Alan Bardos's Blog

There are two basic schools of thought about the origins of the plot to assassinate Franz Ferdinand. The first is that it was ordered by Colonel ‘Apis’ Dimitrijevic, the head of Serbian Intelligence, to stop Austro-Hungarian interference in the Balkans and allow Serbian expansion. The assassination was organised by his deputy Major Vojislav Tankosic; who recruited the assassins, trained and armed them and provided safe passage to Sarajevo.

The second theory is that the assassination was the idea of the assassins themselves who planned to assassinate Franz Ferdinand as an act of revenge for the suffering imposed on the South Slav people by their colonial rulers. They also intended to spread fear amongst the ruling class and ignite a revolution that would ultimately unite the South Slav people into a Yugoslav state. Lacking the means to carry out the assassination they went to Tankosic for help, he in turn asked permission from Apis who sanctioned the assassination on a whim. There is also some debate as to whether or not Apis tried to stop the assassination, when he’d had a chance to reconsider his decision.

The version of events depicted in my novel ‘The Assassins’ is an amalgam of the two theories.

A new argument has been put forward by John Zametica in ‘Folly and Malice: The Habsburg Empire, the Balkans and the Start of World War One’, suggesting that Major Tankosic trained and armed the assassins on his own initiative, without the knowledge or permission of Apis. Apis had little to gain by assassinating Franz Ferdinand. At the time he was locked in a power struggle with his own government. The last thing he wanted was to fight a war with the numerically superior Austro-Hungary.

A strong case can be made that Tankosic helped the assassins without consulting Apis. Tankosic had a history of reckless behaviour and insubordination, Apis described him as a ‘drunkard and a good for nothing’. Tankosic is even said to have disobeyed orders and initiated the First Balkan War in 1912.

By 1914 he was building a force of irregular partisans to infiltrate Austro-Hungarian territory and had given weapons to other would-be assassins.

Therefore rather than changing his mind about the assassination, Apis could have found out about a rogue operation and tried to stop it. An envoy was sent to Bosnia who met Danilo Ilic the assassin’s fixer in mid-June 1914. It isn’t known for sure what they discussed, but Ilic began to express doubts about the assassination after the meeting. He spent the second half of June 1914 trying to persuade Gavrilo Princip not to carry out the assassination. Apis’s master spy, Rade Malobabic, was also sent to Sarajevo during the archduke’s visit and supposedly went to see Ilic. It is possible that he was trying to stop the assassination.

Ultimately it is impossible to prove any of the theories. Tankosic was killed in 1915 without leaving any record of the events leading up to the assassination. Apis took the credit for the assassination, but it has been suggested that he did this to save himself when he finally lost his power struggle with the Serbian prime minister and was put on trial for treason, in 1917.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was a hotly disputed territory in 1914. It had been annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1910 from the crumbling Ottoman Empire, but was also claimed by neighbouring Serbia and had a growing nationalist movement that wanted it to be part of a South Slav state. The decision to send the crown prince of Austro-Hungary into such an unstable region, to attend army manoeuvres, was largely made in an attempt to strengthen the monarchy’s rule; charming the local population and demonstrating its military might. It does not appear to have been seen as a great risk by the authorities.

Austro-Hungarian intelligence was aware of plots against Franz Ferdinand and the danger posed by Serbia who were attempting to resist Austro-Hungarian expansion in the region. There was however no definite evidence of a plot against Franz Ferdinand, threats of this kind were also not unusual in the increasingly volatile Austro-Hungarian monarchy and were therefore ignored by the authorities.

The security for Franz Ferdinand’s visit fell to the military governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, General Oskar Potiorek. Potiorek wanted to become the Chief of the General Staff and saw the visit as an opportunity to stake his claim; paying close attention to every aspect of the Archduke’s needs during the visit, from the length of his stirrups to the construction of a chapel in his hotel. However he ignored the security aspects of the visit.

Unlike other areas of the Monarchy there hadn’t been any violence attributed to nationalism in Bosnia. Potiorek didn’t recognise the growing nationalism among the youth that had inspired a Young Bosnia Movement and the assassins. This is largely where my novel is focused with a fictitious Hungarian official, Lazlo Breitner, investigating the dangers of the Young Bosnia movement and desperately trying to warn Potiorek and the Archduke of the imminent threat.

