SERAJEVO PLOT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 13 September 1924, Page 15

SERAJEVO PLOT.

GREAT CRIME REVEALED

STORY BY UNKNOWN WITNESS

TEN AMBUSCADES PREPARED FOR ARCHDUKE.

i A revolver fired at Serajevo ten years ago last June ignited the world ip the flames of war six weeks later. On Sunday, June 28, 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir presumptive tp the Austro-Hungarian thrones, visited Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, acocmpanied .by his morganatic wife, Sophie Chotek, Duchess von Hohenberg, at the express command of his uncle, Emperor Francis Joseph, to represent His Majesty at the manoeuvres of the Bosnian troops. ■lt was said at the time, states the New York Times, that the Archduke was warned that he would encounter unusual danger, due to the fact that the day was the anniversary of the battle of Kossoyo, where the Turks had crushed the Serbs, in 1389 —an anniversary sacredly observed by the Bosnian Serbs—and that he carelessly ignored the warnings. This, however, was a mistake. He confided the warnings with a remonstrance to General Potiorek, Governor of BosniaHerzegovina, and to the Emperor himself. According, to Prince von Hohenlobe, Governor of Trieste, General Potiorek replied that compelling political reasons rendered the visit necessary on that very day. Francis Joseph declared that the visit must be made according to programme. So .the Archduke went.

; While the royal couple were passing in an automobile through the streets of Serajevo, a young Bosnian compositor, named Gabrinovitch, threw a bomb at the vehicle. The bomb exploded far behind, wounding several members of the Archduke’s suite. He at once went to the Hotel de Ville. severely reprimanded the Mayor and tlje Chief of Police, and continued on h}s way. Shortly afterward, a Bosnian student named Gavrilo Princip fired two revolver shots at the Archduke and his wife, killing both almost instantly.

As the tenth anniversary of the crime- of Serajevo approached one- of the . original conspirators, Borivoye Yevtiteh, now a well-known publicist. h?s been recontsructing the environment of the crime from personal knowledge for the readers of the- Politika. of Belgrade. He writes of much that has never before been published, aijid, among other things, reveals that even had the Archduke escaped the bullets, as he did the bomb, he would probably never have left Serajevo alive, so complete was the net cast abound him.

He also emphasises the fact that while the Belgrade Government was neither directly nor indirectly'. concerned in the crime, the accusations made to that effect by Count Berehtokl were actually prepared before- the crime took place, and when delivered served only as a false proscriptum. - Yevtiteh says that Gavrilo Princip P 1; Pcintsip, was really a Herzeo-oviii-la-n, having been born in the mountains of Grahovo near the confines of Montenegro and Dalmatia, arid that therefore- _his formative influences hardened him to a daily struggle against nature and made him taciturn meditative and savage. There were also hereditary reflexes—indifference to suffering in others, a feverish exaltation over a fallen enemy. From his earliest youth his unquiet will became fascinated by an ideal: The desbruction of the regime which oppresses! his country, the impulsive desire to play a role on the world’s stage. Once he said to Yevtiteh : “If I coiild shut u? a-11 Serajevo in a- box of matches I wpuld willingly set fire to it.” But it was not Serajevo which, he ignited. At- college he was a diligent student, although his periods of applicdtion were being forever interrupted by excursions into political propaganda. S<j» he was frequently suspended and turned from student life- to the political quarter of Belgrade, where he frequented the- cafe of the Golden Vault and mingled with bohemian refugees. He became accustomed to hunger, and at night frequently slept on the park benches. Still he contihiied. his studies and in the spring of 1914 received his baccalaureate. His fate was decided by a newspaper clipping which he received in an envelope without anv enclosed letter oij comment. It had been cut from tne Srbobran of Zagreb and announced that in June the great armv manoeuvres would take place, to be participated in by the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Corps (Serajevo and Rag us a) attended by the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who would visit Serajevo on June 28— the “Vidovdan” or ' anniversary of Kossovo. The clipping had been sent bv the compositor Gabrinovitch, or Tchabrinovitch, who had recently passed from anarchy to national revolution, which had adopted this formula: “First national liberation : after that, social liberation.” Gabrinovitch belonged to the Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia), a secret organisation whose majority consisted of orthodox Serbs, and which visaged ■ not a greater Serbian hegemony but a confederation of Southern Slavs.

