July 1914 E-Book

Sean McMeekin

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 718

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The outbreak of the First World War was 'a drama never surpassed'. One hundred years later, the characters still seem larger than life: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, brooding heir to the Habsburg throne; the fanatical Bosnian Serb assassins who plot to murder him; Conrad and Berchtold, the Austrians who exploit the outrage; Kaiser Wilhelm and Bethmann Hollweg, backing up the Austrians; Sazonov, Russian Foreign Minister, trying to live down a reputation for cowardice; Poincaré and Paléologue, two French statesmen who urge on the Russians; and not least Winston Churchill, who, alone among Cabinet officials in London, perceives the seriousness of the situation in time to take action. July 1914 tells the story of Europe's countdown to war through the eyes of these men, between the bloody opening act on 28 June 1914 and Britain's final plunge on 4 August, which turned a European conflict into a world war. The outbreak of war was no accident of fate. Individual statesmen, pursuing real objectives, conjured up the conflict – in some cases by conscious intention. While some sought honourably to defuse tensions, others all but oozed with malice as they rigged the decks for war. Dramatic, inevitably tense and almost forensically observed, Sean McMeekin's unique book retells the story of that cataclysmic month, making clear as never before who was responsible for the catastrophe. You will never think the same way again about the origins of the First World War.

Leseprobe

Praise for July 1914

‘A work of meticulous scholarship … McMeekin’s description of the details of life in the European capitals – small events that influenced great decisions – makes July 1914 irresistible.’

Roy Hattersley, The Times

‘A genuinely exciting, almost hour-by-hour account of the terrible month when Europe’s diplomats danced their continent over the edge and into the abyss.’

Nigel Jones, BBC History Magazine

‘Sean McMeekin’s splendid July 1914 unravels all the shenanigans, bluffs and bunglings by which Europe’s leaders and diplomats turned a minor murder in a Balkans backwater into total war … There are scenes in July 1914 that linger long after the cover is closed.’

John Lewis-Stempel, Sunday Express

‘McMeekin shows us precisely why the conflict happened … [he] tells these stories with clarity and skill, drawing expert portraits of all the characters involved.’

Mail on Sunday

‘Lucid, convincing and full of rich detail, the book is a triumph for the narrative method and a vivid demonstration that chronology is the logic of history.’

The Independent

‘[S]timulating and enjoyable … Sean McMeekin’s [July 1914] is controversial, arguing that Russia and France were more bent than Germany on war in July 1914 … [A] well-written book.’

Financial Times

‘Sean McMeekin is establishing himself as a – or even the – leading young historian of modern Europe. Here he turns his gifts to the outbreak of war in July 1914 and has written another masterpiece.’

Norman Stone, author of World War Two: A Short History

‘[A] superbly researched political history of the weeks between the assassination of Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the beginning of World War I … McMeekin’s work is a fine diplomatic history of the period, a must-read for serious students of WWI, and a fascinating story for anyone interested in modern history.’

Publishers Weekly, starred review

‘[A] thoroughly rewarding account that spares no nation regarding the causes of World War I … McMeekin delivers a gripping, almost day-by-day chronicle of the increasingly frantic maneuvers of European civilian leaders who mostly didn’t want war and military leaders who had less objection.’

Kirkus Reviews, starred review

‘The historiography of World War I is immense, more than 25,000 volumes and articles even before next year’s centenary. Still, … Sean McMeekin, in July 1914, [offers a] new perspective. … McMeekin has chosen the zoom lens. He opens with a crisp but vivid reconstruction of the double murder in the sunshine of Sarajevo, then concentrates entirely on unraveling the choreography day by day.’

Harold Evans, New York Times Book Review

‘Alluding to historical controversies, McMeekin ably delivers what readers demand from a WWI-origins history: a taut rendition of the July 1914 crisis.’

Booklist

‘This is a meticulously researched and vividly written reconstruction of the decisions that led to war in July 1914. McMeekin captures the human drama of this fateful month and offers a provocative assessment of the different players’ moral responsibility.’

James Sheehan, author of Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?: The Transformation of Modern Europe

‘Winners write the histories, so wars are misunderstood. Sean McMeekin takes a wider stance to get a fresh angle of vision on The Great War, and casts all war-making in a new light.’

Charles Hill, Diplomat in Residence at Yale University, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and author of Trial of a Thousand Years: World Order and Islamism

‘Sean McMeekin has given us a riveting and fast-paced account of some of the most important diplomatic and military decisions of the 20th century. He depicts with chilling clarity the confusion, the incompetence, and the recklessness with which Europe’s leaders went to war in that fateful summer. Any understanding of the world we inhabit today must begin with an examination of the events of July 1914. McMeekin provides his readers with a balanced and detailed analysis of the events that gave birth to the modern age.’

Michael Neiberg, author of The Blood of Free Men

Printed edition published in the UK in 2013 by

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39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

email: [email protected]

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This electronic edition published in 2013 by Icon Books Ltd

ISBN: 978-184831-609-6 (ePub format)

Text copyright © 2013 Sean McMeekin

The author has asserted his moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typesetting by the Perseus Books Group

For the fallen

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sean McMeekin’s books include The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power (Penguin/Allen Lane) and The Russian Origins of the First World War (Harvard University Press). He lives in Istanbul with his wife, Nesrin, and their daughter, Ayla.

ALSO BY SEAN McMEEKIN:

History’s Greatest Heist

The Red Millionaire

CONTENTS

Endorsements

Title page

Copyright information

Dedication

By same author

AUTHOR’S NOTE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

CHRONOLOGY

PROLOGUE: SARAJEVO, SUNDAY, 28 JUNE 1914

I. REACTIONS

1. Vienna: Anger, Not Sympathy

2. St Petersburg: No Quarter Given

3. Paris and London: Unwelcome Interruption

4. Berlin: Sympathy and Impatience

II. COUNTDOWN

5. The Count Hoyos Mission to Berlin

Sunday–Monday, 5–6 July

6. War Council in Vienna (I)

Tuesday, 7 July

7. Radio Silence

8–17 July

8. Enter Sazonov

Saturday, 18 July

9. War Council in Vienna (II)

Sunday, 19 July

10. Poincaré Meets the Tsar

Monday, 20 July

11. Sazonov’s Threat

Tuesday, 21 July

12. Champagne Summit

Wednesday–Thursday, 22–23 July

13. Anti-Ultimatum and Ultimatum

Thursday, 23 July

14. Sazonov Strikes

Friday, 24 July

15. Russia, France, and Serbia Stand Firm

Saturday, 25 July

16. Russia Prepares for War

Sunday, 26 July

17. The Kaiser Returns

Monday, 27 July

18. ‘You Have Got Me into a Fine Mess’

Tuesday, 28 July

19. ‘I Will Not Be Responsible for a Monstrous Slaughter!’

