[lit-ideas] Princip and the Black Hand
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:20:09 -0800
This is minor but much-discussed point, and since opinions have been
expressed here, let us ask, did Princip use the Black Hand or did the Black
Hand use Princip? I am inclined (slightly) to the former view. Why?
On page 122 of Europe's Last Summer, Who started the Great War in 1914?
David Fromkin writes, "Princip asked friends to join in the plot: The
friends agreed. He requested lessons in the use of firearms; again, friends
agreed. One friend - a certain Milan Ciganovic - knew 'a gentleman' - no
name supplied - who could and did supply weaponry: bombs, revolvers, and
poison with which to commit suicide after killing their targets. The same
'gentleman' ranked high in a secret organization that promised to smuggle
them across the frontier from Serbia into Austrian-occupied Bosnia in time
for Franz Ferdinand's visit.
"The revolvers were four Belgian automatic weapons, the latest issue. The
six bombs were of a special Serbian manufacture, tiny, lightweight, and easy
both to conceal and to use. The poison was cyanide.
"Why did the 'gentleman' - Major Voja Tankosic, right-hand man of the head
of the Black Hand, a secret society within the Serbian army of which more
will be said 0resentkly - choose to facilitate the assassination? Is it
possible that his organization, through him, recruited Princip and his
friends rather than vice versa? Or, if the plot really did originate with
Princip, did Tankosic back it because he seriously meant what he said years
later: that he did it 'to make trouble for Pasic,' the Prime Minister of
Serbia?
"Another of the many versions of the story of the Sarajevo murders
supposedly was told by the Black Hand leader Apis to a friend in 1915. The
friend published it in 1924. In this account, Tankosic complained to Apis
one day: 'Dragutin, there are several Bosnian youths who are pestering me.
These kids want at any cost to perform some 'great deed.' They have heard
that Franz Ferdinand will come to Bosnia for maneuvers and have begged me to
let them go there. What do you say? . . . I have told them they cannot go
but they give me no peace.' To this, Apis responded something like: why not
give them a chance? But then, sometime later, reflecting upon it, Apis
began to think that it was important to kill Franz Ferdinand, and that the
schoolboys lacked the requisite skills. So he sent a message to Princip to
abort the mission, intending to send someone more seasoned instead. But
Princip insisted on going ahead.
"There have been three trials in which magistrates have sat in judgment on
the Sarajevo affair: Austrian (1914), Serbian (1917), and Yugoslav (1953).
All three were politically motivated, and of their findings, none compels
credence. Even the exhaustive research and interviews undertaken by and for
the great historian Luigi Albertini in the interwar years resolved nothing.
Witnesses saw a chance to settle a score or to advance a cause. Some forgot
or confused things. Serbian nationalists have remained proud of the
murders; many have wanted to take credit for them, or others perhaps wanted
to make themselves seem important by knowing how they really happened.
Apis, in asserting that he was personally responsible for the killing, may
have believed that he was absolving his country from blame. Or he may have
believed that, for one reason or another, he would not be condemned by the
Serbian tribunal that tried him, in 1917 if the judges realized that he was
the patriot who killed Franz Ferdinand. Ort the tribunal may have ordered
Apis's execution in order to keep him from telling . . . we do not know
what.
"In the end, all that we know with certainty is that Princip fired the gun."
COMMENT: I say I am slightly inclined to the view that Princip acted alone
- that is, he originated the idea to kill the Archduke on his own and
organized his own hit team. I admit to being swayed by two modern
historians who seem to advocate (slightly) this view.
Reputable historians examine the previous information. They have to justify
why they are writing another book on their particular subject. They must
argue that they have digested all the previous information or at least all
the pertinent information and new information makes writing of a new history
justifiable. Perhaps Fromkin writing on the causes of WWI needed more
justification than Gerolymatos writing on the Balkan Wars, but Fromkin's
reputation (as the author of A Peace to End All Peace) is well established.
And so at present I have no reason to go beyond the understandings of
Gerolymatos and Fromkin in these matters. If someone preferring earlier
understandings wishes to discount Gerolymatos and Fromkin, I would be
interested in learning upon what grounds they do this.
Lawrence
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