The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War

by Tim Butcher

Sarajevo, 1914.  On a June morning, nineteen-year-old Gavrilo Princip drew a pistol from his pocket and fired the first shot of the First World War, killing the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Princip then launched a series of events that would transform the world forever.
 
Retracing Princip’s steps from the feudal frontier village of his birth to the city of Belgrade and ultimately Sarajevo, journalist and bestselling author Tim Butcher discovers details about the young assassin that have eluded historians for a century. Drawing on his own experiences in the Balkans covering the Bosnian War in the 1990s, Butcher also unravels the complexities and conflicts of this part of the world, showing how the events of that day in 1914 still have influence today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War, World War I, Biography, Travel, Historical

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 21, 2014

About the author

Tim Butcher is a best-selling British author, journalist and broadcaster. Born in 1967, he was on the staff of The Daily Telegraph from 1990 to 2009, covering conflicts across the Balkans, Middle East and Africa. Recognised in 2010 with an honorary doctorate for services to writing and awarded the Mungo Park Medal for exploration by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, he is based with his family in Cape Town, South Africa.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The driver's decision to turn into Franz Joseph Street and not continue down the Appel Quay, as had been decided back at the town hall, was a stroke of assassin's luck for [Gavrilo] Princip. When General Potiorek spotted what was happening he shouted at the driver, ordering him immediately to stop and reverse back out onto the Appel Quay. Instead of his target speeding past, Princip saw the Archduke [Franz Ferdinand] slow right in front of him only a few feet away - the gallant count, so willing to protect the life of his liege, on the running board on the other side of the car. For the instant it took the driver to find reverse, the Archduke was a sitting duck. Princip took the Browning pistol in his hand, stepped forward from among the crowd on the pavement next to the entrance of the cafe and fired..."
- Tim Butcher, The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War

Even if you know nothing (or practically nothing) else about World War I, you probably know that it started with the assassination of Austro-Hungarian heir Franz Ferdinand in the city of Sarajevo. At least, that's about as much as I knew, when I started my World War I crash course several years ago. Exactly why this happened - why the murder of an unloved Austrian archduke in a Bosnian city by a Serbian nationalist caused Germany to invade Belgium to get at France in order to defend themselves against Russia - is a far more complicated story.

Franz Ferdinand's death precipitated the so-called July Crisis of 1914, a period of diplomatic maneuvering between Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Germany, Russia, France, and Great Britain that ultimately ended with the "Guns of August" and one of the bloodiest, most inexplicable wars in human history.

There are a lot of books about the July Crisis, even more so during the centenary commemorations. But even the most detailed volumes I've read usually relegate the actual Sarajevo assassination on June 28, 1914, to a page or two. The assassin himself, a nineteen year-old Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip, is usually treated as little better than a footnote.

When I came across Tim Butcher's The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War, it caught my eye for precisely this reason. I wanted to read about the man who unwittingly struck the match that set the world aflame, the man who is usually given a couple sentences at the start of any World War I history, before receding into the dustbin.

Butcher's account is not a standard biography. Rather, it is an entry into the genre I call Historical Road Trips, a hybrid literary form that combines elements of travelogue, memoir, and history. Well known authors who've contributed to this genre include Sarah Vowell (Assassination Vacation) and Tony Horowitz (Confederates in the Attic).

I didn't know this when I purchased The Trigger, for the reason that Amazon's one-click shopping allows me to make impulse buys without undergoing any sort of decision-making process. When I found out, however, I wasn't bothered. I have a great affinity for Historical Road Trips, mainly because I've made so many myself. (Let me tell you about the time I dragged my wife and six-month old daughter to the Battle of Cowpens. In July! In a Subaru! We can all laugh now, about how a Park Ranger had to find me and inform me of a cataclysmic diaper blowout... But at the time...)

Butcher's style will be quite familiar to anyone who's read Vowell or Horowitz. He sets out to follow Princip's path to political murder by literally following his path. He begins in the tiny town of Obljaj in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Princip was born. He meets with Princip's family, and engages in a lengthy conversation with them about their illustrious/infamous ancestor. Afterwards, he sets off on foot with his Bosnian friend Arnie to recreate Princip's overland journey to Sarajevo. Along the way Butcher dodges landmines from the Balkan Wars, talks to a couple fishermen, and eats wild mushrooms.

Butcher writes in a journalistic style, which makes sense, since he was a journalist and war correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. His prose is engaging and detailed and The Trigger is an effortless read.

The problem, for me, is that Butcher doesn't do a great job "hunting the assassin." For long stretches of the book, Princip seems to disappear completely. This might be a function of reality. Princip is an elusive figure. He was unheralded and unknown before his historical moment, and he died in prison, forgotten in the hurricane of blood and destruction he'd set in motion. In other words, he didn't leave much of a paper trail.

Butcher does the best he can. He clearly searches out every scrap of information about Princip, and extrapolates as much as he can from the surviving documentation. He pores, for instance, over extant school records that show a young Princip first succeeding in school in Sarajevo, and later letting his grades slip as he begins his involvement in the Young Bosnia movement.

Despite this, there isn't enough Princip to fill a book, so Butcher resorts to telling - essentially - two parallel stories. The first is his pursuit of Princip; the second is Butcher's own experiences as a correspondent during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s.

Frankly, I did not get a lot of mileage from the latter. I respect Butcher's work as a war correspondent, including the dangers he faced, but if I wanted to read all about his experiences I would have sought that out separately. It's just filler here, and borderline navel gazing. There are, obviously, echoes of the Serbian role in the Great War in the Balkan Wars nearly 80 years later. Serbian nationalism and ambition were at work in both. But Butcher never tied the two threads together for me in a meaningful way. Strangely, he espouses sympathy for Princip and his pro-Serbian beliefs in 1914, while disdaining the ruthlessness of the Serbs in the 1990s. (Butcher visits a massacre site from the Balkan Wars while trailing Princip's wispy spirit).

I liked this book a fair amount, but am far from loving it. It falls far short of the other Historical Road Trip books I've read. Butcher checks all the boxes by visiting the sites, sifting through the archives, and interviewing people along the way. Unfortunately, none of it was made memorable. The Trigger is far too solemn, even given its subject matter. Sarah Vowell and Tony Horowitz also tackle grim subjects, but they do it with an eye for the absurd, the humorous, the enlightening. I didn't find that here.

There is, for example, a set piece in which Butcher goes to Banja Luka to watch the band Franz Ferdinand play a concert. Butcher clearly recognized the delicious preposterousness of an English band named for a dead Austrian heir rocking out in a Bosnian town. Butcher goes to the show, talks to the band and...that's it. The set piece fizzles out into nothing.

Look, I'm not here to tell you that World War I historiography needs to be funnier. That's not my line. In fact, I tried out a couple jokes, just to be sure. Sample: Knock-knock. Who's there? The Battle of the Somme. The Battle of the Somme who? A million dead soldiers.

It doesn't work on any level.

Still, a hundred years later, trying to illuminate the contours of a ghost, there is no need to be overly funereal. The Trigger really could have used an infusion of wit. (Especially given the fact that trying to recapture a person's life by actually visiting the landmarks of his life is a quixotic notion. At best it is an earnest attempt to capture something ineffable from the past; at worst it's just an excuse to write a book).

Amidst the extraneous details and long digressions, The Trigger has things to teach you about Gavrilo Princip. I appreciated that, even if I could have learned them in a more straightforward manner. In the end, we don't have a lot of concrete information about the assassin. There are the memories of his family, the route of his travels, his grades from school, an interview with a psychiatrist while in prison. There is his photograph, with his eternally haunted eyes. All of this is of interest mainly to a serious World War I buff. For others, it is enough to know that on June 28, 1914 he fired two shots at a moving car, killed two people, and ended up dying of tuberculosis in prison while the rest of the world tore itself to pieces.