Wednesday, 29 July

20. Slaughter It Is

Thursday, 30 July

21. Last Chance Saloon

Friday, 31 July

22. ‘Now You Can Do What You Want’

Saturday, 1 August

23. Britain Wakes Up to the Danger

Sunday, 2 August

24. Sir Edward Grey’s Big Moment

Monday, 3 August

25. World War: No Going Back

Tuesday, 4 August

EPILOGUE: THE QUESTION OF RESPONSIBILITY

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Frequently Cited Sources

Other Works Cited or Profitably Consulted for This Work

INDEX

AUTHOR’S NOTE

IWOULD LIKE TO THANK MY AGENT, Andrew Lownie, for taking on this project and sharpening it with his suggestions. Likewise, I am indebted to Lara Heimert of Basic Books for believing in the book and to Roger Labrie and Beth Wright for sharpening my prose. It is always a pleasure to find editors who share one’s enthusiasm for a subject. I am also indebted to the archivists without whom I could not have told my story. I have spent many happy months in the Foreign Office archives of Germany, Austria, Russia, France, and England. While it is impossible to thank everyone, I would like to single out Joachim Tepperberg of the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna and Mareike Fossenberg of the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes in Berlin, both of whom performed wonders on my behalf.

I have drawn inspiration from secondary works. Like many other historians (particularly Americans, for whom the First World War is not quite as central to our own national story as it is for Europeans), I first fell in love with the subject when I devoured Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August (1962). I still have my tattered old paperback edition, with its cover price (75 cents) reminding me that it comes from another era. While not all of her conclusions have stood up over time, Tuchman’s perfectly wrought character sketches and incomparable scene settings ensure that her book will always find an audience among history lovers. The best thing about The Guns of August, for my purposes, is that she left the July crisis alone, picking up her narrative only on 1 August.

The historical literature on the July crisis of 1914 is vast, although not quite so vast as that on the First World War, which resulted from it. Anyone who tackles the July crisis realises that, on almost any issue of scholarly dispute, Sidney Fay, Bernadotte Schmitt, or Luigi Albertini got there first. It is impossible to write about July 1914 without developing an intimate relationship with Albertini’s three-volume history. This is also true of the great documentary collections compiled by the major powers after the war. While the odd document slipped through the cracks, and revelations continue to emerge from former Soviet or Eastern Bloc archives opened in 1991 (of which I can claim credit for some), for the most part the basic documentation on the July crisis has remained unchanged since the 1930s. Like Albertini’s, like that of nearly all historians, my narrative draws primarily on these great documentary collections. I am grateful to their editors, particularly those behind the famous Kautsky-Montgelas-Schückert series of German documents, which reproduces not only the full text of most key telegrams but also marginalia scribbled on them, with precise time-dating, down to the minute, for dispatch, decoding, and even when they were read by the chancellor or kaiser.

It has always been my preference to go back to the sources directly, rather than to filter my interpretation through those of others. For this reason, while acknowledging my debts to the historians in the bibliography, I have kept my narrative as clean as possible, eschewing scholarly disputation in the main text. Those wishing to read further may consult the bibliography; those interested in sources and the fine points of debate will find them in the endnotes.

For readers, I can offer a note on 1914-era diplomatic terminology.

‘Chorister’s Bridge’ is shorthand for the Imperial Russian Foreign Ministry. ‘Whitehall’ stands for the British Foreign Office (and/or government), the ‘Wilhelmstrasse’ for the German Foreign Office (and/or the Chancellery), the ‘Ballhausplatz’ (or ‘Ballplatz’) for the Austro-Hungarian government, and ‘Quai d’Orsay’ for the French Foreign Ministry.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Austria-Hungary

Berchtold, Leopold von, Count. Foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, 1912–1915.

Bienerth, Karl von, Count, Lieutenant-Colonel. Austrian military attaché in Berlin, 1910–1914.

Biliński, Leon von. Austrian minister for Bosnia-Herzegovina and common imperial finance minister.

Conrad von Hötzendorf, Franz.Austria-Hungary’s army chief of staff, 1912–1916.

Czernin, Otto. Austrian legation secretary in St Petersburg, and interim ambassador there in absence of Count Friedrich Szapáry.

Franz Ferdinand, Archduke. Heir to the Habsburg throne of Austria-Hungary.

Franz Josef I. Emperor of Austria and king of Hungary, 1848–1916.

Friedrich, Archduke, Duke of Teschen. Appointed supreme commander of the Common Imperial Army in July 1914.

Giesl von Gieslingen, Baron. Austrian minister in Serbia, 1913–1914.

Hoyos, Alexander, Count. Berchtold’s secretary and special envoy to Berlin, July 1914.

Krobatin, Alexander, General. Common imperial war minister.

Mensdorff, Albert, Count.Austria-Hungary’s ambassador to England, 1904–1914.

Potiorek, Oskar. Austrian military governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Ritter von Storck, Wilhelm. Austrian chargé d’affaires in Belgrade.

Stürgkh, Karl, Count. Austrian minister-president.

Szapáry, Friedrich, Count.Austria-Hungary’s ambassador to Russia, 1913–1914.

Szögyény, Ladislaus, Count.Austria-Hungary’s ambassador to Germany, 1892–1914.

Tisza, Stefan, Count. Minister-president of Hungary, 1903–1905, 1913–1917.

Belgium

Albert I. King of Belgium, 1909–1934.

France

Barrère, Camille. France’s ambassador to Italy, 1897–1924.

Bienvenu-Martin, Jean-Baptiste. French Minister of Justice and acting director of foreign affairs at the Quai d’Orsay in July 1914.

Boppe, Jules August. French minister to Belgrade, 1914.

Caillaux, Joseph. French prime minister (1911–1912) and finance minister, 1899–1902, 1906–1909, 1913–1914.

Cambon, Jules. France’s ambassador to Germany, 1907–1914.

Cambon, Paul. France’s ambassador to Britain, 1898–1920.

Dumaine, Alfred. France’s ambassador to Austria-Hungary, 1912–1914.

Joffre, Joseph. Chief of staff of the French army, 1911–1916.

Laguiche, Pierre de, General. French military attaché in St Petersburg.

Messimy, Adolphe. France’s minister of war, 1911–1912 and June–August 1914.

Paléologue, Maurice. France’s ambassador to Russia, 1914–1917.

Poincaré, Raymond. President of France, 1913–1920.

Robien, Louis de. French embassy attaché in St Petersburg.

Viviani, René. France’s premier and foreign minister at various points in 1914 and 1915, including both offices in June–July 1914.

Germany

Below-Selaske, Klaus von. German minister at Brussels, 1913–1914.

Bethmann Hollweg, Theobald von. Chancellor of Imperial Germany, 1909–1917.

Bülow, Bernhard von, Prince. Chancellor of Imperial Germany, 1900–1909.

Chelius, Oskar von, General. German military attaché in St Petersburg and aide-de-camp to Tsar Nicholas II, 1914.

Falkenhayn, Erich von. Prussian minister of war, 1913–1915.

Griesinger, Julius Adolph, Baron. Germany minister to Belgrade, 1911–1914.

Jagow, Gottlieb von. State secretary of Imperial Germany, 1913–1916.

Lichnowsky, Prince Karl Max von. Germany’s ambassador to Britain, 1912–1914.

Moltke ‘the Younger,’ Helmuth von. Chief of staff of the German army, 1906–1914.

Müller, Georg Alexander von, Admiral. Chief of German naval cabinet, 1906–1918.

Plessen, Hans G. H. von, General, adjutant to Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Pourtalès, Friedrich. Germany’s ambassador to Russia, 1907–1914.

Riezler, Kurt. Private secretary to Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg, 1909–1914.

Schlieffen, Alfred von, Count, Field Marshal. Chief of German General Staff, 1891–1906.