There were officials in Sarajevo who did understand the growing danger from these schoolboys and that they were working with Serbia. The Commissar for Sarajevo, Dr Edmund Gerde, advised Potirok that there was a conspiracy, two weeks before Franz Ferdinand’s visit. Dr Sunaric the vice president of the Bosnian Parliament urged Potiorek to cancel the archducal visit because of possible young Bosnia activity. Potiorek however stated that the Archduke would be guarded by his officers and dismissed the warnings.

Consequently there was inadequate protection for the Archduke during his visit, with 120 gendarmes to provide security in a city of over 50,000 people. Bringing in additional policemen was deemed to be too expensive, as all of the budget had gone on building the chapel for Franz Ferdinand.

Franz Ferdinand himself was warned about the general possibility of an assassination attempt, but travelled to Bosnia nonetheless, all be it reluctantly. Franz Ferdinand’s wife Sophie insisted on accompanying her husband when she heard of the threats, as she did not believe anyone would shoot at him if a woman was by his side.

The night before the Royal couple were due to visit Sarajevo, Sophie met Doctor Sunaric, at a state dinner and told him that he was wrong. Wherever they had been, ‘everyone had greeted them with great friendliness’. Doctor Sunaric responded ‘Your Highness, I pray to God that when I have the honour of meeting you again tomorrow night, you can repeat those words to me. A great burden will then have been lifted from me.’

One of the most tragic aspects of the whole affair is that Franz Ferdinand decided to cancel the visit to Sarajevo following the state dinner, possibly having been warned by the local police, but he was persuaded to complete the planned itinerary by Colonel von Merizzi, Governor Potiorek’s aide-de-camp.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was one of history’s greatest turning points, but it happened by accident. Everyone knows the story ends with the death of the Archduke and his wife, Sophie, putting into play the diplomatic crises that lead to the First World War. It is perhaps less well known that the events leading up to the assassination were a terrible comedy of errors that culminated in a world-changing tragedy.

It was this combination of tragedy and comedy that first drew me to the story and, I hope will draw people to a novel about the assassination, despite knowing the ending! The assassination of Franz Ferdinand happened as a result of a whole series of mistakes and missed opportunities right from the beginning.

When the assassins travelled from Belgrade to Sarajevo, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, the biggest liability of the conspirators, met a police detective from Sarajevo on the train in Bosnia. The detective was a friend of his father's, who was a businessman and pillar of the community, which had created a lot of conflict with his radical son.

The policeman had recently seen Nedeljko’s father and struck up a conversation with Nedeljko to catch him up on family news. This made Gavrilo Princip, who was traveling separately but by accident sitting in the same train carriage, nervous. Cabrinovic’s easygoing nature had already endangered the other assassins during the journey. The policeman noticed and asked Cabrinovic who Gavrilo was and why he was staring at them, but his suspicions were not raised any further. A simple request to see Gavrilo Princip’s papers would have revealed that he was travelling illegally and put pay to the whole plot before the assassins reached Sarajevo.

This reflects the Austro-Hungarian Government’s attitude to the threat placed by the nationalist movements in their Balkan provinces. No attempt was made to counter them because the security services did not believe they existed, let alone posed a threat. The repeated warnings of a possible assassination were ignored by the local military governor, General Potiorek, the Archduke himself and the Austro-Hungarian Government. The idea that half-starved schoolboys could be any kind of a threat was too ridiculous to contemplate.

This gave me the opportunity to place my fictional characters at the heart of the story. Specifically the central relationship between my feckless lead character, Johnny Swift, a disgraced British diplomat; and Lazlo Breitner, a methodical Hungarian official, in a marriage of opposites that drives the narrative forward.

Breitner is well aware of the threat from the assassins and does everything he can to stop them, right up to confronting his nemesis, Franz Ferdinand, to beg him not to go to Sarajevo; but he is not believed.

To try and get evidence of the plot Breitner coerces Johnny into joining the conspirators, embedding him in their boardinghouse. Johnny who has been sent to Bosnia on a fool’s errand to get himself killed after cuckolding his superior, is eventually glad of the opportunity to redeem himself.

He manages to ingratiate himself with the assassins and joins in their reckless behaviour that should have got them caught. He discovers their plans and motivations; but Johnny’s decadent nature ensures that he fails to make use of the information. Realising the enormity of his error, Johnny foils the first assassination attempt that is made.

He replaces the Archduke’s chauffeur in an effort to claim the much deserved credit. Then, as happened on the 28th June 1914, takes a wrong turn, stopping the Archduke’s car in front of Gavrilo Princip when General Potiorek notices the mistake. Princip didn’t even look when he fired two shots that changed the world and propels Johnny on a journey through the major events of the twentieth century.