It is enough for us to wonder: What was he thinking about, at the end?

[Mikey B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really not for me. I felt deceived by the title which suggests an examination of the life of Gavrilo Princip who assassinated Arch-duke Ferdinand leading to the outbreak of the First World War. I also expected some discussion of Serbian nationalism. There is some of that in this book - but in the main it is a travelogue of the author in the former Yugoslavia which I was not that interested in. Much of this was focused on personal experiences of the author.

I have read Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo which is superior journalism to what is in this book.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanderlust Journalism.

Tim Butcher is an English journalist, who like so many from the United Kingdom has a relative who fought in the First World War, sadly in the case of his great uncle he perished. For me, my grandfather’s older brother was captured on the Somme and this survived the slaughter. Butcher, was born into a country and a century reflective of this great event which changed the course of history and as such, has thought much about the Great War. This book explores the catalyst to that colossus episode in our story, Gavrilo (Bosnian for Gabriel) Princip. Butcher wants to discover who this young peasant from a small village in Bosnia was and how he came to orchestrate one of the most famous events in human history.

This is a history book that meets travel writing. Butcher is almost like an archaeologist using text and then going into the field to uncover the artefacts, to piece together the whole story. There are some amazing finds which occur in this story. Butcher actually meets the Princip clan (Princip means Prince - it was not the original family surname and was given to his great grandfather, they were however far from princely), descents of his relations and people alive today who knew his parents (who’s father died in 1941 and mother 1945!). They show Butcher the town, where the Princip house once stood, in a landscape much changed by successive wars. Princip’s parents much knew the seemingly infinite suffering his actions unleashed. Another amazing addition is that Butcher actually meets the UK band Franz Ferdinand who were in consent in Bosnia at the time and explain the origins of their name, again through that domineering event of WWI on British lives.

I think that Butcher does a decent enough job in showing everything there is to know about Princip from origins to death by skeletal tuberculosis in a Austro-Hungarian prison in 1918. He was only 23 at the age of his death and by that time had been incarcerated for nearly for 4 years. His life was unremarkable other than the assassination. He was originally an A-grade student, who got racialised in this melting point of extremists from across Europe. He travelled across Austria-Hungary, as a citizen he was easily able to do this. He never knew a woman, but did exchange love letters with one, but did not want to say anymore about that upon his capture.

Butcher goes on this trail in modern Bosnian, as I said above, racked by WWII, years of communism and then civil war. Much has changed, but if you look closely enough the world of Princip can be seen. This is very interesting, his home, family, education and radicalisation can be unpicked. In being at these locations and at the site where those two famous shots were fired can really bring history to life. Butcher is perhaps one of the few that can really achieve this, having Bosnian contacts though his work as a journalist in the civil war of the 1990s and I appreciate that.

A good edition to anyone’s WWI collection as Princip is of course a key player, much as Haig, Joffre or TE Lawerence are and as such requires a review. Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot to say about Princip, but I did enjoy following Butcher on the journey, the book moves well and reads like a newspaper or National Geographic article and as such the writing is of highly journalistic quality.

[Mike Robbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn’t especially interested in the subject of this book, Gavrilo Princip, to begin with; I read it because I had been impressed by one of Tim Butcher’s earlier books, Blood River, an exciting and well-written account of a long and dangerous journey through Central Africa. Like Blood River, The Trigger is a mixture of history, travelogue and journalism – a format Butcher does very well. It is just as good as Blood River, and I ended up being very interested in Princip indeed.

The outline of the book is thus: In the early 1990s Butcher is a young correspondent in the Balkans, covering the conflict for Britain’s Telegraph newspaper. In Sarajevo he finds people using a small building as a toilet, and is bemused to find that it is the mausoleum of Princip, whose assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the city led to the First World War. Butcher moves on but does not forget this odd sight, and in 2012 he resolves to walk across Bosnia and Serbia in Princip’s footsteps. Butcher wants to see if the journey would illuminate the chain of events that had led not only to that war but to the one he covered 80 years later.

In 1907 the 13-year-old Princip walked most of the way from his home in Western Bosnia to Sarajevo to get an education. Later, as a radicalised, political young adult, he went to Serbia and there hatched the plot to kill the Archduke; then, armed, he walked back. It is these journeys Butcher wants to recreate. He starts by enlisting Arnie, his former fixer from Bosnia, as a companion. Arnie, a Bosnian Muslim, is now living in London but, after some thought, he agrees. Meanwhile Butcher tries to track down Princip’s birthplace, Obljaj. This is hard, as it is an obscure hamlet deep in what Bosnians call the vukojebina (literally, “where the wolves fuck”). He eventually finds it on an old map in the bowels of the Royal Geographical Society. He and Arnie make for Obljaj.

It’s when they get there that this narrative, a little slow to start, really takes off. The Princip home is a ruin but, quite unexpectedly, they find the Princip clan still living next door. No-one can remember Gavrilo, who died in prison in 1918. But at least one man remembers his parents in their old age, and the folk-memories of Princip are strong. The next day Butcher and Arnie start a long walk to Sarajevo. The memories of the Princips, and Butcher’s own diligent research in Sarajevo, uncover a great deal new about the assassin. His killing of the Archduke is part of history but the man himself, locked up at 19, dead at 23, has always been a footnote. Butcher brings him very alive. He also conjures up a vivid picture of Sarajevo as Princip would have found it in 1907, and it reminds me very much of Aleppo, where I lived for several years in the 1990s.

Moreover Butcher finds that Princip’s story does provide keys to the region’s history, and to the conflict of the 1990s. One or two themes emerge strongly from the book. In Butcher’s view, Austria-Hungary, which had only occupied Bosnia in 1878, was a colonial power there, extracting resources – chiefly timber – and giving a little back, but not much. Princip’s fanaticism was rooted in a hatred of what he saw as an oppressive colonial regime that had kept his people miserably poor. (He was himself the seventh of nine children; the previous six had all died in infancy.) Moreover, according to Butcher, the people Princip saw as his were all the South Slavs, not just Serbs. He was thus not a Serbian nationalist as such (and in Butcher’s view, Serbia did not support the assassination). Instead, Butcher sees him as an anti-colonial freedom fighter. It is not a universal view of Princip, especially in modern Bosnia. But Butcher argues the case very well.

However, one of the most interesting perspectives in this book is Arnie’s. At the time people outside Yugoslavia blamed the 1990s war on ancient primitive hatreds, rather as they spoke of Northern Ireland when I was growing up, and see Syria now. Arnie doesn’t buy it. “Those people who said, ‘These people have always hated each other’ were just being lazy,” he tells Butcher. “In my own life I saw people from different communities work together, live together, get married even. There was nothing inevitable about what happened in the 1990s. It was just that a few – the extremists, the elite, the greedy – saw nationalism as a way to grab what they wanted.”

Like Blood River, this is a thoughtful, well-written book, an absorbing read but also full of insights. Butcher’s knack of combining several roles – the historian, the travel writer and the journalist – serves him well. I look forward to seeing where he does it next. Meanwhile The Trigger is excellent, and could well be my non-fiction read of the year.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is equal parts biography, memoir, history, and travelogue. Tim Butcher travels Gavrilo Princip’s path from a small village in Herzegovina to Sarajevo to Belgrade and back to Sarajevo, where Princip fired the shots that took the life of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in 1914. This act is often cited as the spark than launched the Great War. During Butcher’s trek, he recalls his time as a journalist reporting on the Bosnian War in the 1990s. Covering Bosnian history from three timelines, 1910s, 1990s, and present day, and filling in the historical context, is an effective way to provide the big picture.