Schoen, Wilhelm von, Baron. Germany’s ambassador to France, 1910–1914.

Stumm, Wilhelm von. Political director of the German Foreign Office, 1911–1916.

Tirpitz, Alfred von. Secretary of state of the German Imperial Naval Office, 1897–1916.

Tschirschky, Heinrich von, Count. German ambassador to Austria-Hungary, 1907–1914.

Wilhelm II. Emperor (‘Kaiser’) of Imperial Germany, 1888–1918.

Zimmermann, Arthur. Undersecretary of state of Imperial Germany, 1911–1916.

Great Britain

Asquith, Herbert Henry. Liberal British prime minister, 1908–1916.

Bertie, Sir Francis. Britain’s ambassador to France, 1905–1918.

Buchanan, Sir George. Britain’s ambassador to Russia, 1910–1918.

Churchill, Winston. Britain’s first lord of the Admiralty, 1911–1915.

Crackanthorpe, Dayrell. British chargé d’affaires in Belgrade, 1912–1915.

Crowe, Sir Eyre. Senior clerk in the British Foreign Office.

De Bunsen, Sir Maurice. Britain’s ambassador to Austria, 1913–1914.

George V. King of England, 1910–1936.

Goschen, Sir W. Edward. Britain’s ambassador to Germany, 1908–1914.

Grey, Sir Edward. His Majesty’s foreign secretary, 1905–1916.

Morley, Lord John. Lord President of the Council, 1910–1914.

Nicolson, Sir Arthur. Permanent undersecretary in the British Foreign Office, 1910–1916.

Wilson, Sir Henry, General. Director of military operations in British War Office, 1910–1914.

Russia

Artamonov, Viktor A., General. Russian military attaché in Belgrade, 1912–1914.

Bark, Peter. Russian minister of finance, 1914–1917.

Benckendorff, Alexander K., Count. Russian ambassador to England, 1903–1917.

Dobrorolskii, Sergei, General. Chief of Russian army’s mobilisation section, 1914.

Goremykin, Ivan L. Chairman of Russian Council of Ministers, 1914–1916.

Grigorevich, Ivan K., Admiral. Russian naval minister, 1911–1916.

Hartwig, Nikolai. Russia’s minister in Serbia, 1909–1914.

Izvolsky, Alexander. Russia’s ambassador to France, 1910–1917.

Krivoshein, A. V. Russian minister of agriculture, 1906–1915.

Nicholas II (Romanov). Tsar of Russia, 1894–1917.

Nicholas Nikolaevich (Romanov). Grand Duke and commander in chief of the Russian Imperial Army, 1914–1915.

Sazonov, Sergei. Foreign minister of Russia, 1910–1916.

Schilling, Moritz F., Baron. Head of Chancery (i.e., chief of staff) of the Russian Foreign Ministry, 1912–1914.

Shebeko, Nikolai. Russia’s ambassador to Austria-Hungary, 1913–1914.

Stolypin, Peter. Chairman of Russian Council of Ministers, 1906–1911.

Sukhomlinov, V. A. Chief of Russian Army General Staff, 1908–1909, and Russian war minister, 1909–1915.

Yanushkevitch, N. N. General, chief of Russian Army General Staff.

Serbia

Chabrinovitch, Nedjelko. Bosnian Serb terrorist and co-conspirator of Gavrilo Princip, trained in Belgrade.

Ciganovitch, Milan. Bosnian-born Serb; liaison between Black Hand leaders and Gavrilo Princip in Belgrade. Furnished arms to the terrorists plotting to assassinate Franz Ferdinand.

Dimitrijevitch, Dragutin (‘Apis’), Colonel. Head of Serbian Military Intelligence and the Black Hand.

Grabezh, Trifko. Bosnian Serb terrorist and co-conspirator of Gavrilo Princip, trained in Belgrade.

Ilitch, Danilo. Recruiter of local terrorists in Sarajevo, in order to camouflage Serbian involvement in the assassination plot in Belgrade.

Paĉu, Laza, Dr Serbian Minister of Finance, 1912–1915.

Pašić, Nikola. Prime minister of Serbia, 1912–1918.

Princip, Gavrilo. Bosnian Serb terrorist, trained in Belgrade.

Spalaiković, M. Serbia’s ambassador to Russia, 1914.

Tankositch, Voja, Major. Co-founder of Black Hand.

CHRONOLOGY

28 June 1914

assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo

5–6 July 1914

Count Hoyos mission to Berlin leads to the ‘blank check’

10 July 1914

Berlin first learns of Austrian plans for a Serbian ultimatum

14 July 1914

Tisza converts to the Austrian ‘war party’

18 July 1914

Sazonov returns from vacation and learns of Austrian ultimatum plans

19 July 1914

the Ministerial Council in Vienna approves text of Serbian ultimatum

20–23 July 1914

the French presidential summit in St Petersburg

21 July 1914

Sazonov threatens Berchtold: ‘There must be no talk of an ultimatum’

23 July 1914

France and Russia try to warn Vienna not to issue a Serbian ultimatum; Vienna issues its ultimatum to Serbia anyway

24–25 July 1914   

Russia’s Council of Ministers decrees ‘partial mobilisation’; Tsar Nicholas II ratifies this; France’s ambassador gives imprimatur

26 July 1914

Russia begins its ‘Period Preparatory to War’

28 July 1914

Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia

29 July 1914

Tsar Nicholas II orders general mobilisation, then changes his mind

30 July 1914

Russian general mobilisation is ordered

31 July 1914   

Germany issues ultimatum to Russia to halt its mobilisation

1 August 1914

first France and then Germany orders general mobilisation; Germany declares war on Russia

3 August 1914

Grey gives speech to the Commons, making case for war if Germany violates Belgian neutrality; Germany declares war on France

4 August 1914            

German troops enter Belgium; Britain issues ultimatum to Germany; it expires at eleven PM London time; Britain and Germany at war

PROLOGUE: SARAJEVO, SUNDAY, 28 JUNE 1914

ON SUNDAY MORNING, 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand awoke in the Hotel Bosnia with a sense of relief that he would soon depart. His suite, located in the spa town of Ilidža ten kilometres (about six miles) west of Sarajevo, had a certain garish charm, adorned with Persian carpets, Arabesque lamp figurines, and Turkish scimitars. But three days of Oriental-Muslim kitsch had been plenty for this proper Catholic archduke. After arriving Thursday afternoon, the heir to the Habsburg throne had attended two full days of Austrian military manoeuvres. On Friday evening, Ferdinand had accompanied his wife, Sophie, on what was intended to be an informal shopping expedition in the bazaars of Sarajevo. The Muslim mayor, Fehim Efendi, had instructed his multifaith constituents to show these illustrious guests their best ‘Slavic hospitality,’ and they did not disappoint, mobbing Ferdinand and Sophie everywhere they went. The archduke had then repaid this cumbersome hospitality by hosting the mayor, along with Bosnian officials and religious leaders (Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim), at his Ilidža hotel for a ‘sumptuous banquet’ on Saturday night. The menu was mostly French, but, in a nod to the locals, the aperitifs included žilavka, a white wine from the Mostar region in Herzegovina.