This was the last in a whole series of errors and bad luck that led to the assassination. They say that the side that makes the least amount of mistakes wins a war. It also seems to be the case for the side who starts them.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Gavrilo Princip are two of the most famous names in the Twentieth Century, but little is generally known about them other than Princip assassinated the Archduke and his wife in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914 sparking the First World War.
However they both went through an extraordinary chain of events to arrive at Sarajevo, which I wanted to explore in my novel The Assassins.
Being heir to the Habsburg throne was something of a curse by the time Franz Ferdinand inherited the title in 1896; following the death of his cousin Crown Prince Rudolf in a suicide pact with his mistress; and his father Karl Ludwig, died of typhoid after drinking water from the River Jordan.
For a time it was thought Franz Ferdinand would also die when he contracted tuberculosis and his uncle Emperor Franz Joseph exiled him to die. He eventually recovered and Franz Ferdinand’s doctor gave him a letter to certify him fit, which Franz Ferdinand always carried.
One of the reasons for his recovery was an attachment he’d formed with Sophie Chotek. Who despite being a Czech noble was not considered to be of equal birth to Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburg throne. Nonetheless Franz Ferdinand fought to marry the woman he loved, overcoming the opposition of the Emperor and the backbiting of his court. He forced a compromise morganatic marriage, renouncing his wife's and descendants' claims to the throne, on the 28th June 1900.
Despite this they were very happy together and had three children, but Sophie was subjected to all manner of petty humiliations because of strict court protocols. To the extent that they could not travel together in the same carriage on official state occasions, much to Franz Ferdinand’s fury.
Attending army manoeuvres in Bosnia gave Franz Ferdinand the opportunity to reverse this humiliation and he won a concession from the Emperor to allow Sophie to accompany him and they were able to ride together through the streets of Sarajevo; on the anniversary of Franz Ferdinand’s morganatic oath which had made their marriage possible.

Gavrilo Princip came from a remote village in western Bosnia, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. He was one of nine children, six of whom died as a result of the poverty he blamed on his imperial masters. When Princip was thirteen his elder brother paid for him to go to a military academy and become a soldier in the Emperor’s army; but on the way they stopped to buy Gavrilo new underwear and the shopkeeper persuaded his brother to put him in the Merchants’ School in Sarajevo instead. He was placed in a boarding house and shared a room with Danilo Ilic an older boy who became the main fixer for the assassins and was eventually hanged for the role he played in the assassination.
Ilic introduced Gavrilo to the nationalist ideas taking route in a Young Bosnia movement that was determined to liberate their people from Austro-Hungarian rule and would drive Princip. He was eventually expelled because of his subversive activities and went to Belgrade to continue his studies. When the Second Balkan’s War broke out Princip tried to join the partisans, but like the Archduke suffered from tuberculosis and was unable to keep up with the physical demands of the training and was thrown out.
The bitter sting of that humiliation drove him to act and to prove himself. This determination can be seen in the look of defiance he gives in the picture on the cover of the book, as he walks to his trial. He had done what others only talked about. Belgrade at the time was full of Bosnian dissidents desperate to ignite a revolution against the occupiers of their homeland. Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, head of Serbian Intelligence, and his deputy Major Vojislav Tankosić were recruiting many of these dissidents to send into Austro-Hungarian territory as part of a covert war they were waging against Austro-Hungary.
Princip and his fellow conspirators were one such group, whether or not they were acting under their own initiative or from Dimitrijevic/Tankosić’s direct instruction is still hotly debated. However they did provide technical support that made it possible for them to carry out the assassination.
This was largely in response to the manoeuvres that Franz Ferdinand was attending, provocatively being held on Serbia’s doorstep. Dimitrijevic and Tankosić did not think that anything would come of Princip’s mission and nothing very nearly did.
Only one of the conspirators acted as the Archduke’s motorcade drove to an official reception, missing the Archduke’s car with a bomb. In response Franz Ferdinand’s route back from the reception was changed, causing confusion amongst his entourage which led to Franz Ferdinand and Sophie’s car stopping in front of Gavrilo Princip, the only one of the remaining dissidents with the desire and motivation to act.

My book 'The Assassins' has had a 4 Star review by Sarah's Book Nook.
http://allthebookblognamesaretaken.bl...