12. The Assassin Who Kicked Off World War I Escaped the Death Penalty
Gavrilo Princip (1894 – 1918) set in motion the chain of events leading to the outbreak of World War I by assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Considering the gravity of his deed, it might be assumed that Princip was immediately killed by the Archduke’s security, or that he was executed soon thereafter. Instead, he was sentenced to 20 years’ in prison, and died behind bars of illness in the war’s final year. Princip was a Serb from Bosnia-Herzegovina, then ruled by Austria-Hungary. As a teenager, he was radicalized by Serbian nationalists, and joined an organization dedicated to freeing all Slavs from Austria-Hungary’s control. Violent activism got Princip expelled from school in 1912 – he put on brass knuckles, and threatened fellow students who were lukewarm about joining him in a demonstration against Austria-Hungary.
After the expulsion, Princip walked 170 miles to the Serbian capital, Belgrade, joined guerrillas who raided across the border into Austro-Hungarian territory, then got recruited by Black Hand terrorists. The Black Hand trained, armed, and equipped Princip and a team of fellow terrorists, and sent them to assassinate Austria’s Archduke in June of 1914. Princip fired the fatal shots, then swallowed a cyanide pill. However, it had expired, and he was captured. Princip was convicted, but he was only nineteen at the time – twenty-seven days short of the twenty-year-old minimum age under Austro-Hungarian law for the death penalty. So he received the maximum sentence of 20 years. In prison, Princip caught tuberculosis, of which he finally died on April 28th, 1918, nearly four years after sparking WWI.