‘Thank God,’ Ferdinand was heard to remark as his guests at last began returning to Sarajevo, ‘this Bosnian trip is over.’ Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, who, as chief of the General Staff, had presided over the military exercises, slipped off quietly at nine PM, following the last toasts. Ferdinand would have liked to leave with Conrad, and nearly did – only to be warned by advisers that breaking off the Sunday programme would damage Austrian prestige in Bosnia. Still, it would all be over in several hours. All that remained on the Sunday programme was a town hall photo op, a brief museum visit, and lunch at Konak, the governor’s mansion. After dressing and attending an early Mass ‘in a room specially converted to a chapel’ in the hotel, Ferdinand dashed off a telegram to his children, telling them that ‘Papi’ and ‘Mami’ could not wait to see them on Tuesday.1

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, with his wife, Sophie, and their three children. Source: Bain News Service, Library of Congress.

That final day of the visit, 28 June, was an anniversary of painful significance for the archducal couple. On this date in 1900, the heir to the Austrian throne had been forced by his uncle, Emperor Franz Josef I, to sign an Oath of Renunciation, stipulating that any children issuing from his morganatic marriage to Sophie be excluded from the imperial succession. Although hardly a commoner, Sophie Chotek came from a Czech noble family far too obscure and impoverished for the grand Habsburgs. Adding to the scandalous impropriety of the match, Sophie had been lady-in-waiting to the Habsburg archduchess, Marie Christine, whom Ferdinand had been expected to marry. One day, the story went, Franz Ferdinand changed clothes to play tennis, leaving his locket behind in the dressing room. The mother of the presumed heiress opened the locket, expecting to find a picture of her daughter – only to see instead the likeness of her lady-in-waiting.

Rather than renounce his passion in the name of family dignity, Ferdinand had married his secret love. Most of the Habsburgs had never forgiven him this humiliation. Nor was Sophie allowed to forget it. Although she was created Duchess of Hohenberg, Ferdinand’s wife was subjected to endless humiliations at imperial banquets, where she was forced to enter each room last, after much younger, unmarried archduchesses, ‘alone and without escort,’ being then seated at the foot of the table, nowhere near her husband. Even at the Saturday dinner banquet in Ilidža, far from the court in Vienna, Sophie had been forced to sit between two archbishops and to endure her husband’s painfully ‘wifeless toast’ (Franz Ferdinand was not allowed to mention her in public on official occasions).2

A legend claims that Ferdinand’s entire Bosnian trip was conceived as a sop to Sophie, who did not often get to enjoy the elaborate ceremonies most Habsburg duchesses expected as a matter of course. In fact the visit was eminently political, which is why he was so keen to get it over with. Ferdinand had fervently opposed the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the dual monarchy in 1908 as a needless provocation of the South Slavs, especially the Orthodox Serbs, who comprised more than 40 per cent of the 1.9 million residents of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1914 (as against Muslims at 30 per cent, Roman Catholic Croats at 20 per cent, and a smattering of Jews, Protestants, and gypsies). It was not that the archduke cared for Serbs, whom he regarded as a ‘pack of thieves and murderers and scoundrels.’3 He did, however, care to maintain Austria’s precarious relations with Serbophile Russia, and he therefore viewed the whole Bosnian business with distaste.

The annexation, as Ferdinand knew, had wounded Russian pride deeply, not least because Austria’s then foreign minister, Baron Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, had famously tricked his Russian counterpart, Alexander Izvolsky, into supporting it in a cynical quid pro quo, in exchange for Austrian endorsement of Russian naval access to the Ottoman Straits, before reneging on his phony promise. Izvolsky had then reneged in turn, only for his hand to be forced by an implied German threat to go to war with Russia in March 1909. Aehrenthal’s humiliation of Izvolsky in this First Bosnian Crisis was severe enough that the latter was forced to resign (only to re-emerge in Paris as Russian ambassador to France, from which post he plotted his revenge). Austria’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the teeth of Serbian hatred and Russian resentment was a ticking diplomatic time bomb that could go off at any time. The archduke could only hope that it would not detonate during his visit.

In 1910, Franz Josef I had made a royal progress in Bosnia-Herzegovina to win over the loyalty of his reluctant new subjects – although, in a not-so-subtle nod to Serbian opposition, his advance team had made sure to blanket Sarajevo with a thick police presence. Having experienced a similarly stiff setup on a state visit to Romania, Franz Ferdinand had demanded a less suffocating cordon for his own progress in 1914. He had also demanded that he be allowed to bring to Bosnia his beloved wife, who kept his spirits up during tedious official occasions (when, that is, she was allowed to speak to him). Still, security was taken seriously, with planning handled by the archduke’s own military staff, with assistance from Conrad; Leon von Biliński, the minister for Bosnia-Herzegovina; and Oskar Potiorek, the province’s military governor. Contrary to claims by Serbian critics, the manoeuvres by the XV and XVI Army Corps that were the point of Ferdinand’s trip were held not along the Bosnian-Serbian border but in the area of southwestern Herzegovina facing the Adriatic, as far from Serbia as possible.

Aside from sensibly avoiding a provocation near the Serbian border, these men had not, alas, distinguished themselves in planning the trip, which had begun with a series of ill omens. The luxurious rail car Ferdinand usually travelled in, built to order for him by the Ringhoffer firm in Prague, had sprung an axle loose en route from the Czech-Austrian resort town Chlumetz bei Wittengau (where Ferdinand and Sophie had left their children, until their expected return on Tuesday). The archduke had then been deposited in an ordinary first-class wagon as far as Vienna, where he was to be transferred to a backup royal rail car for the long journey to Trieste – only for its electric lights to fail while he was still in the station. As there was not enough time to repair the wiring without disturbing the trip’s itinerary, the archduke and his staff continued all the way to the Adriatic coast in a wagon lit by candlelight. It was, Ferdinand remarked, like travelling ‘in a tomb.’4

The worst omen of all, however, was the choice of date for the final royal progress in Sarajevo. For Ferdinand and Sophie, 28 June brought a painful reminder of the exclusion of their children from the Habsburg succession. For Serbs, this date brought the even more painful reminder of their terrible defeat at Kosovo Poljein 1389, when the Turks had wiped out independent Serbia. For Serbs, however, 28 June was not only a day of mourning. Because a Serbian knight, Miloš Obilić, had slain Ottoman sultan Murad I on the battlefield, the anniversary had been turned into a celebration of national resistance, a feast day in honour of the Slavic deity of war and fertility: St Vitus’s Day, or Vidov Dan. Even as Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne, would be (reluctantly) consecrating Habsburg rule over Serbs with an official visit to Sarajevo, Serbs at Kosovo would be feasting to honour the patriot who had slain their Turkish conqueror on this day 525 years before. Considering the recent history of Serbian regicidal terrorism – in 1903 a clique of hypernationalist military officers led by the future head of Serbian army intelligence, Dragutin Dimitrijevitch (‘Apis’), had murdered Serbia’s own king and queen* to protest their insufficient devotion to the Serbian cause – staging a royal progress in Sarajevo on Vidov Dan was provocative, if not downright foolhardy.

Making the Sunday tour still more risky, news of the visit had been made public months in advance, such that any Serb with a grudge against the dual monarchy had plenty of time to plan for it. A Zaghreb newspaper, Srbobran, had divulged the principal details of the archduke’s upcoming trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina in March 1914. Although the exact date of the Sarajevo tour was not then known, Srbobran announced as definite that Archduke Ferdinand would come to Bosnia in early summer to observe military manoeuvres.

