Sarajevo
Page 20
secretly in their use. In the meantime Dimitrijevic had
received,
through
his
secret
intelligence,
information
which convinced him that Austria-Hungary was prepar-
ing for aggressive action against Serbia, and that the
1 Ibid. p. 50. Unfortunately, Professor Stanojevid never adduces any proof
for this and similar statements, so that we are left entirely in doubt as to the
source.
2 Stanojevic p. 52. This was confirmed to me from private information —
among others, from persons who had served in his band and were far from
sardmg him as a heroic figure.
142
manœuvres in Bosnia were simply the rehearsal for an
attack.
This gave him the idea of forestalling the enemy by a
sensational act of terrorism. He can hardly have been so
mad as to expect (though this has been seriously alleged)
that its success would render Austria-Hungary incapable
of action and avert war altogether. It is more probable
that, like many Serbs, he regarded the Archduke as the
soul of the war party and as specially hostile to the
Southern Slavs, and calculated that his removal would
create such confusion and discouragement as to increase
Serbia's chances when war came.1 In this mood he
called a meeting of the inner committee of the " Black
Hand " on 15 June and announced his intention of
sending Tankosic's two pupils into Bosnia with the
definite mission of removing the Archduke. It is a striking
fact that even in such a ruthless company " Apis" and
Tankosic should have found themselves in a minority of
two, and that the opposition was so general that he had
to promise to abandon the design. It is not quite clear
whether he genuinely tried to undo the arrangements
already made but found that it was already too late, or
whether he simply disregarded his promise and took no
steps to hold back the would-be assassins. Probably
both theories are partially true, and in any case, as has
been shown, it is practically certain that, short of forcibly
detaining them in Serbia, even he could not have held
back the young men from their purpose. According to
Professor Stanojevic, Dimitrijevic regarded himself as
" the chief organiser of the murder."2 But, though there
1 In this connection Professor Stanojevic states, again without giving any
evidence, that as Chief
of the Intelligence Bureau, Dimitrijevic had received
confidential warning from the Russian General Staff, regarding an anti-Serbian
design propounded by Francis Ferdinand and accepted by William II, at their
meeting at Konopisté on 12 June. It is, however, obviously impossible that
Dimitrijevic could have received any such information from any source whatever
(least of all from St. Petersburg) before 15 June, which is given by Stanojevié
himself as the day on which Dimitrijevic called his committee and decided to
launch the murder plot. See supra, p. 99
2 Die Ermordung, p. 9.
143
is no doubt of his connection through Tankosic with two
of the murderers, that is very far from proving that the
main initiative rested upon him; and many who knew
him hold that, however unscrupulous he may have been,
he was much too intelligent to have nursed any such
illusion. In any case it is clear that, in so far as he acted,
he acted as an individual, against the wishes and without
the knowledge even of the " Black Hand " itself!
The whole question is bound up with the sinister affair
of the Salonica trial, whose detailed treatment belongs
to another place.
For the
moment it will suffice
to state that Colonel Dimitrijevic and other prominent
officers were sentenced to death in the spring of 1917 on
the charge of arranging an alleged attempt on the Prince
Regent's life, and that when the friends of Serbia in the
West, and, among others, the British War Office, urged
the inexpediency of executions, and pled for a reprieve,
they received the answer that in the case of Dimitrijevic
at any rate this was impossible, since his responsibility
for the Sarajevo murder had been established. It is
obvious that such a reply was quite irrelevant; for to
establish a man's guilt in one crime is no reason for
condemning him on an entirely different count. But it
was calculated that London or Paris would show less
zeal on behalf of Dimitrijevié if he was implicated in so
grave an affair as Sarajevo, and in the interval Dimitri-
jevic and two others were put out of the way, and the
Prince Regent was prevented by the most drastic pressure
from exercising his prerogative of mercy. Whether such
a document as Dimitrijevic's confession exists, and, if
so, how it was extracted from him, must still be regarded
as an open question; but, even if it does exist, it would
merely prove that Dimitrijevic ascribed to himself the
chief " credit " for the deed.
That his enemies were scarcely less unscrupulous than
himself is shown by the fact that, while denouncing him
the Allies as the prompter of Sarajevo, they represented
144
him to the Opposition parties as the chief promoter of a
separate peace with Austria, and that, not very long after
he had been removed, they were trying to discredit the
Serbian Opposition leaders before Western opinion on a
similar trumped-up charge.