Butcher tracks the development of Princip from childhood to gifted student to assassin. He discovers a stone slab on which Princip had carved his initials, his school records, and evidence of his increasing involvement in political causes. Butch portrays Princip’s motivation to free the South-Slavs from rule by Austria-Hungary. Since Princip lived only 23 years, over a hundred years ago, the primary source material is limited, but Butcher has managed to craft these nuggets into a storyline that is easy to follow and provides a wealth of information. If you are interested in the history of Bosnia/Herzegovina or WWI, this is a great one to pick up.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Subtitled, “The Hunt for Gavrilo Princip; The Assassin who Brought the World to War,” this is part biography, part history and part travel book. Indeed, it is written by Tim Butcher, who is probably best known for his travel writing and whose interest in Gavrilo Princip was first aroused when he was a young reporter in Serajevo during the Bosnian War in the 1990’s. He recalls how he witnessed locals using a stone building as a makeshift lavatory, only to discover they were desecrating a memorial to Princip’s assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Why, he wondered, were the people of Serajevo so dismissive of a man who fought for their freedom?

Many years later, the author decided to follow the trail from Princip’s home in a countryside now still dangerous from mines left over from the war, to the end of his life. During this book the author asks why WWI is still so important and looks at the impact on Princip’s actions on the history of the Bosnians, Serbs and Croats in the region. He questions whether the assassination was the spark that ignited the conflict and, on his journey, looks at the complicated history of the region as well as that of Princip’s himself.

This is a very interesting read; for many different reasons. I was fascinated by the story of Gavrilo Princip, which was at the heart of this book. A young boy – still a teenager – who left a countryside where life still followed an almost medieval pattern. A boy who had academic ambitions; who travelled to the city to study and who dropped out in 1911. In fact, three of the dropouts that year would become revolutionaries; the education system a breeding ground for radicalism. The story of this young man is still relevant today. This teenager who fought for the cause of ridding his country of Austo-Hungarian rule and who fired the trigger which assassinated both the Archduke and his wife. The formative years of his young man’s education has significance, as the author highlights that Princip had, “the rage of the oppressed,” which is sadly still all too relevant in our world.

Princip considered his attack on the Archduke a grand gesture – a “noble act.” I was struck by the fact I had read this story from a completely different viewpoint in, “The Assassination of the Archduke,” by Greg King The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance that Changed the World. As such, it was really interesting to see the story from the side of the assassin himself and I recommend this book for anybody interested in both WWI and in the history of a country which has seen so much conflict and yet retains such diverse sense of identities. A very moving book in parts, which follows the story of the author and the people he met in the 1990’s as well as events so long ago, At times I found the meandering pace of the book a little slow, but generally, this was a very interesting read.

[Nigeyb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A concise, compelling, accessible book that is part history, part travelogue, part memoir and wholly unmissable

A fascinating investigation into the life and times of Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian student who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, and which was the catalyst for World War One.

This concise, accessible, compelling book is part history, part travelogue, and part memoir, which explains the history of the Balkans and why, despite his momentous action, Princip is now all but airbrushed out of the history of the region.

Tim Butcher also weaves in some of his own memories as a young reporter sent by the Daily Telegraph to cover the Bosnian War, during which he chanced upon Princip’s tomb being used as a toilet.

Not only did I come away from this book with an understanding of the complex recent history of the region, but also how the role of certain players can be celebrated or ignored according to the prevailing narrative in which the history is written.

Princip’s primary motivation was to rid his land of the occupying Habsburgs who, like the Turks before them, presided over an almost feudal system that perpetuated the grinding poverty of his own family and which was shared by most from the three major communities in Bosnia: the Orthodox Serbs, the mainly Catholic Croats and the Muslim Bosniaks.

To better understand how Princip came to assassinate Franz Ferdinand, Tim Butcher makes the same journey Princip made, a walk from vukojebina, Princip's desolate rural home, to Sarajevo, negotiating minefields left over the Bosnian War of the 1990s.

If you're interested in World War One, twentieth century European history, travel writing, or finding out about the area previously known as Yugoslavia, then I feel sure you’ll find lots to enjoy and appreciate in "The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War”. It’s taut, well written, very atmospheric, engaging, provocative and, as I said at the outset, fascinating.

One of the most extraordinary facts I discovered was the numberplate of Archduke Ferdinand’s car was A111118. A numberplate that had no resonance at the time of the assassination but which also happens to be the date of Armistice Day - the moment when, after four bloody years, World War One ended - or the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918.

In the last year or so I’ve read 12 books about World War One and can confidently state that this one is up there with the very best.

5/5

[Cold War Conversations Podcast · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent multi layered history/travelogue/personal story tracing the journey of Gavrilo Princip from remote Bosnian village to initiator of World War 1.

Tim Butcher brings alive the story of Gavrilo Princip by physically following the young Bosnian Serb's journey from his remote village to the streets of Sarajevo. The author paints a fascinating story as he visits the remote hamlet where Princip grew up to discover still living descendants, takes on epic treks through the now land mine infested mountains that Princip knew, as well as discovering new insights into this infamous young man.

Whilst combining travelogue with history not necessarily a novel approach Butcher brings a wholly personal aspect as he intertwines Princip’s history with the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. The author was a journalist present in the region during those wars and some of his personal experiences make uncomfortable reading but necessary reading.

I’d highly recommend this for anyone interested to the start of World War 1, 20th Century European history or anyone who enjoys stories of travel to the lesser known parts of Europe.

[Chris Steeden · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘In Sarajevo a hundred years ago, a teenage assassin named Gavrilo Princip killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Born a penniless backwoodsman, Princip’s life changed when he trekked through Bosnia and Serbia to attend school. Radicalisation slowly transformed him from a frail farm boy into history’s most influential assassin.’

The author, Tim Butcher, is going to retrace ‘Princip’s journey from his highland birthplace, through the mythical valleys of Bosnia to the fortress city of Belgrade and ultimately Sarajevo’. Butcher has already written the brilliant Blood River and Chasing the Devil. I am looking forward to this.

It turns out that the journey brings up a lot more than just the First World War and how it all started. As he travels there are remnants of the Second World War and, of course, the 1990s Balkan Wars. Butcher was a reporter there at that time. Butcher’s research is immense on all wars.

I have said it before in other reviews but I do love these type of books. Travelogue and history. Even better when the author is so knowledgeable and has put a lot of effort into research which is certainly the case here. I learnt a lot.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Born in a village on the remote western edge of Bosnia, Princip had undergone a process of radicalization at the schools he attended across the region, a journey that culminated in the assassination in Sarajevo

Eventually the author Tim Butcher gets around to telling us the story of Gavril Princip and the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on June 28th 1914 in Sarajevo. This event was the seminal trigger that set in motion World War I just a month later.

To be clear there was no manhunt for Gavril Princip. A crowd of people saw the nineteen year old, while standing on the sidewalk, walk up and shoot the royal couple at close range while they sat exposed in their open air touring car. It only took two bullets and they each died within a few minutes of one another. Ferdinand was struck in an artery in the neck and Sophie was struck in the stomach where an artery was severed.

Astonishingly only two hours earlier a grenade had been tossed by one of Princip’s conspirators towards the royal car. The grenade missed its target and instead damaged the car behind. Acting in a most cavalier manner, the Archduke did not significantly alter the rest of the day’s activities in Sarajevo. Sure enough Princip was waiting for the couple’s return procession when he opened fire.

Seconds after the assassination, Princip was tackled and savagely beaten by the crowd. Only intervention by the police saved Princip’s life. He was thrown into prison and in short order the other six conspirators were also rounded up. Princip was too young to be legally executed so he was convicted and languished in prison for four years. He died of tuberculosis just months before the end of the war.

