message
actually reached Dr. Gerde, the Chief of Police, who
replied, " Leave him alone " (Nemojte da ga dir ate).
The explanation of this, however, is much simpler than
might be supposed. Cabrinovic was the son of a notorious
Austrian police confidant — a fact which is known to
have had a decisive influence upon his own psychology.
He bitterly resented his father's rôle and at one time
thought of changing his name. He did not often speak
of it, but to one of his intimates he admitted that the
main motive of his terrorist activity was to wash him-
self free from the stain and in a sense to atone for his
father. To the Chief of Police, on the contrary, the
ttame of Cabrinovic was known in a very different con-
nection, and he may perhaps be excused for assuming
that the son of a spy was not very dangerous. That
was just such a family as this which produced one of
114
the chief assassins shows to what extent the ground had
been undermined among the youth of Bosnia.
That the son of a spy did after all enjoy certain facilities
is shown by an incident, on the very day of the murder.
Only ten minutes beforehand another official of the
Bosnian police met young Cabrinovic on the Quai and
asked him to legitimate himself, whereupon he produced
a permit of the Viennese police.l How this was procured
is not clear, and at first sight it might seem to strengthen
the theory, put forward during the war, of official Austrian
complicity in the crime. But this theory cannot possibly
be upheld in the face of the indignant protest of every
survivor from the band of conspirators. To them the
suggestion that any of their number was in touch with
the Austro-Hungarian authorities is as grotesque as it
is insulting. The motive in every case was national
fanaticism in its most unalloyed form. The conspirators
asked, and received, not a penny from anyone, and the
state of their finances is illustrated by the fact that
Princip on the morning of the crime found it necessary
to borrow from a friend the sum of one crown (gd.).
If the tragedy was very largely due to the incompetence
of the authorities in Sarajevo, their conduct during the
next forty-eight hours was even more astonishing. On
the morning of 29 June, the riff-raff of the bazaar, supple-
mented by a handful of Croat clerical students, began to
demonstrate before the leading Serb centres in the town,
and as no steps were taken to disperse them, shouts and
insults were soon followed by acts of violence, and from
mere window-smashing the crowd passed to wholesale
destruction and pillage. Thus the Serbian school, the
Prosvjeta society, the offices of the two Serb newspapers,
Narod and Srpska Rijec, the Hotel Europa and quite a
1 This also I learnt from two officials of the Sarajevo police, who still remain
under the present régime.
115
number
of
shops
and
private
houses
belonging
to
prominent Serbs, were systematically sacked, with the
almost open connivance of the authorities. After the
rioting had continued for some hours, General Potiorek
proclaimed a state of siege, but though the damage was
estimated at K.5,000,000 (£200,000), no attempt was
made to bring the ringleaders to justice or to indemnify
the victims. On the contrary, even the most reputable
and conservative Serbs in the two provinces were held
up to obloquy in the press of the Monarchy, and fantastic
stories circulated about their alleged treason.1 Similar
excesses on a smaller scale occurred in most towns of
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
These
incidents
appear
to
have
provoked
a
strong
protest
from
the
Joint
Finance
Minister,
Dr.
Bilinski,
but
the
Governor's
position
remained unshaken, and neither he nor any of his sub-
ordinates was punished for their failure to maintain order.
Indeed,
Potiorek
replied
in
quite
unrepentant
tones,
denying any shortcomings on the part of police or
gendarmerie, but admitting that " very abnormal condi-
tions " prevailed in the two provinces and that " the
ground was being undermined more and more from day
to day," and insisting that the only remedies were to
close the Bosnian Diet and to take up Serbia's challenge.2
His firm tone was of course partly due to a knowledge
that the military chiefs in Vienna were whole-heartedly
on his side and favoured all his most drastic proposals.3
The Bosnian manoeuvres had been planned as a kind
of rehearsal for military operations against Serbia, such
1 For instance, in the Pester Lloyd of 30 June, Mr. Jeftanovic, the wealthiest
and weightiest of the Bosnian Serbs of pre-war times, was reported to have been
arrested as he was trying to escape to Serbia, and was accused of " irredentist
and
anti-dynastic
aspiration."
In
reality,
he
had
just
had
his
house,
hotel,
café, stables and warehouses sacked from top to bottom, and had hastily taken
refuge in another part of the town. His special crime in Austrian eyes was
that
he
was
the
father-in-law of Mr.
Spalajkovic, then Serbian Minister in
St. Petersburg.
