6 – Black Hand
In the thread of political assassins drawn from secret societies, one cannot continue without mentioning arguably the most famous – certainly the most deadly – assassinations of all time, and the group behind it. The name Gavrilo Princip might not mean much to the wider public at large, but he struck probably the greatest blow in human history in terms of pure deaths caused by starting the First World War.
While his act might have been heavily parodied – “I heard the war started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry” said the dimwitted Baldrick in the classic World War One sitcom Blackadder – the actions of Princip on June 28th, 1914 in assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, would spark a conflict that killed in excess of 15 million people and define the modern era of history.
The secret society that spawned Princip was known as the Black Hand, although its proper (and, let’s face it, cooler) name was Unification or Death. Princip was actually a member of Young Bosnia, a different revolutionary organization, but the political fallout of his actions fell on the Black Hand and thus it is them that we will discuss. The Black Hand had been formed in 1911 by a group of army officers who had already managed to knock off the Serbian king and queen back in 1903 and had more latterly devoted themselves to the cause of Yugoslavism, that is the unification of the lands that would later become Yugoslavia into Serbia, creating a wider Yugoslavian state.
The Black Hand were driven by a desire to bring together the lands inhabited by Serbs – though there were many non-Serbs involved, such as Princip – and to banish the Austrians from the Balkans. They were well versed in tactics of assassination and organized in clandestine cells of three to five members, many of whom were already trained officers within the Serbian Army. Their membership ran from the Crown Prince of Serbia, Alexander, down to lowly students.
When Franz Ferdinand was killed in 1914 in Sarajevo, Bosnia, the blame immediately fell on the Black Hand. The Austrians had already brought in martial law and suppressed Serbian organizations the year before, but the reaction to the death of the heir to their throne was even harsher. Austria withdrew diplomatic relations with Serbia and on July 28, declared war on the country. Unbeknownst to the Austro-Hungarians, the Serbs had a secret treaty with the Russians and the French that committed them to respond to any attack against Serbia. Thus they were drawn in, along with the British and the Germans, into the conflagration that would go on to last four years and kill millions.
For what it’s worth, Princip got his wish. While he would die in a prison camp, by the end of the war, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia would exist and the Austro-Hungarian Empire would crumble into dissolution.