The author, Tim Butcher, is a journalist who covered the Bosnian conflict in the 1990’s. He decides to write about Princip’s origin story and trace Princip’s historical path from his hometown Obljaj to Sarajevo and in and out of Serbia and then back to Sarajevo where the assassination took place. Sarajevo was part of the Austro Hungarian empire but neighboring Serbia was independent. Princip acquired weapons and training in Belgrade Serbia.

Yes the writing in this book is good, although it is of a journalistic style that does not always lend itself to recording the historical events of a hundred years earlier. The story was also informative and generally entertaining.

The main criticism that I have of the book is that the author does not clearly separate his own Bosnian war experiences from Princip’s story. This is what he means by hunting down the killer, that is to do so in a historical and travelogue sense. I think if the author had put less of his own experiences into the book and separated his own story into italics it would have prevented the constant dovetailing of the two stories.

Four stars. I am glad I read it. In addition to Princip’s story I learned a lot about Bosnia. It was at times a frustrating read for the reason mentioned above and the title is a bit misleading.

[Edgarr Alien Pooh · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Franz Ferdinand (no not the rock band) was the Archduke of the Austro-Hungarians, next in line for the throne, when he was assassinated in July of 1914 in Sarajevo.

Gavrilo Princip was the 19yo Bosnian Serb who murdered him. In his view the best way to bring solidarity amongst all Southern Slavs, they being Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims.

The assassination of Ferdinand was the trigger that got the dominoes falling. The Austro-Hungarians used the assassination to declare war on Serbia, the Russians moved to help the Serbians. Germany took it's chance to invade France causing the British to declare war on the Germans. A mere two months after Princip pulled the trigger the world awakened to the declaration of Wor
ld War 1.

The author, Tim Butcher, is a British Journalist who can view the story from a rather unique view. Most of us are aware of the blood thirsty atrocities that occurred during the Bosnian war of the early to mid 1990's. This was a three sided war at times with all three Bosnian factions fighting each other but when it was over the real truth came out. Mass graves of thousands of civilians were uncovered making the slaughters in this war second only in comparison to the ethnic cleansing undertaken by the Germans in WW2. Tim Butcher covered this war as a journalist from the war zones. He stayed with UN peacekeepers, spoke to civilians and soldiers and saw first hand the demolition and carnage.

The Trigger is Tim's uncovering of the truths that led to Princip's assassination of Ferdinand. He walks for days the trails that were covered by a 13yo boy as he leaves his family home to seek education in a better schooling system. Discovers the influences on P
rincip's young life and continues to follow the route that led him to be standing on a street corner in July 1914 with a pistol in his hand.

The Bosnian history is laid bare in this book. It's battles with Austro-Hungary to become its own country, its fights against the Ottomans, the formation and then collapse of Yugoslavia, the communist rule of Tito, the in fighting and wars between the Serbs, Croats and Muslims.

What Butcher does so well is tell two separate stories at once - two different times, 80 years apart. While following in Princip's footsteps he discusses the Europe and Bosnia as known in the early 20th century. All of the relevant details that led to the first world war.

Yet he also draws on his first hand accounts of the Bosnian war of the 1990's, describing in detail the devastation to man and country. The racism and the affiliations that led to the atrocities and the first ever time that the UN were forced to lead military strikes.
The failures of command and one of the most amazing escapes you will ever read about when 13,000 people fled under the cover of darkness from the city of Srebrenica as the Serbian forces cut off the town and then advanced.

Princip was arrested as he shot and killed the Archduke and he was never a free man again, dying from tuberculosis in prison. Tim Butcher's book leaves one big question. Has anything changed from the days when a young man took such desperate measures to bring solidarity to his people?

Gavrilo Princip, the man who was the TRIGGER of the first world war."

[Zuberino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scintillating biography of the man who changed the world.

By firing that bullet into the jugular of the Habsburg heir on that sunny morning in Sarajevo in June 1914, Gavrilo Princip not only killed off the old world, he also unwittingly helped to usher in the modern age - the toxic 20th century with its legacy of revolution, fascism, genocide and totalitarian terror.

Tim Butcher is the perfect medium for the telling of this extraordinary tale. Having spent years in the bloody cauldron of the Bosnian war, he was first drawn into the story by witnessing a scene in war-torn Sarajevo. Ordinary people walking into a cemetery chapel to take a shit. Turns out it was Princip's grave. From there, Butcher launches into a beautiful, expansive meditation on the meaning of the First World War, which in turn serves as the launchpad for a real-life journey he undertakes in the summer of 2012 retracing Princip's steps - from the village of Obljaj, the assassin's birthplace in the wild mountains of Herzegovina, all the way to that fateful street corner along the Miljacka river in the centre of modern Sarajevo. Throughout, he interweaves Princip's personal history with the wider history of the Balkans, with his own memories of the Bosnian war, and with the account of his pilgrimage across the region nearly 20 years later. Bosnia today is a country still wracked by the after-spasms of genocide and civil war, just as the world that Princip threw out of kilter never really recovered its equilibrium either.

The most powerful passage of all is Butcher's account of the fall of Srebrenica and the infamous massacre of 8000 Bosnian Muslims, all under the noses of hapless UN peacekeepers. He joins thousands of Bosnians on the annual Peace March that commemorates and reenacts in reverse the death march of Srebrenicans who made a desperate dash for safety in July 1995 but all too often ended up signing their own death warrants. This chapter "A Mystical Journey" is doubtless the book's emotional high point, but so clean and powerful and polished is Butcher's prose that the entire book reads like a dream.

For anyone even remotely interested in the history of the modern world, this book is essential reading. It is amazing to think that so neglected, so distorted is the true story of Gavrilo Princip - his name as much a cipher as that of his victim the Archduke Franz Ferdinand - that even after a hundred years, Butcher is able to unearth original material on him from archives long forgotten, unknown to all previous chroniclers.

For me, personally, WW1 has long held a magnetic fascination, and Sarajevo is one of those mythical cities - like Atlantis and Timbuktu - whose very name is a spell, an invocation, more vivid in the imagination than it is perhaps in reality. On the eve of my first visit to the Balkans - inspired by people as varied as Princip and the Archduke, Christiane Amanpour and Rebecca West and even the ski pair of Torvill and Dean! - on the eve of this glorious, much-awaited, much-anticipated journey to the magic, tragic city of Sarajevo, I could not have chosen to read a better book.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Tim Butcher's books might best be described as a mixture of travelogue, history and politics. He has also developed a theme of following the footsteps of past journeys undertaken by historical figures. In the remarkable "Blood River" he followed Henry Morton Stanley through the Congo whilst in "Chasing the Devil" it was Graham Greene through Sierra Leone and Liberia. In "The Trigger" he is on the trail of Gavrilo Princip, whose assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was in every sense the "trigger" for WWI, although of course the actual causes of the War were more complex.

Princip was only 19 when he carried out the murder of the Archduke and his wife -(the author memorably describes him as "history's ultimate teenage troublemaker") - and perhaps because of the limited material relating to Princip's life, the author intersperses that story with his own memories of the Bosnian War of about 20 years ago, which he covered as a young War Reporter. On the whole I felt this was the weaker element of the book. It would of course have been impossible for any author to write of a journey through Bosnia without covering the War, but in Europe the Bosnian War received massive media coverage, and I didn't feel as if this book provided me with any fresh insight into the events of that time. In that respect it compares poorly with "Blood River" which I found to be very thought-provoking and full of unexpected insight.