Intrigued by the news report, which had reached him in Sarajevo, a Bosnian Serb activist of the irredentist group Young Bosnia clipped the announcement and mailed it to his friend Nedjelko Chabrinovitch in Belgrade, addressed – in the bohemian style of the Serbian underground – via the coffeehouse Eichelkranz. Chabrinovitch, in turn, showed the clipping to his friend Gavrilo Princip, a radical Serb nationalist from Bosnia, over lunch. After spending the afternoon brooding over the news, Princip sought out Chabrinovitch that night in another Belgrade café, the Grüner Kranz, to propose that the two travel to Sarajevo to assassinate the heir to the Habsburg throne. The nineteen-year-old Chabrinovitch, more of an anarchist by temperament than Princip, would rather have gone after Governor Potiorek, who symbolised what he called the ‘Mameluke’ or Muslim slave-caste class of government officials sent down by Vienna to make Bosnian Serbs suffer. But Princip won over Chabrinovitch by force of conviction.5

Princip’s suggestion was not an idle one. Although neither he nor Chabrinovitch possessed weapons of his own, they both were in touch with Serbia’s network of semi-official terrorist groups. Princip was a former recruit of the Narodna Odbrana (National Defence), an organisation launched in 1908 to oppose Austria’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by training underground comitaji warriors in ‘bomb-throwing, the blowing up of railways and bridges,’ and other sundry arts of guerrilla warfare. Princip had been trained by Narodna Odbrana in 1912 under Major Voja Tankositch (who had personally murdered the Serbian queen’s brothers in 1903), the intention being to smuggle him across the Turkish border prior to the First Balkan War, launched by the Balkan League of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro against Ottoman Turkey that October. Then just eighteen, thin, and in poor health, Princip had washed out of training, but he maintained contacts in both the Narodna Odbrana and its more radical spin-off organization, Ujedinjenje ili Smrt(Union or Death), known as the Black Hand.

The Black Hand, run by many of the same people who had founded Narodna Odbrana – including Apis and Major Tankositch – was enveloped in layers of secrecy. New members would be led into ‘a darkened room, lighted only by wax candles,’ where they would swear an oath ‘by the blood of my ancestors . . . that I will from this moment till my death . . . be ready to make any sacrifice for [Serbia].’ The organisation’s seal suggested what sacrifice was meant: it displayed an unfurled flag, the skull and bones sign, a dagger, a bomb, and, last, a bottle of poison meant for the member himself, after he had committed his murderous deed.6

Princip and Chabrinovitch were not active members of the Black Hand, but they knew men who were. Milan Ciganovitch, for one, was a fellow Bosnian Serb who had trained with Princip under Major Tankositch in 1912, only more successfully. Ciganovitch had pilfered a personal arsenal of six handheld bombs during the Balkan Wars. Learning of Princip’s idea, Ciganovitch offered the use of his stash of explosives but also suggested that the two would-be assassins try to obtain pistols, in case the bombs failed. Major Tankositch, almost certainly on orders from Apis, duly provided them with four Browning revolvers plus ammunition, 150 dinars in cash, and, not least, cyanide of potassium, with which the assassin was to commit suicide after killing the archduke. Finally, Tankositch instructed Ciganovitch, a veteran, to give Princip and Chabrinovitch shooting practice so that they would not miss their target.7

The Black Hand provided more to the would-be assassins than weapons and training. Over the years, the organisation had built a sort of underground railroad, or tunnel, of terrorism. It was not hard to smuggle individuals with fake papers onto Austrian territory, but smuggling weapons required a deft touch. On 26 May 1914, when Princip, Chabrinovitch, and a third conspirator, Trifko Grabezh, arrived at Šabac, near the border, a Serbian army officer, Major Popovitch, was waiting with instructions he had received from Major Tankositch. Chabrinovitch, with papers provided by Popovitch, was to cross the border en route for Zvornik, on the Bosnian side; from there another confidence man would drive him to Tuzla, a town connected by railway to Sarajevo. Princip and Grabezh, carrying the weapons, crossed the Drina River into Bosnia near Lješnica, being carefully ferried by a Serbian customs official from one island to another and then passed on by friendly Serbian peasant guides as far as Priboj. There they met their next handler, Veljko Chubrilovitch, the town’s schoolmaster, a secret member of Narodna Odbrana.

To make their rendezvous with Chabrinovitch at Tuzla, they would have to pass a checkpoint of Austrian gendarmes at Lopare. In a clever bit of derring-do, Princip and Grabezh left their stash of bombs, pistols, and poison in the cart of a peasant they were travelling with for cover, circled the village on foot and then rejoined him on the other side. Finally, in Tuzla, the three terrorists, having been reunited, turned over their deadly cargo to another confidence man, Mishko Jovanovitch, who, like Chubrilovitch, was both an upstanding local citizen (he owned a bank and a movie theatre) and a member of Narodna Odbrana. Jovanovitch hid the weapons in his attic, while the terrorists proceeded on to Sarajevo. Showing a mastery of underground tradecraft, the four men agreed that a fifth man would return from Sarajevo to retrieve the weapons, identifying himself ‘by offering a package of Stephanie cigarettes.’8

While Princip, Chabrinovitch, and Grabezh bided their time in the Bosnian capital, their handlers swung into action. Danilo Ilitch, a former schoolmaster and bank clerk turned full-time activist ne’er do well, who now lived with his mother in Sarajevo, took in Princip and Chabrinovitch (Grabezh’s own family lived nearby). Ilitch knew the terrorists well from previous visits to Belgrade. Princip had written him back in April, speaking vaguely of his plans to assassinate Franz Ferdinand and suggesting that Ilitch recruit local assassins in Sarajevo as well. Ilitch was thus already knee-deep in the conspiracy even before the terrorist trio arrived; he would now go deeper still. After presenting the package of Stephanie cigarettes in Tuzla, Ilitch asked Jovanovitch to carry the weapons on to Doboj, fearing that he would be arrested in Tuzla, where he was not known.

Jovanovitch duly took the weapons and, with panache, hid them in a box of sugar, which he wrapped in white paper and bound with twine. While looking for Ilitch in Doboj, Jovanovitch at one point left the box hidden underneath his raincoat in the rail station waiting room; he later left it unattended, for a time, in a friend’s workshop. Ilitch, after finally taking the dangerous cargo to Sarajevo, placed it ‘in a small chest, which I locked, under a couch’ in his mother’s bedroom. Fittingly, on the morning of 28 June 1914, Ilitch at last returned the ‘sugar’ to Princip, Chabrinovitch, and Grabezh in the Vlajinitch pastry shop (minus several revolvers turned over to his own local recruits). Princip took a pistol, Chabrinovitch a bomb, and Grabezh one of each. The assassins were ready.9

There was no great mystery about the route the archduke’s motorcade would follow that morning. Sarajevo was a small enough city, with obvious enough features, that one could have guessed at it without inside knowledge of the itinerary. Sarajevo is a low-lying valley town, split in the middle by the Miljăcke River (although ‘river’ is a misnomer during the summer months, when it dries to a trickle) and surrounded by high hills that frame the town’s dramatic skyline. Any royal progress would likely proceed down the Appelquai, the main avenue running parallel to the Miljăcke.