2 Potiorek to Bilinski, 6 July, in Conrad, op. cit., iv, pp. 64-6.
3 Gooss, op. cit., pp. 48-9.
116
as had already been contemplated in March 1909, Nov-
ember 1912, and June, August and November 1913,
though on each occasion something occurred to prevent
the action. Moreover, quite irrespectively of the Konopistë
meeting, the Ballplatz had for some time past been
endeavouring to convince the Wilhelmstrasse of the
necessity for attaching Bulgaria to the Triple Alliance,
bringing recalcitrant Roumania once more to heel, and
thus achieving the isolation and eventual vassalage of
Serbia. The Memorandum, originally drafted on more
moderate lines by Baron Flotow in May, had already
been revised in the above sense and passed by Berchtold
on 24 June,1 and thus represented the considered policy
of Vienna and Budapest before the tragedy of Sarajevo
occurred. That event provided the very pretext which
had hitherto been lacking; and it is abundantly clear
from the diplomatic documents that the first intention
of Berchtold and
the military party was to use this
pretext for an immediate surprise attack upon Serbia
which, it was calculated, would meet with no opposition
from Europe, if carried out before public indignation had
been allowed to cool. Owing mainly to Tisza's opposi-
tion this design was abandoned, and it was decided to
order an inquiry at Sarajevo, the results of which might
justify severe action against Serbia. For this purpose
Herr von Wiesner, one of the higher officials in the
Ballplatz, was sent to Bosnia to investigate the evidence
already collected on the spot, and on 13 July he returned
to Vienna, sending ahead of him a telegraphic report
summarising the result.» He here records the general
conviction of the Bosnian authorities that the Panserb pro-
paganda conducted by various societies and nationalist
organisations was known to and approved by the Serbian
1 Printed as the first document in the post-war Red Book of the Austrian
Republic (i.e. D.A., i., No. i). See also Gooss, Das Wiener Kabinett und dt
Entstehung des Weltkrieges, pp. 4-6, 13, 32-5. See infra, p. 161.
2 D.A., I, No. 17.
117
Government, but adds that the latter's complicity intfre
execution or preparation of the outrage and in procura
weapons is in no way proved or even to be imagine
(oder auch nur zu vermuten). Indeed there are grouïia-
(Anhaltspunkte) for regarding this as out of the question/
The admissions of the murderers themselves seemed to
Wiesner to establish the complicity of Tankosic and
Ciganovic, who supplied the weapons, and of the frontier
police who smuggled the three youths across the Drina.
But he is careful to remind his chiefs that though the
bombs certainly came from the Serbian arsenal in Kragu-
jevac, this proved nothing whatever, since large supplies
had been issued to irregular komitadji bands during the
recent Balkan wars and were therefore still easily avail-
able for daredevil enterprises. It is worth adding that
he dismissed the charge of complicity against Milan
Pribicevic as resting o n a " regrettable misunderstanding
of the police/' This point has a certain importance
because Pribicevic's brother, Svetozar, was one of the
leaders of the Serbs in Croatia, and two other brothers
the foremost victims of the Zagreb Treason Trial: and
their enemies in Zagreb and Vienna were never tired of
advancing charges which, if substantiated, would gravely
compromise
the
whole
Serbo-Croat
Coalition,
which
formed the majority in Croatia.
In
conclusion
Wiesner
advised
restricting
Vienna's
demands to the punishment of certain specified indivi-
duals and to the adoption of more stringent measures
on the Serbian frontier.
Wiesner's view was at once challenged by General
Potiorek, who despite all that had happened had lost
none of his influence in high quarters, and even with
Francis Joseph himself. In the Governor's view it was
simply incredible that the Serbian Government should
have been entirely ignorant of what was on foot, and
especially of the share of active officers in foreign
propaganda, and he warned Vienna against the danger
118
a merely presenting demands which could be met by
their promises without performance. He held it to be
this " most sacred duty " to insist that it was " already
to late " to permit any such " postponement of the
decision " with Serbia. " The ground at home1 is
already so undermined that military operations would
be rendered very difficult, and if the Panserb propaganda
was given further time for action, he himself would
decline to remain answerable for his military duties in
Bosnia!2 There can
be
little doubt that views so
emphatically expressed strengthened the party in Vienna
which favoured war. In any case Berchtold, finding
Wiesner's report to be negative and even unfavourable,
deliberately suppressed
it and
made
no attempt to
produce evidence until after the breach with Serbia
was an accomplished fact.
