As I walked purposefully through the back streets of Sarajevo for one last time, the dominant impression I was left with was one of distortion. Ever since those Edwardian statesmen and diplomats in the summer of 1914 accepted the misrepresentation that Princip was acting solely for Serbia when he fired the pistol, his story has been twisted. From the moment Austria–Hungary, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, wilfully misconstrued Princip’s motives in order to justify its attack on Serbia, distortion was inserted into the founding narrative of the First World War. For their own reasons of strategic ambition and hubristic self-confidence, the other Great Powers acted without challenging the misrepresentation, too focused on finger-pointing, mobilisation and retaliation to properly explore what lay at the very beginning.
Princip’s real story – his dream of all south Slavs living together – was left behind, overwhelmed by the scale of the events he had brought about. I felt that therein lay the cause of the unsettling feeling that still dogs the First World War, the unease over the senselessness of the sacrifice. My great-uncle, Captain Alyn Reginald James, had died along with millions of others in a war started after the motives of a young Balkan assassin were distorted. From this instance of original sin ran all the attendant feelings of futility that still weigh down the calamities of the Great War.
The twisting meant that the story of Princip was no longer tethered in reality, but was free-floating and bendable to the vision of any beholder. The plaque that today marks so blandly the site of the assassination replaced earlier versions, each worded according to the political authority of the day. When Austria–Hungary was still in control of Sarajevo, a plaque was installed at the site of the shooting that denounced Princip as a ‘murderer’. The next plaque went up in the 1930s when Bosnia was part of royalist Yugoslavia, a country founded for all south Slavs. This time the plaque referred to Princip as a ‘herald of freedom’, pointedly dating the shooting as having taken place on St Vitus’s Day, the day kept sacred for the Serbian heroes of the battle of Kosovo. When Nazi troops swept into Sarajevo in 1941 one of the first things they did was to tear down the plaque and present it as a birthday gift to Adolf Hitler in Berlin. A powerful photograph exists of the moment it was handed to the Führer, a man who – like Princip – was born a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and who was also driven by notions of nationalism.
After the Second World War a third plaque was erected at the street corner in Sarajevo, this time by the Titoist communist authorities. The wording on this occasion was more heroic, describing Princip’s actions as expressing ‘the people’s protest against tyranny and the age-old longing of our peoples for freedom’. So by the time the war of the 1990s broke out, Princip himself cast more than one shadow: a scapegoat for all seasons, who could be described in turn as a murderer, a liberator, a socialist hero of the people.
After twenty minutes of walking I approached the spot I was looking for, recognising the red-roofed building I had first seen that summer’s day during the siege in 1994. The chapel in the Archangels George and Gabriel cemetery had been restored in the years since the war ended, the damaged door repaired, the broken roof tiles replaced and the filth cleaned up. But the same black plaque I remembered being so unnerved by all those years ago was still there, Princip’s name etched prominently in Cyrillic: .
A member of the burial party that dumped Princip’s body in an unmarked grave at Theresienstadt came forward after the First World War. With his help the remains were exhumed, on the orders of the authorities in nascent Yugoslavia, and the identity of the skeleton confirmed because, following the amputation, the remains had no right arm. The bones were brought back to Sarajevo in 1920 for a ceremonial funeral in this graveyard. In 1939 Princip made the very last stage of his journey, dug up one final time and moved to this chapel, where he was interred alongside the remains of his friend from school, Trifko Grabež, his room-mate, Danilo Ilić, and other conspirators involved in the assassination of 28 June 1914. The bones of their role model, Bogdan Žerajić, the would-be assassin from 1910 whose example they sought to follow, were also brought here to lie among those he had inspired.
Inside the small chapel the air was still, the sound of the city outside muffled by thick, bare walls lined with fragments of old gravestones. Once again the chapel was a sombre, dusty site of quiet remembrance.
Through my journey I had heard Princip referred to by some as a hero, by others as a terrorist, yet I had come to see him as an everyman for the anger felt by millions who were downtrodden far beyond the Balkans. He was a dreamer whose short life had exposed him to the same political streams that inspired so many others fighting for freedom from unelected, reactionary structures. Empire had had its day and, like so many others at the start of the twentieth century, Princip was struggling to shape a new reality to take its place. The essential idea he stood for, the dream of liberation, was shared not just across the Balkans but across the wider world, whether by Irish nationalists struggling for Home Rule or Russian revolutionaries plotting against the Tsar, and it reached far beyond Europe through India, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. The violence to which he resorted was no different from that employed by freedom fighters the world over.