As if to confirm what everyone suspected already, in the same decree in which he had exhorted Sarajevo’s subjects to show the Habsburg heir their best Slavic hospitality, Mayor Fehim Efendi had also informed them of the itinerary of the archduke’s Sunday visit, including the Appelquai (to be travelled both to and from town hall), the idea being that residents and shop owners along the route should bedeck the streets with imperial flags and flowers. Many Sarajevans had gone the mayor one better, displaying large portraits of the archduke on their walls and windows. Judging from the ubiquitous displays of hospitality blanketing the city all weekend, and the overwhelming warmth with which the locals had greeted him during his impromptu Friday night tour of the bazaar, Franz Ferdinand had no reason to expect anything different on Sunday.

But Sunday was different, because the travel itinerary – including both the route and the timing of the visit – had been published beforehand. The archduke’s private secretary, Paul Nikitsch-Boulles, later wrote that during the spontaneous Friday tour ‘any would-be murderer would have had a thousand chances to assault Franz Ferdinand, undefended.’ And yet, although accessing the victim would have been easy, none of the assassins had made a move on Friday because they did not have their weapons. On Sunday, they did.10

The sun shone brilliantly across Bosnia on the morning of Vidov Dan, as the Habsburg heir prepared to run out the clock on his visit. Franz Ferdinand wore the uniform of an Austrian cavalry general, with a blue tunic over black trousers with red stripes, topped off by a gold collar with three silver stars. Sophie was elegantly outfitted in a ‘gossamer white veil’ and white hat, with a bouquet of roses tucked into her red sash. Together they arrived in Sarajevo by train from Ilidža at 9:20 AM, accompanied by Governor Potiorek, who acted as tour guide. A brief review of local troops followed, at which Sophie, significantly, was allowed to walk side by side with her husband. The archducal couple then took the position of honour in an open car in the imperial motorcade, behind the lead car holding the mayor and police chief, with three other staff cars trailing behind. The cannons boomed a ‘24-fold salute’ to announce the start of the royal progress, followed by shouts of ‘Zivio!’ (‘long live the heir’) from the crowds. As everyone in town knew, the motorcade would now, between 10 and 10:30 AM, proceed down the length of the Appelquai towards the town hall, along the right side of the road bordering the river; on the return route, the motorcade would proceed on the opposite, landward side of the quai.11

There, along the Appelquai, the assassins waited. Counting Ilitch himself, there were seven in all. Chabrinovitch, Grabezh, and Princip, fresh from Belgrade, formed the core muscle of the conspiracy. Ilitch had recruited three more locals: Vaso Chubrilovitch and Cvjetko Popovitch, both Bosnian Serbs, and, perhaps to throw investigators off the scent of the crime, a token Bosnian Muslim with the wonderfully evocative name of Mehmedbashitch (‘Mehmed’ being a Turkic variant of Mohammad and ‘bashitch’ the Slavicisation of the Turkish word for kickback, baksheesh). Ilitch, the organiser, chose a post for himself on the landward side of the Appelquai across from the Cumurja Bridge, flanked by Popovitch. Directly opposite, Mehmedbashitch, Chubrilovitch, and Chabrinovitch took up key positions along the river. The motorcade would pass by the first two, who carried pistols, just before passing the Cumurja Bridge and then Chabrinovitch, with his handheld fuse bomb. In case these three missed their chance, Princip was waiting with his revolver right before the cars reached the next bridge, the Lateiner. Finally, if the first four failed, the motorcade would have to get by Grabezh – the only assassin who carried both bomb and pistol – short of the Kaiser Bridge.

For all the brilliant redundancy of Ilitch’s plan, there was a glaring weakness. Perhaps overestimating the dedication of his own recruits, the organiser of the assassination plot had given the two most important positions to Vaso Chubrilovitch, a young Bosnian with little training and less courage, and Mehmedbashitch, a Muslim of questionable loyalty to the Serbian cause. Neither man raised a finger when the motorcade passed him by. Only the third assassin and first of the Belgrade conspirators, Chabrinovitch, acted. As the motorcade was passing by the Cumurja Bridge, Chabrinovitch knocked the cap off his bomb and hurled it at the archduke’s car. Luckily, the driver had seen the assassin readying to strike; he accelerated rapidly, and the fuse bomb, after grazing Ferdinand’s face, bounced off the back hood and detonated underneath the staff car that followed behind. The explosion did serious damage to the latter vehicle, wounding Potiorek’s adjutant and several bystanders on the quai. Chabrinovitch jumped into the dry riverbed, only to be seized by policemen before he could pop his poison pill (if he intended to).

Never was the quiet dignity of the Habsburgs more in evidence than in the minutes following the attempt on the archduke’s life. Dismissing his own minor scratch, Franz Ferdinand calmly surveyed the damage to the car, asked if anyone had been injured, and made sure all wounded men were sent forthwith to the garrison hospital for treatment. ‘Come on,’ he remarked, ‘the fellow is insane. Gentlemen, let us proceed with the programme.’ When the motorcade resumed its course along the Appelquai at a higher speed than before, so as to discourage further attempts on the archduke’s life, Ferdinand scoffed and asked his driver to slow down so that his subjects might see him better. His instinct was sound: having seen Chabrinovitch’s bomb fail to hit its target, Princip and Grabezh had abandoned their positions.12

Despite his show of pluck in the face of this act of terrorism, the archduke was in a foul mood when the party reached the town hall. Sophie, uninjured but for a small scratch and not too badly shaken, went off to meet with a deputation of Muslim women, while Ferdinand prepared to endure one last round of public speeches. The scene was novel, at least. Underneath a canopy of ‘red-gold Moorish loggias’ – a nod to Sarajevo’s Ottoman past – the archduke was greeted by ‘turbaned mullahs, bishops in miters and gilt vestments, rabbis in kaftans.’ But there was an unmistakable air of awkwardness. When Mayor Fehim Efendi, unsure of how to behave in the wake of the incident on the quay, simply read off his prepared text of platitudes and compliments for the Habsburg heir – read in German, which he spoke decently well for a Bosnian – Ferdinand finally snapped, interrupting Fehim Efendi to say, ‘That’s rich! We come here to visit this city and we are greeted with bombs. Very well, then, go on.’13

It was approaching eleven AM. The programme called for a visit to the museum before lunch, which would require navigating the most crowded part of the city by way of Franz Josef Strasse. To avoid further trouble, the archduke’s military advisers suggested he skip the museum and proceed to Potiorek’s gubernatorial Konak, turning left at the first bridge along the quai – the Kaiser – to avoid the trouble spot at the Cumurja farther down; from the Kaiser it was a straight shot to the Konak (this route also passed through the Muslim quarter, presumably safer than the Serbian neighbourhoods). With his characteristic sense of honour, Ferdinand chose a third option: visiting the garrison hospital to check on Potiorek’s adjutant and the other wounded before proceeding to the Konak for the luncheon that would, at last, terminate his duties in Bosnia. While the hospital, like the museum, was most directly reached via the narrow Franz-Josef Strasse, Potiorek insisted that the motorcade proceed straight along the broad Appelquai at high speed so as to foil bomb throwers, reaching the garrison hospital by the long – but presumably safe – way.14

