Through its connections to the June 1914
The Black Hand took over the older group's work of anti-Austrian propaganda within Serbia, which included sabotage, espionage and political murders abroad — especially in provinces Austria-Hungary wished to annex. The group included many radicals, government officials, professionals and army officers.
The main goal of the Black Hand was the creation of a Greater Serbia, or an expanded Serbia that would include all Serbs and possibly other Southern Slavs. The group was willing to use violence to achieve this goal and was organized into small cells of guerrilla fighters, saboteurs, and political assassins.
Two shots in Sarajevo ignited the fires of war and drew Europe toward World War I. Just hours after narrowly escaping an assassin's bomb, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, are killed by Gavrilo Princip.
When the royal motorcade entered a side street and stopped to turn around, a compatriot of Cabrinovic, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, seized his opportunity. Approaching the royal couple's open car, he shot both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie with a Browning pistol.
The political objective of the assassination was to free Bosnia and Herzegovina of Austria-Hungarian rule and establish a common South Slav ("Yugoslav") state. The assassination precipitated the July Crisis which led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia and the start of World War I.
Franz Ferdinand's assassination led to the July Crisis and precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia, which in turn triggered a series of events that eventually led – four weeks after his death – to Austria-Hungary's allies and Serbia's allies declaring war on each other, starting World War I.
Princip stated that he regretted the killing of the Duchess and meant to kill Potiorek, but was nonetheless proud of what he had done.
But along the way, the driver made a wrong turn. Realizing his mistake, Vasquez says, the driver stopped to back up at a street corner where one of the assassins just happened to be. Spotting the archduke's car, the assassin rushed forward, pointed his gun, and shot Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie.
The problem with this story is that, although captivating, it is simply not true. Princip did, in fact, murder Franz Ferdinand on the corner in front of Moritz Schiller's Delicatessen, and the building has since been converted into the Museum of Sarajevo 1878–1918. However, he was not there to eat a sandwich.
The Black Hand was a precursor of organized crime, although it is still a tactic practiced by the Mafia and used in organized crime to this day.
Black Hand, byname of Ujedinjenje Ili Smrt (Serbo-Croation: Union or Death), secret Serbian society of the early 20th century that used terrorist methods to promote the liberation of Serbs outside Serbia from Habsburg or Ottoman rule and was instrumental in planning the assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz ...
A month after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on July 28, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian government declares war on Serbia. Immediately, and within a period of six days, European countries declare war upon one another.
The Bosnian youths who carried it out insisted the conspiracy was theirs from beginning to end, and many scholars support this. After all, the Bosnians had a clear motive for murdering the Archduke: to rid their homeland of foreign rule (Austria-Hungary had annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908).
The immediate cause of World War I that made the aforementioned items come into play (alliances, imperialism, militarism, nationalism) was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. In June 1914, a Serbian-nationalist terrorist group called the Black Hand sent groups to assassinate the Archduke.
The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand—heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914.
The Treaty of Versailles, signed following World War I, contained Article 231, commonly known as the “war guilt clause,” which placed all the blame for starting the war on Germany and its allies.
The largest share of responsibility lies with the German government. Germany's rulers made possible a Balkan war by urging Austria-Hungary to invade Serbia, well understanding that such a conflict might escalate. Without German backing it is unlikely that Austria-Hungary would have acted so drastically.
Serbia bore the greatest responsibility for the outbreak of WW1. Serbian nationalism and expansionism were profoundly disruptive forces and Serbian backing for the Black Hand terrorists was extraordinarily irresponsible.
Thus, one could argue that much of the war could have been avoided if Russia and Germany had simply kept out of the matter. On the other hand, real tensions existed among many of the principal nations prior to the war, and these conflicting ambitions contributed to the war's escalation.
"Gavrilo Princip was a hero, a symbol of the idea of freedom, the assassin of tyrants and the carrier of the European idea of liberation from slavery," Nikolic told the crowd.
If Princip had not assassinated the Archduke, Austria would have found another way to provoke a war with Serbia. Austria was losing at the Imperialist game and was convinced she needed to control the Balkan thoroughfaire to the oil fields of the Middle East in order to improve her lot.
After assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne in June 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on the Russia's ally Serbia, which made Russia enter WW1 in support of Serbia. During the war, Russia had some success against Austria-Hungary, but suffered major defeats by Germany.
The Austria-Hungary government saw the assassination as a direct attack on the country. They believed that the Serbians had helped the Bosnian terrorists in the attack.
When Austria invaded Serbia on July 28, 1914, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov viewed it as an Austro-German conspiracy to end Russian influence in the Balkans. On July 30, Russia declared a general mobilization in support of Serbia.