But as the events of the twentieth century showed, through the rise of extremism and fascism, the nationalism he espoused had the potential to be toxic. His goal of all south Slavs living together was ultimately not strong enough to defeat chauvinism from within his own community. The concept of nationalism carries with it a reductionist edge – the sense that in seeking to define those who belong to a nation, others who do not belong can become a threat, an enemy to be confronted. This dangerous potential was what those I had met on the trip had helped me better understand, a corruption so strong it was able to distort the utopian dream of Princip, a young Bosnian Serb who had come to trust those Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims who shared his vision of south Slavs in union.
I felt the Princip I had got to know would have been appalled by the war that first drew me to Bosnia. He was a Bosnian Serb who was brave enough to stand up to those from his own community who accused him of betrayal by aligning himself with Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats. And yet I could now see why some in Sarajevo during the worst days of the siege might regard him with so much contempt that they could desecrate his grave. By that time the south-Slav nationalism he championed had failed and his message had been so distorted that he could be vilified, not just because he was a Bosnian Serb like the gunners firing their shells into the city, but because the Yugoslavia he had worked for had failed so completely to protect one of its component parts, Bosnia.
As my time in the chapel came to an end, I watched the caretaker as he carefully locked the door to Gavrilo Princip’s tomb. For me, the time had come to let him rest in peace.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Maps by Paul Simmons
All photographs are the author’s own, unless stated
xviii
Gavrilo Princip’s war-damaged tomb in Sarajevo, July 1994
1
Alyn Reginald James, the author’s great-uncle
2
No 62 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, on deployment to the Western Front, courtesy of University of Texas at Dallas
21
The author as a reporter during the Bosnian War, October 1993
22
Map showing minefields from the Bosnian War of the 1990s contaminating the Bugojno area two decades later, courtesy of Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Centre
39
Princip’s father, Petar, and mother, Marija, outside the family homestead in Obljaj, circa 1930, courtesy of the Serbian edition of Vladimir Dedijer’s The Road to Sarajevo
40
Graffiti left by Gavrilo Princip in the garden of his home in 1909
71
Arnie Hećimović, the author’s guide, beginning the ascent of Mount Šator, leaving behind the plain of Pasić where Obljaj is located
&n
bsp; 72
Arnie Hećimović, the author’s guide, next to the first sign warning of minefields encountered on the trek, in a forest west of Kupres
99
Muzafer Latić and Kemal Tokmić fishing for trout in a mountain stream tributary of the Vrbas River
100
Memo from British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, authorising Fitzroy Maclean’s mission to Tito, leader of Yugoslavia’s partisans, July 1943, Sir Fitzroy Maclean Papers, 1827–1996, Accession # 11487, Special Collections Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
131
British band Franz Ferdinand concert in the Bosnian Serb city of Banja Luka, July 2012
132
The author staying with Drago and Marija Taraba near the town of Vitez, central Bosnia, while covering the Bosnian War as a reporter, Christmas 1993
The author visiting Drago and Marija Taraba, at the same family farm, July 2012
161
School report for Princip’s first year at the Merchants’ School in Sarajevo, 1907-08. Listed as student Number 32, his first name is shortened to Gavro, courtesy of the Sarajevo Historical Archives
162
Tourist postcards showing scenes from central Sarajevo, circa 1910
183
Princip poses with a book for a studio photograph, with his brothers Jovo and Nikola, circa 1910, courtesy of Belgrade City Museum
184
Postcard written by Princip in Sarajevo to a female relative, Persa, at home in Obljaj, circa 1913, courtesy of National Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina
209
Bosnian Muslim fighters who escaped on foot from Srebrenica when it fell to the Bosnian Serb army in July 1995, courtesy of organisers of Marš Mira peace march
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The 2012 burial of Bosnian Muslim victims of the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995
235
The only known photograph taken of Princip during his time in Belgrade, 1914, courtesy of Belgrade City Museum
236
Police sketch of the Drina River crossing used by the assassination team to smuggle themselves into Bosnia, 1914, courtesy of National Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina
263
Archduke Franz Ferdinand posing as a pharaoh in 1896 in Egypt, courtesy of Artstetten Museum
264
The last moments of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as his car turns off the Appel Quay, his killer, Princip, in the crowd in front of Moritz Schiller corner café, courtesy of the Sarajevo Historical Archives
285
The plaque commemorating Franz Ferdinand’s assassination is presented to Adolf Hitler, courtesy of Bavarian State Library in Munich
286
The last known photograph of Princip, circa 1915, serving his 20 year jail sentence, before dying from tuberculosis in a prison hospital, April 1918, courtesy of National Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina
For more photographs, video and historical material go to: www.tim-butcher.com
Every effort has been made to trace and contact all holders of copyright in illustrations. If there are any inadvertent omissions, the publishers will be pleased to correct these at the earliest opportunity.
NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Over the past hundred years much has been written about Gavrilo Princip and the Sarajevo assassination, often in dramatic detail. We have been told that: Princip jumped on the running board of the Archduke’s limousine to take his shot, the Archduke’s wife was pregnant when she died, the shooting happened on the anniversary of their marriage, the car did not have a reverse gear so was incapable of correcting the driver’s error, the Archduke caught the grenade thrown earlier at the couple and tossed it away safely, and Princip stopped to eat a last sandwich at the corner café before emerging to take his shot.
The problem is that these details, and many more besides, are not true. Some might appear unimportant, ignorable perhaps as fanciful trivialities. The ‘sandwich’ was concocted for television, entering historical orthodoxy to such an extent that the ingredients used for its filling became a subject discussed by schoolchildren studying the origins of the First World War.
But other errors are much more important. The extent to which Princip was, or was not, under the influence of the Serbian authorities when preparing the assassination speaks directly to any meaningful assessment of who was to blame for starting the First World War, a question that today remains far from settled. Austria-Hungary had a clear political motive in representing Princip as an agent of Serbia, so historians must tread carefully when assessing claims about Princip that could have been made for political reasons.
Panning away a century of muddle and misinformation was the challenge I faced when researching The Trigger. My strategy was to go back, as much as possible, to primary sources, not least because familiarity with them would allow me to assess the reliability of works of history that have been published subsequently.
The discovery of Princip’s school reports at the archives in Sarajevo, Tuzla and Belgrade provided, for me at least, a series of goose-bump moments, bringing alive the young boy sent to study in the big city. They allowed me to prove what other historians had only been able to infer: it was during Princip’s schooling that he lost his way. This was charted clearly in the worsening grades logged by teachers, blissfully unaware of the bloody impact their failing student would have one day.
Documents from the initial police investigation into the assassination were enormously useful, kept at the National Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. No police work can provide the whole picture but it can give important and reliable information. Similarly, the transcript of the court hearing, put together from the stenographers’ notes held at the same archive, allowed Princip’s voice to be heard clearer than anywhere else with the exception, perhaps, of the clinical notes of the psychiatrist who visited him in prison.
Some of the books I used for research are given below but special mention must be made of Vladimir Dedijer’s great work, The Road to Sarajevo. In its wide scope, grasp of detail and historical rigour, I found it without equal.
There was one final aspect that needed to be considered when researching Princip, the very powerful and occasionally toxic nature of Balkan nationalism. The war of the 1990s in Bosnia taught me how dangerous ethnic loyalties can be, a lesson that had to be borne in mind when dealing with any local assessment of Princip, whether by his ethnic kin from within the Bosnian Serb community, or from the rival groups of Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims. Objectivity is difficult to maintain if you have lived through the siege of Sarajevo, say, or the fall of Srebrenica.
This was brought home all too clearly in February 2014, the centenary year of the assassination, when mobs took to the streets of Sarajevo angry at the ongoing failure of government structures created in Bosnia at the end of the war in the 1990s. Fires lit by the protestors damaged badly the National Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the place where I had carried out some of my research.
After surviving two world wars and a civil war, original documents concerning Princip were destroyed. History does not rest easily in Bosnia.
SOURCES ON GAVRILO PRINCIP
The school reports – original records from Princip’s secondary education in Bosnia are held at the Sarajevo Historical Archives www.arhivsa.ba and at the Tuzla Cantonal Archive www.arhivtk.com.ba
From Princip’s schooling in Serbia some reports are held at the Belgrade Historical Archives www.arhiv-beograda.org
The police investigation – original paperwork from the Austro-Hungarian investigation in 1914 was lost, last seen in a chest with serial number IS 206-15 around June 1915 in the custody of the Habsburg imperial commandant in Vienna
Copies of some documents are held today at National Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. A more complete collection of copies is held at the Austrian State Archive in Vienna www.oesta.gv.at
The trial – original stenographic notes from the 1914 trial of Gavril
o Princip et al. are today held at the National Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo
In 1930 they were abridged and published by Albert Mousset as Un Drame Historique – L’Attentat de Sarajevo, Payot
In 1954 a more complete version was published by Professor Vojislav Bogićević as Sarajevski Atentat, Izdanje Drž. Arhiva Nr BiH
In 1984, an English translation was published in two volumes by W. A. Dolph Owings, Elizabeth Pribić and Nikola Pribić as The Sarajevo Trial, Documentary Publications
The clinical notes of Princip’s psychiatrist – originally published in German as Gavrilo Princips Bekenntnisse, 1926, Lechner & Son
Translated into English and published as Confessions of the Assassin Whose Deed Led the World War, in periodical Current History, August 1927, Vol. XXVI, Number 5, pp. 699–707
OTHER READING
Luigi Albertini: The Origins of the War of 1914, 1953, Oxford University Press