It was a sensible plan. Meanwhile, Princip and Grabezh were still milling about the quai, despondent after watching Chabrinovitch’s arrest following his near miss. Ilitch and his Bosnian recruits, despite being perfectly located to make mischief after the motorcade had been halted after the bombing, had all slunk away to hide. Grabezh had not distinguished himself either, having failed to strike – even after the motorcade resumed its progress along the quay – because, he claimed later, the crowds at the Lateiner Bridge were too thick. The Serbs’ one remaining hand bomb, held by Grabezh, would have almost no chance to hit a car travelling at full speed. Grabezh and Princip were both carrying pistols, but the idea that either one of them could, after a few weeks’ target practice, hit the archduke with a kill shot in a rapidly moving car was fanciful. Grabezh, knowing this, had taken up a new position at the Kaiser Bridge, hoping that, if the returning motorcade turned there towards the gubernatorial Konak, it would slow down enough for him get off a shot at close range. Had the archduke not insisted on visiting the wounded men at the garrison hospital, his car would have had to slow down, briefly, turning onto the bridge where Grabezh was waiting – although the Serb would have had only a second, at most, to get off his shot.15

Gavrilo Princip had not given up, either. He, along with Chabrinovitch, had set the conspiracy in motion. Both men were committed terrorists. Both had taken oaths to carry out this terrible deed over the Sarajevo gravestone of Bogdan Zherajitch, a Herzogovinian Serb revered for his assassination attempt on General Vareshanin, Potiorek’s predecessor as military governor of Bosnia, in 1910. Zherajitch, like Princip and Chabrinovitch, had been trained by the Black Hand. Although he had failed to kill the governor, Zherajitch had got off five shots before committing suicide. Princip, in the days before the archduke’s arrival, spent hours next to Zherajitch’s grave, gathering strength for his task. On the night before Vidov Dan, Princip had made one last pilgrimage, covering the terrorist’s tombstone with flowers to consecrate his own expected martyrdom on the morrow.16

So far, Princip had failed his hero. Chabrinovitch had at least made his attempt on the archduke (even if failing to kill himself, as Zherajitch had done). Thus far Princip had not even done that much. True, it was not his fault that Ilitch had placed him fourth in line on the riverside that morning. In the tense aftermath of the bombing, with officers and onlookers blanketing the scene, it would have been nearly impossible for him to get close enough to the archduke to get off a good shot. And yet, for a Serbian terrorist committed to die for his cause, this was no excuse.

Fortified by his graveside pilgrimages, Princip did not lose faith after Chabrinovitch was arrested. As Grabezh had the Konak route covered, Princip took up a new position on the museum route, opposite the Lateiner Bridge, in front of the Moritz Schiller spice emporium at the corner of Franz Josef Strasse, where the archduke’s car would turn right from the Appelquai if it followed the original programme. So dangerous was the publication of the archduke’s itinerary that now, whether he proceeded to either of his two remaining destinations, his motorcade would have to slow down at a sharp corner where a Serb terrorist was waiting, loaded pistol in hand. Still, Ferdinand’s stubbornness in choosing a third destination, and Potiorek’s decision to abandon the Franz Josef Strasse and run all cars at high speed, had dramatically lowered the odds of a successful second attack. If everything proceeded according to the new plan, both Grabezh and Princip would watch the motorcade pass by in a blur, just out of reach. Princip would be a bit closer, but – at nine metres or 30 feet from his new position – a fast-moving car would present an almost impossible target.

Princip’s murder weapon, an FN Model 1910 Browning semi-automatic pistol. Source: Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna, Austria.

It was just past eleven AM when the archduke, his wife, Potiorek, the mayor, and their beefed-up police escort left town hall, proceeding at full throttle along the river side of the Appelquai. As a further precaution, the driving order had been reconfigured, with a police car leading, the mayor’s car second, followed by the Ferdinand-Sophie-Potiorek car, and three more staff cars behind. A close friend of the archduke, Count Harrach, had volunteered for good measure to ride on the car’s left running board so he could fend off any assault from the river, from which side the earlier bomb had been thrown. With the principals now in the middle of a long, tightened, fast-moving motorcade, they would be harder to single out by any bomb thrower and almost invulnerable to a shooter.

The 1911 Gräf & Stift convertible in which Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were travelling when shot by Gavrilo Princip on 28 June 1914. Source: Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna, Austria.

Grabezh, on the Kaiser Bridge, could only watch the cars as they zoomed by him without turning. As they neared the Lateiner Bridge, about a quarter-mile distant from town hall, the motorcade should have reached full speed – should have, but did not. Whether because they had forgotten about Potiorek’s rerouting or because Potiorek had been negligent in informing everyone, the first two cars turned right onto Franz Josef Strasse. The third car, too, carrying Potiorek and the archduke, turned. Realising the error, Potiorek ordered the driver to turn back just as they rounded the sharp corner in front of the spice emporium. After hitting the brakes, the archduke’s chauffeur struggled for a fatal moment before he could shift the car into reverse gear. Gavrilo Princip thus found his target sitting motionless for a period of two or three seconds, just 2.5 metres (about 8 feet) away, with Count Harrach – acting as bodyguard – marooned helplessly on the wrong side of the car. Stepping in to point-blank range, Princip fired two shots with his Browning pistol. The first pierced Franz Ferdinand’s neck and the second Sophie’s abdomen.

As the archduke’s car, having turned around at last, sped in the other direction towards the Konak, it was not yet clear to the others in the car that the shots had hit their target. Sophie, sensing something was amiss, thought only of her husband, asking him, ‘In God’s name, what has happened to you?’ Franz Ferdinand, likewise, although knowing he had been hit, could think only of Sophie. ‘Sopherl, Sopherl,’ he managed to say even as blood dripped from his mouth, ‘don’t die on me. Live for our children.’ Asked by Count Harrach whether he was badly injured, the archduke replied, with all the reserve expected of a Habsburg, ‘It is nothing.’ As both he and his wife slowly expired, Ferdinand repeated again and again, each time more softly than the last: ‘It is nothing.’17

By eleven thirty AM on 28 June 1914, Ferdinand and Sophie were dead.

* Also murdered were the queen’s brothers and several government ministers.

I

REACTIONS

1

Vienna: Anger, Not Sympathy

IT WAS A GORGEOUS DAYACROSS EUROPE, typical of the glorious summer of 1914. ‘Throughout the days and nights,’ the novelist Stefan Zweig recalled, ‘the heavens were a silky blue, the air soft yet not sultry, the meadows fragrant and warm.’ On Sunday afternoon, 28 June, Zweig, like nearly everyone in Austria, was outdoors enjoying the weather, sitting on a park bench in the spa town of Baden, reading a Tolstoy novel. Shortly after two PM, a notice announcing the death of the heir to the throne was posted near the bandstand. Seeing the announcement, the musicians abruptly stopped playing, which alerted everyone that something was amiss. Before long, everyone in town knew the story.1