Eighteen months later, in answer to an article of the
present writer criticising the executions,1 Mr. Protié,
then acting Foreign Minister at Corfu, stated that there
existed " a written document which of itself made
Dimitrijevic's pardon out of the question.2 In 1922
Protic stated in his own newspaper3 that Dimitrijevic
had signed a paper accepting the whole responsibility for
Sarajevo; but no such document has ever been made
public. The Radical Government, having used the story
to rid itself of its most dangerous opponents, had an
interest in maintaining it long after the war, especially
on the periodical occasions when an enquiry was de-
manded on behalf of the numerous officers implicated,
more or less arbitrarily, in the Salonica affair. The story
also provided useful capital for the rival military clique
of the " White Hand," which had become the mainstay
of the Radical party. It is quite clear that Professor
Stanojevié's pamphlet reflects this attitude, and that
his facts and theories, being only a fragment of the
whole truth, are a most misleading guide. He has
thrown valuable new light upon an ugly corner of Serbian
life, but his entire focus is wrong.
The real initiative for the crime came from within
Bosnia itself, and one of the survivors from the original
group of conspirators is in no way exaggerating when he
declares that it was " not the work of an isolated indi-
/>
vidual in national exaltation, but of the entire youth
of Bosnia."4 It cannot be too strongly emphasised that
the great majority of the young men in Bosnia, and to a
1 New Europe, No. 97 (22 August, 1918) — „ Serbia’s Choice.”
2 ibid, No. 102 (26 September, 1918) — "A Serbian Protest."
3 Radikal (Belgrade daily), No. 294 (1922).
4 Borivoje Jevtic, Sarajevshi Ateniat (Sarajevo, 1923).
145
lesser degree even in Croatia and Dalmatia, had — as a
result of the process fully described in the three opening
chapters — virtually repudiated the national leaders and
their party tactics, and fallen under the spell of revolu-
tionary and terrorist action. The outrage of Sarajevo was
the sixth in less than four years. All six were the work of
Serbs or Croats from within the Monarchy, while one had
come all the way from America for the purpose.
No one who knew anything of conditions in the South
could fail to realise that the atmosphere was surcharged
with electricity, and that an explosion might occur at
any moment. Personally, I am glad to remember that
after four months spent in South-East Europe — from
March to July 1913 — I gave such frank expression to my
alarm in talking with my Viennese friends that one of
them took me to Bilinski himself, and asked me to
repeat my plea for a change of policy if a revolutionary
outbreak were to be averted. In a word, the official
world
of
Vienna,
Budapest,
Belgrade,
Zagreb,
and
Sarajevo alike, and hundreds like myself besides, knew
that the Archduke was courting danger by his visit.
But it is only since the war that the conspiracy has
become known in all its ramifications. Groups of students
had been formed in all the towns of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
the moving spirits being, as a rule, youths who had
contrived at one time or another to join some Komitadji
band in the Balkan Wars. As has already been shown,1
the
real
initiative
lay
with
Vladimir
Gacinovic
in
Lausanne and with a small group of his friends in
Sarajevo, notably Danilo Ilic and Pusara. During the
previous winter they had already decided upon terrorist
action, but it was only in the spring, when the Arch-
duke's visit was publicly announced, that they definitely
fixed upon him as their victim. The Press cutting
which Puäara sent to Cabrinovic in Belgrade was sufficient
incentive to the latter and his comrades, Princip and
1 Chapter iii.
146
Grabez. Their minds were already full of terrorist ideas,
and
it
afterwards
transpired
during
their
trial
that
Princip in particular had often paid nocturnal visits to
the grave of Zerajic at Sarajevo and vowed to avenge
him by some similar outrage upon the Austrian oppressor.
This admission led to a kind of open rivalry in court
between the two assassins, Cabrinovié claiming that he
had tended the grave at an even earlier date, and had
resolved to follow Zerajic's example, in the knowledge
that he himself had not long to live.1 It is hardly
possible now to establish which of the two first reached
such a resolve; but it may well have been Cabrinovic,
who had the further motive of disassociating himself from
his father, the spy, and clearing the honour of the family
according to his own peculiar standard. One thing is
quite certain — that all three youths were consumptive
and neurasthenic, found it hard to make ends meet, and
were ready for any devilry; and also that all were
already contemplating some desperate act in their native
Bosnia before ever Pusara's message reached them.