.While the Narodna Odbrana. of Belgrade, the organisations which Vienna blamed for the crime and in the ultimatum demanded its dissolution, repud la ted individual initiative and workod to arouse the masses ““for a genera! rising at the opportune moment the Young Bosnia strove for supreme action by individuals. It borrowed from the Russian terrorists their system of numbers for members instead of names, and developed their reading chibs, or “kruj’ks.” The first of the Young Bosnia to be a “martyr” to the cause of independence was a. Herzegovinian student named Geraiteh, who fired on the Governor of Bosnia in 1910, and.,having missed him, committed suicide on the spot. The grave of Geraiteh became a place of pilgrimage for all Bosnian revolutionaries. On the eve of the tragic Vidov-dan of 1914. Gavrilo Princip went and placed flowers on the grave and to swear by it, that his band might not tremble. On reading the clipping relating to the manoeuvres in Bosnia., he had no hesitation as to what was expected of Ipm or of what he would do. Through the intermediary of a Bosnian roadworker he obtained hombs and reV i° a' s ' which Tankossitch, of the Serbian army, placed at his disposition without knowing their true purpose. Tt seems that' it was quite the custom for the Belgrade police to sell arms in this way to Bosnian refugees. According to Yevtitch, the Serbian Minister at \ ienna. M. Yovanovitch, bluntly expressed his apprehensions in regard to the Archduke’s visit, but the Austria Foreign Office declined to intervene the Emperor had commanded it to be so. Meanwhile, the scope of the conspiracy was expanding. Gabrinovitch recruited new afcomplies. The work

of planning the attack was given to Daniel Ilitch. It turned out to be a most elaborate scheme. No fewer than ten ambuscades were planned against the Archduke. The first three were confined to Gabrinovitch, to Princip and to the son of a Serbian Orthordox priest of Bosnia, named Grabele. If these three attempts failed, others .held in reserve were to be carried out by Ilitch, Gioukitch, etc. And if finally the Archduke should escape and leave Serajevo, an accomplice named Michael Poucharawould be waiting for him with a revolver at the railway station of Visoko. The fatal circle could not be broken through by the heir presumptive—so Yevtiteh writes.

Three weeks before the commission of the crime a messenger was sent from, Serajevo to the conspirators at Belgrade carrying a scrap of paper: “All is ready.” From Belgrade the conspirators had also received a tube of cyanuretie acid with which to poison themselves in . case- of failure or capture. When arrested all attempted to- do so, but the poison, liad evaporated. Moreover, in accordance with the rules of the Yeung Bosnia, the accomplices of Princip were unknown to each other until the eve of the event. There’ was no meeting between the planners and those who were to execute the plans. The former met in threes; the signal that a meeting was called was the presentation of a. red box made by the Bosnian tobacco monopoly, in which were some Driana cigarettes with flattened tips. Yevtiteh declares that the preparations made by the Austrian police for guarding the Archduke were as elaborate as they were ineffective. On the day before the arrival of the Archduke a complete cordon enveloped the city. Hundreds of detectives came from Vienna, in order to make the surveillance more complete. The administration quite outdid itself, he continues, for all these new agents, possibly even more zealous than those of Bosnia-, appeared at a great disadvantage. They neither knew the language nor the identity of those they were expected to watch. They examined tlie pass of Princip and let him enter Serajevo, imagining, doubtless, that they had passed a rural Bosnian going to the city/ to see the sights. In the same way they passed as “merchandise’’ the bombs and arms of Touzla.

Even the City of Serajevo itself was invaded by the “finest” from Vienna. One of the local _agents did actually recognise- Gabrinoyiteli, as lie had been expelled from Sarajevo, but made no attempt. to trail him. Fate seemed to play into the hands of the conspirators. Qn the eve of the Archduke’s arrival, the planners and the “actives” met at two separate, houses in King Peter Street, a short distance- from the place- where the fatal shots were niec.. One- of the-houses was a. saloon, kept by the Semis brothers, who- still run the- place to-day. _ Princip dined there as usual, eatinc bread and. milk. His repast cost seven cents. He- was not according to Yevtiteh an ascetic as Trotsky has pretended m a. certain pamphlet. He hved with his friends in an atmosphere of resigned bohemianism, but nevertheless- at times joyful AU the sa-mo, that Saturdav evening seemed oppressive with unusual melaiichoha: The conspirators had already entered under the shadow of their crime. Before separating they embraced each other for the last time, lhree of them lodged together—Princip. Varagitch, and Borivoye YevUm h P' aUt V r ° f confessions in Whl - C 1 h this artic]e Lx Pnncip said: ‘We must not be seen together.’’ Under the porte cochre they -separated, Princip saymg that he- had no desire to sleep dawn Wll i ab r° llt strefets till aaun. When his form had disappear revtS’f a Varagitch s2d to

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