It was the section of the book that dealt with Princip's life that I personally found much the most interesting. Previously all I knew about Princip was his name, his nationality and the deed for which he became notorious. The author follows the journeys Princip himself made from the tiny village in NW Bosnia where he grew up (where he discovers some of his relatives still live), to Sarajevo and then to Belgrade. In undertaking the journey he paints a convincing picture of the young man's gradual radicalisation, showing for example how the school grades of an initially high achieving student declined as he increasingly absented himself from school to become involved in politics. Tim Butcher shows how Princip and his fellow conspirators were mainly motivated by their feeling that the poverty and backwardness of Bosnia was due to its long history of foreign occupation, firstly by the Ottoman Empire, which by the 19th Century had become completely decrepit, and after 1878 by the almost equally ramshackle Empire of Austria-Hungary, who when they occupied Bosnia promised modernisation but who failed markedly to deliver, so much so that the author illustrates that when Princip was arrested, the standard Austrian police form for recording a suspect's details included the typed pro-forma question "To Whom Does This Serf Belong?" This was a part of Europe a mere 100 years ago!

One aspect the author argues convincingly was that Princip was a "Yugoslav" rather than a Serb nationalist, to the extent that during his time in Belgrade he was accused of not being a true Serb, a remark that clearly stung the young Princip. Actually Princip comes through in the book as someone who was unusually sensitive to what others thought of him. He seems to have been considered something of a physical weakling and at least part of his motivation for the assassination may have been a desire to prove that he was not weak or cowardly.

The last section of the book covers the assassination itself and I was surprised by just how many myths have been printed in history books about that day's events. Credit must go to Mr Butcher for researching this thoroughly and for correcting a number of erroneous accounts that have been published in the past.

At a more detailed level I would probably have given this book about 3.8 out of 5, so I have rounded up rather than down. Definitely worth reading if you are interested in the period, and that very rare thing - a "different" angle on the beginning of WW1.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author draws on his experience in covering the Bosnian war in the 1990's to add perspective to the story of Gavrilo Princip, the assassin who tripped the switch that started World War I.

The journey begins in Obljaj, which is a Bosnian settlement (hardly a town) where the Princip clan lives today as it did when its wayward teenager changed the course of history. The author, Tim Butcher, is welcomed by this very poor rural family who share their handed down reminiscences. Then, Butcher follows Princip's footsteps (literally), walking and training to Sarajevo as Princip did with his father in 1907 to attend school. There is a lot on the people, the landscape, land mines, road conditions and more.

In Sarajevo the author explores the schools, residences and café's of Princip's life, finding very little interest in him, and sometimes avoidance of him even as an historical figure. The author visits archives, digests school records, court proceedings, and psychiatrist reports. There is much here about the Bosnian War and the ambiance of places in and around the city.

From Sarajevo, Princip went to Belgrade, so Butcher does too. Again he is on foot. He participates in and describes the Mars Mira an annual Peace March commemorating the Srebrenica atrocities. Butcher gives the best explanation that I have read on how this city became a safe zone and then a massacre site.

To this point, the Princip saga is woven into larger issues such how the Hapsburgs administered Bosnia, the way Tito came to power and how communism is viewed today, how World War I eventually begat the Bosnian war, the beauty of the landscape, the danger of land mines and more. Once Butcher arrives in Belgrade, the story is focused on Princip, his plot, his accomplices, how it went down, how the "team" was captured, their trial and aftermath for them.

While not a page turner, the book is highly readable. The maps are good and show all the key places. There are good photos introducing each chapter, but there are photos described in the text but not shown. The Index worked each time I consulted it. The book is light on sources, reflecting how much it draws from the author's experiences and observations.

I was initially disappointed because I was expecting a biography. Now that I have finished it, with the last part devoted to the subject (and seeing very little in him) I realize that Tim Butcher delivered much more.

[Catherine Boardman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gavrillo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914 and in doing so triggered the First World War. That much I and most of the rest of us know. What drove Princip to pull the trigger; there I'm a little hazier, what happened to him next and did he achieve his ultimate goal; there I knew nothing. Tim Butcher draws on his experience as a journalist covering the Yugoslavian wars of the 1990's to join the dots between the motivations of Princip at the start of the 20th century and those of is compatriots at end of it.

Butcher sets of to follow the route that Princip took from leaving his remote mountain home to the streets of Sarajevo and the assassination. Bizarrely and a little conveniently he runs into the remains of the Princip family right at the start of his quest. Much of the narrative is taken up with his reminisces of the wars of the 1990's and the horrific acts of barbarism that took place then. Before reading The Trigger I knew enough about the origins of the First World War and about the Yugoslav wars to bluff my way through but now I feel that my understanding of both conflicts is deeper and that I could hold my own with confidence.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Butcher never fails to impress me for his sheer determination in presenting well known facts in a totally fresh perspective. Sitting here in Trieste - quoted in the book as being one of the two ends of the Iron curtain - I followed his footsteps along his journey across Bosnia and Serbia as though I was actually there with him, his travelogue being all the more relevant to me as it describes regions just a few hundred kilometres from here. Princip's life, his political evolution and his motives are clearly mapped in this book as never before. The author's presentation of the trigger that set off the First World War is interwoven with memories and flashbacks of his own personal journey in the region, from his journalistic coverage of the 90's war, to 2012 when he goes back to the same haunts, reliving the facts of the recent war in Yugoslavia. This makes the book even more relevant to my generation, who in the 90's was on the 'safer' borders of this bloody conflict. And his guilt at not being able to do more than being an observer resonates with my generation, that at 20, was clubbing and drinking itself unconscious whilst people across the border were being tortured and killed meaninglessly. This work deepened my understanding and knowledge of both the 90s war and the First World War showing continuity and circularity of human thought and actions in the Balkans. Butcher's prose is crystal clear and flows with a passion for his subject that pervades all his actions and descriptions. I was particularly impressed by the new documentation he found on Princip and by the use of photographs across his work that complement his writing and make Princip's life so alive and compelling even after 100 years. Last but by no means least I appreciated the author's careful considerations on the concept of nationalism and what its political consequences mean at a time when borders across Europe are being challenged. A five-star piece of writing.

[Shaun McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Trigger is a fascinating account of the lead up to WWI.

It reveals the complexities of the Balkans and the internecine strife between the various religious factions at that time, and sets the scene for the latter troubles in the Bosnian war in the 80's.

If you want an understanding of the region, this is a must read.

[Steven Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the past few years numerous books have been published dealing with aspects of the First World War. The plethora of books is due to the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that touched off events that resulted in the “war to end all wars.” Tim Butcher’s THE TRIGGER is part of slew of new publications, but it is not a traditional discussion of the causes of the war and who was most responsible for the debacle that followed. Butcher’s book is hard to categorize. It is part travelogue through the battlefields of the Yugoslavian Civil War that dominated the 1990s in the Balkans. It is also a book that tries to explain how the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip resulted in the death of millions of people between 1914 and 1918 might be related to the slaughter that took place in Bosnia between 1992-1996. The subtitle of the book, “Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War,” hints at what the author was trying to achieve. By presenting a pseudo biography of Princip and following his route from his village in Serbia to Sarajevo the author uncovers new information that previous biographers and historians of World War I failed to uncover. The reader is placed in a position to understand the events that led to the assassination, and by walking Princip’s route we get an insight as to how the events of 1914 still affected the Balkan region through the 1990s when Butcher was a journalist in the region. As the author follows in Princip’s footsteps he relives the tragic events of the 1990s he witnessed, and in writing THE TRIGGER, Butcher provides a rare glimpse into mind set of Princip as well as Serbian nationalists who conducted the genocide that was Srebrenica in 1995. The first of two strands in the narrative are Butcher’s journey that culminates with the Bosnian Serb massacre at Srebrenica that finally brought in NATO forces leading to peace talks resulting in the Dayton Accords. The second strand sees Butcher describe Princip’s assassination of Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, the hunt for co-conspirators, the trial that followed, and the death of Princip in 1918.