The method by which they secured weapons was really
simple enough. Their chief helper, Milan Ciganovió,
was, like themselves, a Bosnian emigrant in Serbia, who
had obtained a very subordinate post on the railway.*
They first met him in a highly unpromising manner, being
introduced to him in a café by a friendly waiter, and sus-
pecting him of being one of the numerous Austrian
agents who frequented Belgrade. It was not, however,
difficult for him to win their confidence, for he had served
during the Balkan War in the Komitadji band of
Tankosic, in which Princip had tried to enlist, but had
1 cf. Slijepëevic {Nova Evropa, 1 June, 1925, p. 491).
2 So subordinate that when Austria-Hungary cited his name as an accomplice,
the Serbian authorities had the greatest difficulty in tracing his very existence.
What Mr. Ljuba Jovanovid has to say on this point (Krv Slovenstva, English
trans, in Journal ofB. 1.1. A., p. 62) is treated by Herr von Wegerer [Kriegsschuld·
frage,
June
1925),
as
highly
compromising
to
the
Serbian
Government,
but
in reality seems to corroborate the view that Mr. Paêié and his colleagues had
never even heard of the man, much less used him as an accomplice.
147
been rejected as physically unfit. At the trial Princip
denied having met Tankosic, and there was no motive in
his lying, for he was glorying in, rather than shirking, the
responsibility for his act. But it seems certain that
Ciganovic brought at least one of the others into personal
contact with Tankosic, and, in any case, it is admitted
on all sides that it was from the latter that revolvers and
hand-grenades
were
obtained.
These
weapons
were
comparatively easy to obtain in Serbia, as they had been
widely distributed to the guerilla bands which accom-
panied the army into Macedonia in 1912.
That Tankosic told his own chief, Dimitrijevic, of the
young men's intentions, and met with full approval, may
be taken for granted; but all the evidence available goes
to prove their claim that the entire initiative came from
Bosnia. The most that can be said is that but for Major
Tankosic they might not have been able to obtain bombs;
but, after all, it was a " Browning " that did the mischief,
and there were plenty of Brownings available without
importing them from Serbia.
As we have already seen, there were seven armed men
waiting for the Archduke at intervals along the embank-
ment, the first group consisting of Cabrinovic, who threw
the bomb, Princip, the actual assassin, and their friend
Grabez; the second of Cvetko Popovic, Vaso Cubrilovió,
and Mehmedbasic; and in the third place Pusara, who
had been watching for the Archduke elsewhere and only
arrived in Sarajevo t
hat morning. Behind them all stood
Hie and Veljko Cubrilovic, who was eventually executed
Wlth him, while quite a number of other youths were
more or less initiated in points of details. It was this
that led no less a person than Archbishop Stadler of
Sarajevo, soon after the crime, to declare that, quite
apart from Princip, the Archduke could hardly have
hoped to escape, since he would have had to run the
gauntlet through " a regular avenue of assassins."
Yet the fact which stands out most strikingly from an
148
impartial survey of all the circumstances is the part
played by the element of blind chance. Had the Arch-
duke's car not been driven by a chauffeur ignorant of the
town, it would have passed the point where Princip
stood at a high rate of speed, and he would probably
never even have tried to shoot. As it was, the driver,
seeing the police car ahead of him turn into a narrow
side-street, slacked down, followed it, and then, at
General Potiorek's orders, had to back slowly, within
perhaps twenty yards of Princip's revolver. But for
this, it may be affirmed that the Archduke would either
have escaped altogether or have fallen to one of the
conspirators who had not been armed in Serbia. Certain
it is that a large number of other youths were sworn to
attempt his life, and that similar groups existed in
Dalmatia and Croatia, eager to emulate their example.1
At the subsequent trial numerous details were extracted
from the prisoners illustrating very clearly their attitude
towards official Serbia. For
instance, their evidence
shows that the real difficulty of smuggling weapons was
not in Bosnia, but in Serbia. The explanation of this is
that in Serbia, though so very few persons were in the
secret, there was a constant danger of detection by the
authorities, whereas in Bosnia Veljko Cubrilovic and Ilié
not only had a number of student accomplices, but had
also secured the help of several peasants — the brothers
Kerovic, Milovic, and Stjepanovic — who knew them
intimately, trusted them, and acted out of friendship and
national enthusiasm, not for money, least of all for money
from Serbia.» Moreover, that some of those on the Serbian
side who helped Princip and his two friends to cross the
Drina were quite unaware of the plot that was brewing