
to such a born agitator as Vladimir Gacinovic, who left
Vienna in the winter of 1912 in order to fight as a Monte-
negrin volunteer before Skutari, and then resumed his
sociological studies at Lausanne University, but remained
in close contact with many of his contemporaries and
juniors at home. Indeed, to quote one of his most
intimate associates, " he held the half of revolutionary
Bosnia in his hands; almost all the younger priests and
teachers were with him." By his pamphlet, and by his
articles in Zora and Srpska Omladina, he had hypnotised
the younger generation. His high moral phrases, leading
to the same strangely immoral conclusions as the writings
of Savinkov1 and similar Russian terrorists, kindled
raw youth to action. " The young men must prepare
themselves for sacrifices,"' was his message from the
very outset; and the best sacrifice consisted in taking
the same risks as Zerajic.
It is not generally known that in Lausanne Gacinovic
was in close relations with the Russian revolutionaries,
and, among others, with Trotsky, who even wrote a
of that strangest of Russian books, The Pale Horse, by " Ropshin " (Savinkov,
the murderer of Plehve and the Grand Duke Serge), which opens with a meeting
of a Nihilists, reading St. Gospel together, as a preparation for the murder
of governor!
3 Spomenica, p.32.
74
preface to a selection of his French articles.1 From some
of these men he learnt the art of bomb-making, and began
plotting outrages. In January 1913 he invited certain
young Bosnians — among them two Moslems, Mehmed-
basic and Mustafa Golubic — to meet him at Toulouse,
and here he provided them with weapons and poison,
for the purpose of attempting the life of General Potiorek,
the Governor of Bosnia, and forestalling their own
capture
by
suicide.
But
the
youthful
conspirators'
nerve failed them; fearing a Customs examination on
their return across the Austrian frontier, they threw
the weapons out of the carriage window, and nothing
further came of this design.
None the less, they and others of their contemporaries
continued to dream of terrorist action, and rema
ined in
continual
correspondence
with
Gacinovié. But, while
most of the semi-secret societies which they had formed
never got far beyond the theory of revolution, there was
formed, mainly at his instance, a secret terrorist group,
or " Kruzok," in more than one of the Bosnian towns,
and notably in Sarajevo, where his friend Danilo Ilic,
a young schoolmaster, who had also served for a time as
a Komitadji in Macedonia, was the link between many
who were otherwise completely unknown to each other.
The extent to which discipline had been undermined
among the youth of Bosnia is very clearly shown by a
series of confidential memoranda drawn up immediately
before and after the tragedy by high officials in the Joint
Finance Ministry in Vienna and kindly placed at my
disposal by one of them since the war. Incidentally,
these documents throw light upon the jealousy and lack
of co-ordination between the Landesregierung in Sarajevo
1 A Croat edition of these was published in Vienna in 1922, under the title of
Sarajevski Atentat (Bibliotéka Svêtlost, édition Slave) and contains the preface
by " L. T." Trotsky, however, disapproved of Gacinovié's views as too exclu-
sively nationalist.
2 This account is based on verbal statement made to me by some of Gaéinovié's
intimates, now living in Sarajevo.
75
and its nominal superior, the Finance Ministry in Vienna
__a circumstance which, as will transpire later, was,
more than anything else, responsible for the success of
the murder plot against the Archduke. 1
It appears that in the course of 1913 a secret organisa-
tion
called
the
"
Serbo-Croat
Nationalist
Youth
"
("
Srpsko-Hrvatska
Nacionalisticka
Omladina
")
was
formed in Sarajevo. It had no office or statutes, but
took as its model a similar society in Belgrade called
" National Unity " (" Narodno Jedinstvo "), with which
Gaéinovic had formerly been in relations. Its aim was
to win the rising generation for the idea of throwing off
the Habsburg yoke and achieving Jugoslav Unity under
Serbia; and its efforts were concentrated above all upon
pupils in the various teachers' training colleges. Sub-
sections existed in Tuzla, Mostar, Trebinje, and Ban-
jaluka, but the centre of the whole movement was in
Zagreb, where it was intended to hold, on 16 July, 1914,
a sort of congress of delegates from all the training
colleges in the various Jugoslav provinces, and to lay
plans for future agitation.1
Specially active as wandering prophets of revolution
were the Slovene student Endlicher and a budding
school-teacher named Laza Gjukié. These and others
set themselves deliberately to undermine discipline in
the secondary schools, and the conditions in the gymnasia
of Mostar and Tuzla were typical of the result. In the
former a number of senior students " by their provoca-
tive behaviour towards the teachers, kept the school
in a ferment," and organised insubordination in every
class, until it ended in open insults and disturbances
1 See pp. 106-7;
2 Report No. 5544 of Dr. N. Mandic, Vice-Governor (LandeschefStellvertreter)
of Bosnia, addressed to the
Zentralstelle für den defensiven Kundschaftsdienst
(Headquarters
for
Counter-espionage),
then
situated
in
Zagreb.