What make Butcher’s work so fascinating are the important insights he brings to the table. The author was a foreign correspondent who covered the war from 1994 onward and sees his role in part to remind people how the events of World War I are still responsible for much of today’s world conflict. Butcher points out that most histories of the war cover the same ground, and he decided by returning to Bosnia he could follow Princip’s path, “trekking where he trekked, from village to village…..explore the Balkan towns and cities where he studied, worked and traveled, and….piece together as far as possible the setting and detail of the assassination, his influences and motivations.” (20) To a large degree Butcher is able to meet his own criteria in creating an interesting narrative that should keep the reader fully absorbed from first page to last.

Butcher’s journey led him through the forbidden mountainous areas that were home to bears, wolves, and a significant number of unexploded mines from the Yugoslav Civil War. Butcher was familiar with the areas he traveled because of his journalistic work in the 1990s and he marched onward with the assistance of his guide Arne Hecimovic, a man who spent his teenage years translating for reporters during the civil war. The journey began in the small Serbian village of Obljaj where Princip was born and preceded across Serbia into Bosnia, a return to Belgrade and a later march to Sarajevo. As Butcher describes the journey he integrates the relevant history that affected the region. The author goes back into Ottoman history and describes their rule in the Balkans, as the Ottoman Empire becomes “the sick man of Europe” in the 19th century, Butcher continues by addressing the significance of the 1878 Treaty of Berlin that created Serbia and which many historians argue put Europe on the road to war. Butcher describes the decade that preceded World War I highlighting the dynastic issues relating to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 by the Habsburgs, the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 all in the context of the development of Princip’s sense of growing nationalism. We see how nationalism became a disease in the 20th century and the damage it caused. Once Yugoslavia is created after the Treaty of Versailles it is obvious the only way to keep the new nation together is with an iron fist. We witness the fracturing of Yugoslavia as it is ripped apart by the Nazis who play divide and conquer splitting the catholic Croat population from the eastern orthodox Serbs, and Muslims who are remnants of Ottoman rule. Following the war Jozip Broz Tito and his communist partisans who had liberated his country from the Nazis assumes power and applies a high degree of force to keep his nation together until his death in 1980. From that point on it seems inevitable that the ethnic rivalries and hatreds that were subsumed for years overwhelms any sense of Yugoslav unity and in 1991 the road to civil war and the violence that tore apart the Balkans is under way.

What I found most interesting about the book was Butcher’s discussion of Princip’s belief system. Historians have painted him as a Serbian nationalist who operated under the nationalist group, the Black Hand. After significant research Butcher comes to the conclusion that Princip was a “not predominately committed to Serb nationalism. His greater goal was freeing all Slavs, not just ethnic Slavs like himself,” his belief system centered around the greater Yugoslav ideal of defeating Austro-Hungarian colonialism, not just from Bosnia, but also “from areas to the north where other south Slavs – Croats and the Slovenes – were under the same occupation.” (247-8) Princip belonged to Mlada Bosna, a group that was not typical of nationalist movements in the Balkans in that they were “more romantic, inclusive” and believed in a political model that was far different from the “individual nationalist models of Serbs or the Croats.” (250) Princip saw the poverty and that the basic feudal system remained under the Habsburg Empire and he wanted to free the southern Slavs from their control.

As Butcher’s travels take him through the route employed by Princip he revisits the civil war he covered. He constantly comes across unmarked graves, underground bunkers, earthworks, and the destruction that was endemic to the fighting. Butcher explains the shifting alliances that existed in the 1990s; Bosnian Serbs against Bosnian Croats allied with Bosnian Muslims. Then the Croats and Moslems allow their historical hatred to reemerge and the Serbs watch the former allies tear each other apart. Some of the earliest examples of ethnic cleansing take place between the Croats and Muslims in 1993. Interestingly, by the spring of 1994, after pressure from the international community they renew their alliance and concentrate their venom against the Serbs. Throughout his journey Butcher interviewed people and their families from all sides of the conflict, in Obljaj, the Milne’s family provided the Serb viewpoint; in Glamoc, the Zdravko family story recounts the experiences of the Croats; and two Imans, Kemal Tokmic and Muzafer Latic present the Muslim view as they fish with Butcher in the mountains near Bugojono. In all the reader is exposed to the grievances and history of each side.

One of Butcher’s goals is to relate how the events of 1914 affected the 1990s civil war and beyond. The description of Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansing in Banja Luka is informative and maddening as western politicians stood by one of the worst atrocities of the Bosnian War. The ethnic cleansing, death camps, genocide that were perpetuated against the Bosnian Muslims throughout the fighting “inadvertently provided Islamic militants with a rallying cry used to justify later acts of terrorism.” (143) The nationalism that was responsible for June 28, 1914 reemerged with a vengeance during World War II, and exploded in the 1990s when the “hard fist” of Tito’s reign was gone. As an aside I wonder how many remnants of Islamic fighters remain who may still be involved in Iraq and Syria as of this writing.

The last quarter of the book is devoted to a detailed description of Princip and his co-conspirators planning and carrying out the assassination of the Archduke. What is interesting is Butcher’s reconstruction of some of Princip’s pre-trial interrogation, trial transcripts, and psychiatric evaluation to determine his modus Vivendi. It comes down to his hatred of the Habsburg monarchy, his detestation of the poverty he and his fellow Slavs were forced to live in, and his own self-perception of weakness.

Another fascinating aspect of the book is Butcher’s recreation of the commemorative march, called the “Mars Mira or Peace March.” After the Bosnian Serb siege of Sarajevo was near an end in 1995, thousands of Bosnian Muslims were forced to make an escape from the city to avoid extermination by the Serbs. In addition to the genocide at Srebrenica, Serbs also overran Sarajevo and targeted Muslim males for extinction. The only means of escape was a 50 mile march from the city through a path protected by forest. Butcher interviewed Dzile Omerovic, a Bosnian Muslim survivor of the march who said, “It was like being trapped in hell, I know no other word for it.” Omerovic suffers from PTSD, as he continued to repeat how he should have done more to save others. While Butcher took part in the “Mars Mira” in 2012, he came across numerous mass graves and workers who continue to try to match the unearthed corpses, body parts, and bones to make to identify victims in order for families to finally come to closure. For Butcher in 2012 he realized he was “dancing on graves.” (223) Thinking back to 1996 Butcher presents a passage that reminded me of the Cambodian “killing fields” of the 1970s as he found himself stepping out of his jeep a year after the fall of Srebrenica to find himself in a field where “all around lay skulls, vertebrae, femurs, rotting scrapes of clothes, footwear and a few personal possessions. So thick lay the bones on the ground that when I returned to the jeep, I remember the back wheels lurching over a ribcage, but from nowhere a man appeared carrying a shotgun and told me to leave. I still feel guilty for panicking that day, for fleeing the crime scene, relying on the presumption that it would one day be found by war-crimes investigators and the human remains properly identified.” (230)

The book is an informative read and a testament to the author’s commitment to seek out historical truths. It is loaded with personal vignettes that are striking in their authenticity and emotion. If you are interested in placing World War I in proper perspective as it relates to the last 100 years, THE TRIGGER should be of much interest. For a list of recent books on World War I consult the list below that should be reviewed at www.docs-books.com in the future.