News of the murders in Sarajevo spread quickly across the country. Among government officials, Chief of Staff Conrad, who had taken leave of Franz Ferdinand just hours before the archduke was murdered, was the first to know. Conrad had taken the ten thirty PM train from Sarajevo to Croatia, where he was to supervise manoeuvres. Shortly after noon on Sunday, as Conrad passed through Zaghreb, Baron Rhemen, a general of cavalry, entered his coupé and passed on the terrible story. At his final stop, in Karlstadt, Conrad received an official telegram informing him of the deaths of the Habsburg heir and his wife, and that the assassin was a ‘Bosnian of Serbian nationality.’ Conrad concluded right then that the assassinations could not have been ‘the deed of a single fanatic,’ but rather must be ‘the work of a well-organised conspiracy.’ In effect, the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was ‘the declaration of war by Serbia on Austria-Hungary.’ This act of war, he resolved, ‘could only be answered by war.’ Without delay, Conrad wired to Emperor Franz Josef I at his alpine villa at Bad Ischl, asking whether he should break off the planned manoeuvres in Croatia and return to the capital. The answer was yes. For the second evening in a row, Conrad boarded the night train, this time en route to Vienna.2

Conrad’s coolly belligerent reaction to the news was wholly in character. Army fit and ramrod-thin, the chief of staff was every bit as stubborn as Franz Ferdinand, to whom he owed his elevation to the position. The slain archduke had secured Conrad’s appointment in 1906 and his reappointment in 1912 following a short-lived sack the previous November, both times over the objection of Emperor Franz Josef, who found Conrad’s ambitious military reforms irksome. (It had not helped that the ever-belligerent Conrad had advocated invading Italy, Austria’s nominal ally, in November 1911, when Italy was at war with the Ottoman Empire.) That Conrad was keen to crush Serbia was one of the worst-kept secrets in Europe. As Cato the Elder had signed off his speeches in the Roman Senate with the reminder that ‘Carthage must be destroyed,’ so Conrad had been consistently urging his colleagues to ‘solve the Serbian question once and for all’ since the First Bosnian Crisis of 1908–1909.* Although, thanks to Germany’s firm backing against Russia in this crisis, Vienna was able to win European recognition of Austria’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbian nationalists had never accepted its legitimacy: both Narodna Odbrana and the Black Hand had been formed in order to overturn the annexation. Although unsuccessful so far in overthrowing Austrian rule in Bosnia, Serbs were scoring victory after victory elsewhere. Serbia had nearly doubled in size and population during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, gaining at the expense of Turkey and Bulgaria. Serbia’s prestige was skyrocketing, while Austria’s, owing to her failure to intervene in the Balkan Wars, was plummeting. Small wonder the Bosnian Serbs had embraced irredentism – and political terrorism.3

Rounding out the atmosphere of menace facing Vienna, Russia, Serbia’s Great Power patron, was flexing her muscles again. In a period of internal weakness following her humiliation in the Russo-Japanese War and her subsequent Revolution of 1905, Russia had backed down during the First Bosnian Crisis. Four years later, her pan-Slavist minister to Belgrade, Nikolai Hartwig, had all but single-handedly organised the Balkan League (Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro), which declared war on the Ottoman Empire in October 1912, launching the First Balkan War. True, Russia had not mobilised herself in this conflict, which saw Turkey defeated on all fronts, nor did she in the Second Balkan War, launched by Bulgaria against her former allies in June 1913 in a quarrel over the spoils from the First (a quarrel Bulgaria lost soundly, after Romania and Turkey piled on her, too). But then, with Austria sitting on the sidelines during both wars even as her Serbian archenemy won victory after victory, Russia had not had to get involved. With the Serbs humiliating Turkey and scaring off Austria from intervening even without Russian backing, Conrad feared that the dual monarchy was running out of time to resolve its smoldering problems with Slavic minorities. That Franz Ferdinand had himself disapproved of Conrad’s belligerent line during the Balkan Wars did nothing to dampen Conrad’s fire – nor did the archduke’s death now prompt a reconsideration. Conrad spared no time for sentiment as he plotted Austria’s vengeance. It was now or never.

Count Leopold von Berchtold, foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, found himself at the centre of the diplomatic storm of July 1914. Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-2004-1110-500.

Count Leopold von Berchtold, Austria-Hungary’s foreign minister, was attending a country fair at Buchlowitz, near his ancestral estate at Buchlau, when he learned the news. He and his wife, Nandine, had been close with Ferdinand and Sophie. Not long ago, they had all spent a happy weekend together at the archduke’s estate at Konopischt, where the brilliantly redesigned gardens were in full springtime bloom. Berchtold, a handsome, fashionable, stupendously wealthy aristocrat not taken terribly seriously at court – he had been the emperor’s third choice when appointed to the post in 1912 – had neither the Habsburg stoicism of his friend Franz Ferdinand nor the ruthless focus of Conrad. Intelligent, well-mannered, and thoughtful, Berchtold was believed to dread making decisions. It was Berchtold who had stood in Conrad’s way during the Balkan Wars, teaming up with Franz Ferdinand and the emperor against the war party and consigning Austrian policy to a listless, reactive passivity that had done nothing to keep Serbia in check. True to form, the foreign minister was stunned with grief upon learning of his friend’s death, which left him speechless. After taking a long moment to compose himself, Berchtold walked to the station and boarded the next train to Vienna, arriving late Sunday afternoon.

Berchtold found the city ‘seized by a kind of monstrous agitation.’ In part because the government was cagey at first in revealing details about the assassinations, wild rumours were spreading through the city. Some thought the attacks were some kind of inside job, cooked up by German or Austrian intelligence; others fingered the Freemasons, while yet others heirs of the deceased Crown Prince Rudolf, who might have wished to avenge their father’s 1889 suicide based on the idea that Franz Ferdinand, Rudolf’s successor as heir to the throne, had murdered him. Some even suspected Stefan Tisza, the Hungarian minister-president, who may have seen Franz Ferdinand as a threat to Hungary’s privileged position in the dual monarchy (the archduke had disliked Tisza intensely, and the feeling was mutual). Others were certain of Serbian involvement in the crime, naming (correctly, as it turned out) the intelligence chief Apis, already a notorious bogeyman of Serbian villainy. Franz Ferdinand had been unloved at court and not better liked in Viennese society; his murder was not so much mourned in the city as appreciated for its titillating shock value. Guessing at the motivation for the crime became something of a parlor game, which added to the general air of festivity during a long holiday weekend – Monday, 29 June, was the Catholic feast day of Peter and Paul. In the Prater, after a brief interruption to digest the news from Sarajevo, the music played on through the night as if in defiance of the Sarajevo assassins, whosoever they might be.4

There was a curious parallel to the holiday gaiety in Vienna out on the ‘blackbird field’ of Kosovo Polje in Serbia that Sunday, where the nationalist ecstasies of Vidov Dan were ramping up to fever pitch when a report of the Sarajevo assassinations reached the crowd around five PM. In a remarkable instance of life imitating art, the traditional re-enactment of the Serbian martyr’s assassination of Sultan Murad I had, in recent years, featured Austrians rather than Turks as the villains, and now here was news that a real Austrian ‘sultan’ had been slain, presumably by a Serb. The crowds, an eyewitness told Ritter von Storck, the Austrian chargé d’affaires in Belgrade, ‘collapsed in each other’s arms out of joy’ when they heard that Franz Ferdinand had been murdered. ‘We have waited so long for such news,’ said one. Another Serb, more political, declared that the assassination was ‘small vengeance for the annexation’ of Bosnia-Herzegovina. (After citing this remark, Ritter asked, ‘and what, I wonder, would be large vengeance?’) Although the Vidov Dan ceremony officially came to a close at ten PM, Ritter informed Berchtold that the euphoric celebration had continued long into the night.5