[lit-ideas] Re: Princip and the Black Hand

  • From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 12:12:31 -0800

I think the best reading of the events is that there were two plots, hatched by two groups of three, which subsequently became one. If by "alone" you mean "without much Serbian involvement," I don't think we disagree. If by "alone" you mean "without much help from other plotters," we do disagree.

On Jan 20, 2007, at 10:20 AM, Lawrence Helm wrote:

<x-tad-bigger>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? </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>On page 122 of </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Europe’s Last Summer, Who started the Great War in 1914? </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>David</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>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. </x-tad-bigger>
These assertions are slightly at odds with the evidence I have. Perhaps the issue is point of view. In the letter I have, Cubrilovic and Djukic come up with the idea to assassinate the Archduke, talk about it together and then go to Ilic for weapons. Ilic says that there are already three others who have the same ideai and that Serbians will supply weapons. Perhaps Princip organized the first group of three?

<x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>“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.</x-tad-bigger>

No problem here.
<x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>“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?</x-tad-bigger>

"I asked if the Serbian government knew about it. He said no, in Serbia everything was being done in secret. We didn't talk about it any more." The footnote to this section of the letter says, "Rumours of a plot had reached the Serbian prime minister but he failed to investigate." There is no source cited for this note.
<x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>“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.</x-tad-bigger>

"On June 27th Ilic, Popovic and I went to Bembasa, where Ilic gave us each a bomb and a gun. We had received our cyanide pills a couple of weeks earlier. Unfortunately, we didn't know how to store them properly, so the pills got ruined in our pockets. Ilic told me my position would be by Danilo Dimovic's front door, while Cvjetko [Popovic] was to stand on the corner by the Prosvejeta building. Popovic and I were angry to be given such bad positions, but Ilic said we could choose better ones later." Princip doesn't seem to have been present at this crucial distribution of weapons and instructions. <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>“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. </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>“In the end, all that we know with certainty is that Princip fired the gun.”</x-tad-bigger>


<x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>COMMENT:  </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>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. </x-tad-bigger>


<x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>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 </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>A Peace to End All Peace) </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>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.</x-tad-bigger>
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Perhaps I should say more about the genesis of "Intimate Voices." Palmer and Wallis assisted, Hew Strachan, the current dean of First World War studies when he was making a television documentary. He is a big cheese historian; they write books for a living. They have an annoying way with footnotes, making it impossible even to know in which archive they found the letter I am relying on.

I'll close with another excerpt from the letter.

"Worst of all, Ilic, who was at the centre of it all, was the first to cave in and confess. I still cannot understand him. A man who was so stable and reliable, as it wasn't his first plot--but he lost his nerve and betrayed us all...[snip]...In my opinion the assassination turned out well, considering who they gave the job to. [Note the "they gave the job to."] In any event, it wasn't our intention to cause a world war, and we truly believed just a couple of Serbian officers sent us the weapons."

I hope this helps.

David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon

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