THE LOST HISTORY OF 1914: RECONSIDERING THE YEAR THE GREAT WAR BEGAN by Jack Beatty
GEORGE, NICHOLAS, AND WILHELM: THREE ROYAL COUSINS AND THE ROAD TO WORLD WAR I by Miranda Carter
THE SLEEPWALKERS: HOW EUROPE WENT TO WAR IN 1914 by Christopher Clark
THE BEAUTY AND THE SORROW: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR by Peter England
CATASTROPE 1914: EUROPE GOES TO WAR by Max Hastings
THE WAR THAT ENDED PEACE: THE ROAD TO 1914 by Margaret MacMillan
JULY 1914: COUNTDOWN TO WAR by Sean McMeekin
DANCE OF THE FURIES: EUROPE AND THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR I by Michael S. Nieberg
A MAD CATASTROPHE: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR ONE AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE HABSBURG EMPIRE by Geoffrey Wawro
One of the best books on Princip and the outbreak of war is the classic, ROAD TO SARAJEVO by Vladimir Dedijer published in 1966.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gavrilo Princip's actions changed the world, and yet he himself left almost no historical footprint. He is a cipher, a mere cog in the wheel of history. He is the man who set the First World War in motion, nothing more. In himself he is almost unimportant; he simply needed to do what he did in order for history to follow its preordained path.

You'd think all that was true, from the way history and historians have treated Princip. Pick up almost any book on the First World War and you will read that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg Empire was assassinated in Sarajevo - and it might say very little more than that. Even the language used is telling - the Archduke 'was assassinated', almost a passive act. Not 'Princip assassinated the Archduke'. Princip's actions, his own history, his motivations, his worldview, his beliefs - these aren't relevant. A mere cog in the machine.

Tim Butcher sets out to overturn that, to retrace Princip's steps in his native Bosnia. And yet somehow, again, Princip slips through the cracks. This book isn't about the nineteen-year-old Gavrilo Princip. He is the framework on which the tale hangs, but it isn't really about him. It's about Bosnia; it's about the twentieth-century's murderous legacies; it's about the Bosnian War; and it's about Tim Butcher. Princip emerges from the shadows on occasion, but the sections of this book really devoted to him could be condensed into just a few chapters. More than anything else, this book is about Tim Butcher retracing his own steps as a young war reporter in Bosnia.

And yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Butcher is an engaging travel companion - he has a fine eye for the unusual and picaresque, a whimsical turn of phrase, and a touch of real poetry. On the occasions when Princip comes to life he leaves you longing for more, for a deeper understanding of how this one young man's actions changed the world. It is fascinating how this (at the time) occupied and impoverished country could have so fundamentally altered the path of history, not just once with the First World War, but again later in the century with the Bosnia War, NATO's first military intervention after decades of preparing for war against Russia, an intervention which opened the gates to Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq. Bosnia served as a training ground for jihadists fighting on behalf of the Bosnian Muslims, experiences which would later come home to roost for the West.

If you pick this book up hoping for a straightforward biography of Gavrilo Princip, you will be disappointed. Princip's actions may yet be impacting upon history, but he himself left so little mark any biography would be a disappointment. But if you approach this book with a open mind and follow Butcher on his journey, I doubt you'll come away discontented.

[Apratim Mukherjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a book which has two stories (Princip's journey and the author's journey)being told simultaneously while a third story (the author's time in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war in 1990s) acts as a filler.Since the author didn't travel a conflict zone like his previous two books,you may not enjoy the slow pace (for which I am docking a star) with lots of history.But this book tells about one serious attempt to find out "who was Gavrilo Princip?".There is a lot of material in the book which you are not taught in history classes.Furthermore alongside Princip we also come to know a lot about Bosnia and Herzegovina.Some parts in the book are boring while some take us back to 1914.All in all it is a must read for those having an interest in history's greatest assasin.

[Neil Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, James Earl Ray, Nathuram Godse (God bless you Google for that last one !) all assassinated great leaders in their prime - JFK, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Gandhi - leaders who could have gone on to even greater achievements had they lived, and whose premature deaths still pose some of the great " what if's" of history. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was no such comparable leader when he and his wife Sophie were murdered by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914, yet his assassination was the trigger point for perhaps the greatest calamity in World history. Gavrilo Princip, his assassin, is, as author Tim Butcher puts it, probably History's most influential assassin.

In this timely groundbreaking new study on Princip, his life and his times, Tim uses the "follow in the footsteps " formula so deftly employed in his previous 2 books set in Africa, Blood River and Chasing the Devil, to understand the motivations and actions of Princip. This is part travel writing, part history lesson, part reflection on more recent events in the Balkans and the present state of affairs. But Tim adds another ingredient which is what makes his writing so special - his journalistic instinct for succinct observation and description, and his ability to absorb the reader with engaging anecdotes and startling facts.

Tim literally follows in the footsteps of Princip as his life moves from rural Western Bosnia to his destiny in Sarajevo, as he deftly draws a picture of a character and an anti-hero more complex than history has hitherto portrayed, painting a more rounded sketch of Princip - his motivations, beliefs and hopes. He cuts through the differing propagandistic portrayals of Princip that have served the needs of various parties during the past 100 years, be they Imperialistic Austo-Hungarian, Royalist Pan-Slavic Yugoslav, Socialist or ultra-Nationalist Serb. The account is greatly solidified by Tim's uncovering of new primary historical material.

Tim uses his experiences as a war reporter in Bosnia in the early 1990's to bring local knowledge to the telling of the story, and in doing so finds unique linkage between the various periods in the tumultuous history of 20th Century Bosnia and the Balkans, from the crumbling Ottoman Empire through Austro-Hungarian rule, the emergence of South Slav Nationalism, the creation of Yugoslavia post WW-1 and it's experience in WW2, and the violent fracturing and death of Yugoslavia in the 1990's as toxic ethnic-based Nationalism replaced Pan-Slav unity. Tim skillfully shows how the former events shaped the young Princip, and then how his ghost and legacy remained an unseen but nevertheless present specter throughout subsequent events through to today.

The flashbacks and anecdotes on the Bosnian war of the 1990's Tim recounts as he follows Princip's trail through Bosnia, although not terribly detailed, nevertheless rank among the best writing on that period since Silber & Little's " The death of Yugoslavia " in their brutal, insightful simplicity. Tim's descriptions from his journalistic experiences of the siege of Sarajevo and the genocide at Srebrenica are particularly harrowing.

The climatic description of the assassination itself is startlingly crafted through the use of an astonishing photograph with an accompanying detailed account of everything that can be seen in the photo. The Archduke's car is about to make the fatal wrong turn off the Appel quay, and in the photo you can see the front wheels visibly turning to the right; the woman in the white dress outside the Mortiz Schiller cafe must be standing right next to Princip who is just out of sight; the strong sunlight creates a reflective haze against the camera lense; the minarets of old Sarajevo are visible in the background. In writing terms, this is simply breathtaking and achingly haunting, the literary equivalent of the Zapruder film. I had to read this passage several times over. In fact if one closes one's eyes one can interpose two scenes 50 years apart; Appel Quay becomes Dealy Plaza; the Schiller Cafe becomes the Dallas book depositry. I think Tim can' t resist his instinct for the goose-bump raising detail when he informs us the registration number of the Archduke's car is A 111118. Finish reading this one late at night as I did and you feel a goose has walked on your grave.

Tim Butcher is fast becoming a must-read author for me and a growing bunch of like-minded friends. To pick up a Butcher book in the evening is like looking forward to a fireside chat over a glass of whiskey with a well-travelled and slightly mysterious Uncle .. The path of the story will meander and may divert onto interesting tangents, but the telling of the tale will be sharp, focused and thoroughly absorbing.

An inscription on the wall of Princip's cell read " our ghosts will walk through Vienna, and roam through the Palace, frightening the Lords ". Tim has brought to life the ghost of Gavrilo Princip, and done justice to his memory. In the 100th anniversary of the shots that started the War, this is the best book of the year for me so far.

[Jan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting tale of being on the trail of Princip, the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia, by a journalist who had covered the war in Bosnia in the '90s. So much of the area was familiar to him.