At this stage it may be well to summarise what is
essential in the bulky dossier3 submitted by Austria-
Hungary, on 25 July, to the five other Great Powers of
Europe and to the Porte in justification of its action
against Serbia. The
initial
memorandum purports to
give a survey of anti-Austrian activities in Serbia since
the annexation of Bosnia in 1909, and from the first lays
special stress upon the Narodna Odbrana, or Committee
of National Defence, founded by General Jankovic and
the ex-Ministers, Ljuba Jovanovic and Davidovic. As
we shall see later, the authors of the memorandum fail to
draw any distinction between this avowedly propagandist
but perfectly respectable and open society and the very
different organisation which came to be known as the
" Black Hand " and which was terrorist in aim and of
course highly secret. Indeed the very raison d'être of
the latter lay in its protest against the wow-terrorist (and
1 i.e. in Bosnia and Croatia.
2 Letter of Potiorek to Conrad, 14 July (Conrad, op. cit., iv., pp. 83-5).
3 Austro-Hungarian Red Book (1915), No. 19 (with eleven appendices),
119
in its own opinion absurdly mild) principles of the more
important society.1
The memorandum devotes considerable attention to
the Serbian press and quotes extracts to show its un-
doubted
hostility
to
the
neighbouring
Monarchy.
It
recounts the various outrages committed in Sarajevo and
Zagreb since 1910 and ascribes them — quite erroneously
and without any attempt at proof — to the direct prompt-
ing of the Belgrade Government, whom it also credits
with directing the agitation in the middle schools of
Croatia and Bosnia. It is scarcely necessary to add that
this agitation was during the period in question even more
Croat than Serb in character, and grew spontaneously out
of the protests against the outrageous Cuvaj regime in
Croatia.
The number of conspirators is as yet only given as
six — Princip and Cabrinovié, the actual murderers;
Grabez, who accompanied them from Belgrade; Vaso
Cubrilovic and Cvetko Popovic, two other young Bosnian
Serbs; and finally, Mehmedbasic, a Moslem from Southern
Herzegovina, who managed to escape to Serbia. The
first three only had been in Belgrade, Cabrinovic as a
type-setter, the other two leading a precarious existence
as pupils of a gymnasium, frequenting doubtful company
in shabby cafés and indulging in revolutionary t
alk among
a small group of Bosnian emigrants. In these circum-,
stances they made the acquaintance of a certain Milan
Ciganovic, also a Bosnian Serb, who held a minor post
on the railway and had belonged to a komitadji band in
the recent Balkan Wars. To him they confided their
desire to attempt the life of the Archduke, as a foremost
enemy of the Serbian race, and from him they received
1 Appendix v. of the memorandum gives in great detail the evidence of a
certain Trifko Krstanovió, one of the many notorious informers who lived by
supplying both sides, and is therefore thoroughly unreliable. But in any case all
that transpires from his evidence is that Krstanovió belonged in 1908-9 to the
band which Tankosic was organising for the event of war, and which would in
that case probably have been employed for a raid into Bosnia. By his own
admission he left Bosnia finally in December 1910,
120
four Browning revolvers and six hand-grenades, and a
certain amount of instruction in their use. They were
also given cyankali, that they might commit suicide if in
danger of capture. These weapons Ciganovic procured
from his fellow-conspirator, Voja Tankosic, who in the
spring of 1909 had formed a komitadj i band of 140
members,
had
acquired
considerable
notoriety
as
a
guerrilla chief in 1913, and had won the rank of major in
the Serbian army. At his instance Ciganovic arranged for
the three young men to be transported by "underground
route " to the frontier, and then smuggled across the
Drina river into Bosnia, by the connivance of certain
frontier guards at Sabac and Loznica. This occurred on
28 May or the following day.
To this extent the memorandum is accurate. It is in
error when it ascribes a share in the conspiracy to Major
Milan Pribicevic1 and Mr. Dacic, the director of the
state printing-press. It is quite true that both were very
active members of the Narodna Odbrana, but that is just
why they had no connection with Tankosic and his
group.2 Even the memorandum, however, admits that
neither of them were in Belgrade at the critical time when
the three young desperadoes were armed and started on
their mission.* At the subsequent trial Princip admitted
having appealed to Milan Pribicevic to use his influence
in respect of a bursary controlled by the Narodna
Odbrana, but only met with a refusal.4 Cabrinovic also
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