Through
the
°Ourtesy of friends in Zagreb, I was able to obtain this document from the
archives of the Zagreb police. The document asserts that the Sarajevo group
Cumbers about 100 members, and gives the names of six ringleaders, of whom
only one, Laza Gjukic, is known to us from nationalist sources.
76
and led to a formal enquiry. From the minutes of the
teaching staff at Tuzla it appears that here several of
the older pupils publicly insulted their professors in
class, and even assaulted one of them; that demonstra-
tions and disturbances were frequent; and that a pupil
of the seventh class during religious instruction spat in
the face of the Orthodox catechist, simply because he
belonged to the moderate Serb party which at that time
supported
the
Bosnian
Government.1
In
these
and
other cases disciplinary measures seem to have com-
pletely failed, to an extent which is well-nigh incon-
ceivable to Western minds. But the fact that this
failure was frankly admitted on all sides illustrates better
than anything else how untenable not merely political,
but even social conditions in Bosnia had become on the
eve of the catastrophe. The remedy actually adopted
by the Ministry was, on 30 June, 1913, to close the Mostar
Gymnasium for a whole year. But here the cure was
almost worse than the disease, for the youths thus set *
at liberty were either admitted to other schools, and
carried the infection with them (this was the case at
Tuzla), or swelled the ranks of revolutionary hotheads
who were already to be found in every town in the
South.2
The slightest incident brought these youths into the
street.
In
Sarajevo
there
were
protests
before
the
Italian Consulate in connection with the Italo-Slovene
quarrel at Trieste; or, again, German shop-inscriptions
in the town were systematically damaged or besmirched,
1 See Report 968 of 16 July, 1914 (" betreffend Mittelschulen, Sanirung der
Zustande an denselben ") — Regierungsrat Cerovic to Minister Bilinski.
2 A very valuable testimony to the gravity of this movement will be found in a
pamphlet
of
Count
Berchtold's
confidential
secretary,
Count
Alexander
Hoyos
(who was sent on so decisive a mission to Berlin on 4 July, 1914) — Der deutsch-
englische Gegensatz und sein Einfluss auf die Balkanpolitik Oesterreich-Ungarns,
p. 74. " All who knew the country " (i.e. Bosnia) " had the impression that an
explosion was near at hand. Especially in the schools Panserb propaganda had
created such chaotic conditions that a regular continuance of instruction scarcely
seemed possible. The Bosnian Government declared
most urgently that
severe
measures must be taken to check the Serbian agitation, if a catastrophe was to
be avoided."
77
as a protest against Germanisation. In Mostar there
was a demonstration against a German theatrical com-
pany, in Tuzla against
the Austrian national anthem
and the person of the Emperor. Amid this atmosphere
of constant excitement and agitation the most fantastic
rumours
circulated,
and
were
rendered
plausible
by
events in the Balkans, by the Austrian mobilisation and
military movements, and by the series of attempted
assassinations inaugurated by Zerajic — five in four years.
One consequence, which it is important to emphasise,
was that there was such constant talk about " Attentats "
and outrages in all circles, alike official and non-official,
that at last it ceased to be taken as seriously as it deserved.
This is one of those general assertions which is hardly
susceptible of exact proof, because it rests on personal
experience and recollections, but which will certainly
not be challenged by anyone who had lived even for
a month or two in that atmosphere. It is a point of
detail which bears very materially upon the question
of possible precautions or warnings.
During the winter of 1913-14 the " Kruzoci " already
mentioned continued their work, and began deliberately
to plan a fresh outrage. The stricter methods introduced
by General Potiorek as Governor of Bosnia naturally
rendered him specially obnoxious; but he was well
protected and not easily reached. Early in 1914 Danilo
Ilic set himself to collect youths ready for some desperate
outrage, but neither he nor his accomplices appear to
have had a clear idea as to where or against whom they
were to act. At this moment the forthcoming visit of
the Heir Apparent to Bosnia was announced in the Press,
and Ilic's friend Pusara cut the announcement out of a
local newspaper, gummed it on a postcard, and posted
!t without further comment to Vaso Cabrinovic, a young
Bosnian who had been expelled two years before for
Socialist tendencies, and was now working as a type-
setter in the State Printing Press at Belgrade. Cabrinovic
78
showed it to another young Bosnian, Gavrilo Princip,
who was finishing his studies in great poverty at a Bel-
grade gymnasium. The incident proves — as was sub-
sequently admitted at the trial — that their heads were
already full of terrorist ideas, and that the barest prompt-
ing from their friends at home was needed to set them
in motion. (It also proves, incidentally, that the initia-
tive came from Bosnia, not from Serbia.)