Chapter 181: Gunshots in Sarajevo (Part I)

Time does not change anyone's mind, it goes in its own footsteps, and the Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince has been preparing to visit Sarajevo over time, although there is a group of people here who do not welcome him at all.

At the end of March, the news in the daily newspaper Srpoblan about the upcoming visit of Archduke Ferdinand to Sarajevo had already been noticed by those who were interested in it. In Sarajevo, a member of a group called Young Bosnia, a group that was keen on national unity, saw the news and cut it out and sent it to Nedriko Chabrinović in Belgrade.

After receiving the letter, Chabrinović gave it to Gavrino Prinship, a Serbian nationalist living in Bosnia who went to school in Belgrade, over lunch. He watched the cut news and thought about it, and finally in the evening, he met with Chabrinović in a coffee shop called Krantz and proposed the idea of going to Sarajevo to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.

Only 19 years old, Chabrinović was more of an anarchist than Prinship, preferring to assassinate the Austro-Hungarian governor in Bosnia, Oskar Potiorek. According to his words, the Viceroy was sent to Bosnia to torture the Serbs because the slave of the ShHabsburg dynasty had been sent to torture the Serbs. In the end, however, Prinshipp relied on his convictions to convince Chabrinovich.

Prinhip's suggestion was very positive, and although they did not have weapons, they were all connected to Serbian black hands. It is possible to get the two of them to do this with their help. Prinhip was a member of the National Self-Defense Forces, an organization founded in 1908 to resist the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And in 1912 he was trained in the National Self-Defense Forces under the instructor Major Voya Tankosvich.

This is also a fierce man who personally killed the queen's brother in the Serbian coup d'état of 1903 and is also a Great Serbist. After the outbreak of the First Balkan War, he hoped to smuggle Princip across the Ottoman border to destroy its railways and bridges to cooperate with the army's actions. However, Prinship, who was only 18 years old at the time, was eliminated due to emaciation and illness, but he still maintained contact with the National Self-Defense Forces.

Later, a more radical group was formed from the National Self-Defense Forces, called the 'United or Death' organization, which became known as the Black Hand Society. Prinshop continued to keep in touch with the Black Hand.

The leader of the organization "Black Hand Society" is none other than Colonel Dragutin, the head of the Serbian intelligence service, who appeared earlier. And this organization is very secretive, the flag of the Mafia is printed with heads, bones, daggers, explosives and a bottle of poison. This means that their members will kill themselves by poisoning after completing the assassination attempt.

Prinhip and Chabrinović were not activists of the Black Hand, but knew some of them, and Milan Siganovic was one of them. He had previously trained with Princip under Major Tankoswich, but did better than Prinship in the training subjects. And Siganovich stole 6 grenades during the Balkan Wars.

Siganovich, after listening to Prinship's plan, offered to provide concealed grenades, and advised the two men to bring pistols in case the grenades did not explode. At the same time, it is better to ask the previous instructor, Major Tankosvich, for help.

Later, Princip approached Major Koswich to explain his plan, and the former instructor asked Siganovic to train the two so that they would not miss the shot.

After a short training session, Major Voya Tankosvich provided them with four Browning pistols and ammunition, 150 dinars in cash, and potassium cyanide to use in the assassination of the Grand Duke. It's clear that all of this is supported by the Black Hand.

During the training, Prínship found another man who was willing to go to Sarajevo with the two to assassinate the Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince, Grabezh, who was also a peripheral member of the Mafia, and after talking to Príncip, he said that he wanted to go too, and Príncip agreed to him considering that there were more people to assassinate him.

On 26 May, the trio arrived in the border town of Shakba, where Serbian Army Major Popovich was waiting for them, preparing them for a smuggling programme and providing them with forged documents. Among them, Chabrinović will enter the country by borrowing to Tvornik on the Bosnian border. There there will be another reliable person who will drive him to Tuzla and then take the train to Sarajevo.

As for the fact that the two Prinhips will cross the Delina near Letesnika with weapons, a Serbian customs officer will help them to smuggle across the river. In order to join Chabrinod in Tuzla, the two had to pass through the police checkpoint in Lupa, and they were bold and clever enough to take advantage of a farmer's inattention to put weapons and ammunition in his car and retrieve them themselves through the checkpoint.

The three then met in Tuzla, after which they handed over the package containing weapons and ammunition to another accomplice, Mishko Ivanovich. He was both a good citizen (he owned a bank and a cinema) and a member of the Serbian National Self-Defense Forces. Ivanovic kept his weapons and ammunition in his attic, and the rest of the crew continued to Sarajevo.

While Prinhip and others were still in Bosnia, other helpers were already busy. Danilo Ilyich was a school principal, a bank clerk, and then a radical nationalist. He took Prinup and Chabrinovich back to his home, where he had only him and his mother.

Ilyich had known the two men during his last trip to Belgrade, and Princip had written to Ilyich in April, giving him a rough outline of his plan to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand, and suggesting that Ilyich recruit a few local Assassins in Sarajevo. So Ilyich was in it before the four came, and now he is getting deeper and deeper.

After getting the weapons and ammunition, Ivanovich hid them in a box of sugar, wrapped them in white paper and trapped them with twine. For a while, he left the box of sugar in his friend's car, left unattended. Later, after receiving information from Prinship, Ivanovich took the weapon to Sarajevo and handed it over to Ilyich.

After taking possession of the weapons and ammunition, Ilyich put them in a small box and locked them up and hid them under the couch in his mother's bedroom.

Now the Assassins from the Serbian side were ready in Sarajevo, just waiting for the visit of Archduke Ferdinand.