Interesting to read that he did apologize for Sofia's death - she was not an intended target.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

World War One started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The story of the assassin, Gavrilo Princip, is often summed up in a few lines, or less. Tim Butcher redresses this imbalance by exploring the journey of Gavrilo in a book that is part biography, part history and part travelogue. And he shows how Gavrilo’s vision for Bosnia was arrived at and destroyed.

The story starts with Butcher examining the tomb of Gavrilo in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war of the 1990s. During the siege of Sarajevo it was being used as a public toilet. This surprised Butcher, who was in Bosnia as a war correspondent. Butcher grew up in a quiet Northamptonshire village that honoured its war dead and, after leaving his journalism career, he wanted to seek answers to what drove Gavrilo to assassinate Franz Ferdinand, thus precipitating a war that claimed Butcher’s great uncle and several million besides. To do this he sought to recreate the journey of Gavrilo from his home village in Bosnia to Sarajevo, Belgrade and back to Belgrade.

Gavrilo family were poor peasants living on the western margin of Bosnia, an Ottoman province administered by the Austrian empire. The Austrians proclaimed they were bringing civilisation to the poor oppressed peoples of the central Balkans, but apart from a few public works, nothing much changed, just the religion of the foreign occupier. Serfdom and crippling taxes continued. Gavrilo was a quiet, bookish child who stood up to bullies, whether he was the victim or not. He did well at primary school, and his older brother convinced his parents to send him to Sarajevo for secondary schooling. This meant leaving his Bosnian Serb village and living as a boarder in predominantly Muslim Sarajevo. He and his father also had to walk for several days to the nearest train to take them to Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital. Gavrilo was a model student, but then things began to change. His grades got worse, he needed to repeat some exams, he moved to Belgrade for two years, all the while his passion to rid Bosnia of the foreign occupier growing.
Finally, Gavrilo and friends return to Sarajevo to commit the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The final chapter is the sad story of Gavrilo post-conviction, a criminal too young for Austrian capital punishment.

Butcher begins the journey with an émigré Bosnian Muslim in Obljaj,
Gavrilo’s home village and still home to some of his relatives. He explores what Gavrilo and his legacy – WWI, Yugoslavia, WWII, Tito’s Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War – meant to them and to the various people he meets on the way. For some it is a personal matter, such as his family living with the ghost of the man who fired the shots that started the Great War. For others, it is a collective matter, and Bosnian Serbs, Muslims and Croats reacted differently at different times. To the Yugoslav states, he was a hero and martyr.

Butcher explores Gavrilo’s motives for the assassination, reaching the conclusion that once more it was the boy standing up for the victims of a bully. Butcher also notes the changing nature of the portrayal of the assassins, morphing to suit the political needs of the portrayers. Along the way he mixes in incidents from his time in Bosnia during the Bosnian War and snippets from history. The result is book that is readable, informative, and provoked a desire in me to recreate Gavrilo’s peregrination, or some major portion of it. I thoroughly recommend this book to all with an interest in history and biography.

[֍ elle ֍ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating read that both fed my appetite for information about WWI and whetted it for information about two countries I knew almost nothing about and the impact they've had on recent history. I was a little thrown at first by the personal nature of what I had initially pegged to be a straight biography of Gavrilo Princip, but once it got going, I was hooked. Part travelogue, part war history, and part biography of both the author and the subject, it's like no history book I've read before. The author's style is crisp but engaging. He teaches without lecturing, he philosophizes without sentimentalizing. By the end, I desperately wished I could have gone on this hike with him, but I was glad for the book that represents the next best thing.

I'd recommend it to everyone who likes a good, intelligent history without being too formal about it. Think Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, but less centered on food and a host less likely to offend or annoy.

[Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Interesting Idea

The author travels to the Balkans to follow in the footsteps of Austria- Hungarys Heir-Apparent’s assassin.

Reading this book gives interesting insight into the assassin’s background and life prior and after the assassination.

I also learned a good deal about the Balkin wars of the early 1990s from this book.

As an amateur WW1 historian, I have read a bit about this time period, but still learned one or two new things from the book.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, impeccably researched, and beautifully written account of Gavrilo Princip. By retracing his journey from a small, impoverished village in Bosnia to a street in Sarajevo where he shot dead Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Butcher manages to recreate not only the man but the broader history that enabled two world wars and the bloody conflict in Bosnia. It is a far reaching and unflinching look at the instincts--noble and base--that drive our species.

[Aaron Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice interweaving of Butcher's time as a war correspondent in Bosnia and Princip's trajectory toward assassinating Franz Ferdinand. While the travelogue is less harrowing than Butcher's previous book Blood River, the historical and political analysis is a lot more trenchant.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

(revised for readability in October 2024. Read, probably, ten years before).

I read this book because I admired Mr. Butcher's earlier book 'Blood River' but to be honest the book falls far short of that, possibly because there isn't anything new, and useful (I am writing this review in 2023), to say about Princip and the Sarajevo assassination. That doesn't mean an author can't produce, now, the sort of travel, history, journalistic reportage and memoir combination of book that used to be produced and, despite faults, errors and prejudices, can still be worth reading (classic examples are Black Lamb Grey Falcon and The Road to Oxiania) but this is not one. It is also amazing how certain things which at a particular time can seem amusing, piqant or ironic can date so quickly. I can't help thinking that in 2024, the irony of attending a concert given by the group Franz Ferdinand while searching down the truth about Princip will be lost on many readers.

The real failure of the book is that although travelling to retrace Princip's footsteps he doesn't really find anything very new. The author's meetings with Princip's family is fine but what results is barely anecdotal. The real problem is that he doesn't explore what future, if any, Princip would have in the stories the successor states of Yugoslavia told about themselves. It is not Princip in the past that needed to be examined but what, if any, future Princip has. The author had experience covering the Balkan wars which I respect but it doesn't add depth to the book.

This book may have hunted for Princip but didn't find him and I am afraid while not bad it is not a memorable book.

[Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read a book on the Congo by this author before and really enjoyed it. He is eloquent, insightful, and also very brave (the word is overused, but really applies in this case). He dares to tread (in this case literally - think landmines) where not many others dare to and unearths new insights along the way. The style thus becomes a mixture of travel and history seamlessly blended together. He follows in the footsteps of Gavrilo Princip, travelling through the Balkans, and his analysis shows that Princip's aim was a nation for all south Slavs and not just his own ethnic group, that of the Bosnian Serbs. This is particularly interesting as it reframes our understanding of the origins of the First World War (as convincingly argued by the author). The author has worked as a war correspondent during the Yugoslavian civil war and he interweaves his experiences from that period with its history, and also covers other relevant periods of history of the region (e.g. the Second World War). I thought the description of Milosevic as "sorcerer's apprentice" very astute: the nationalism he espoused and promoted led to forces that he ultimately could not control. The book is captivating- at times you feel that you are in the country with the author - moving - notably the description of the remembrance ceremony of the genocide committed at Srebrenica - and very well written.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Butcher may have been a journalist, but what he really wanted to be was a historian. You can see it in his preparation, interests, and research (including the use of social history to fill out his knowledge), which he deftly melds with travel reporting and memoir as he explores the life and impact of Gavro Princip, whose assassination of Franz Ferdinand helped usher the world into war, and future reverberations that tore Yugoslavia apart, led to thousands of civilian deaths perpetrated by neighbors along ethnic lines, and continues to have an impact worldwide even today. He calls out the thugs, but also correctly points out factors that lead some to take up arms. He doesn't do happy, lighthearted travel, no. He liked traipsing through traumatized regions (Bosnia, Serbia, Congo) seeking out truths and exploring areas not often part of travel literature, while also tying his personal experiences into the whole. I know so much more about this area now, one I didn't think to visit before.