Gavrilo Princip

Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb student. On 28 June 1914, in Sarajevo, he shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand—the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne—and the Archduke’s wife, Sophie. That assassination triggered the July Crisis, and within a month World War I had begun.

Princip was born on 25 July 1894 in the remote hamlet of Obljaj, in western Bosnia. At the time, Bosnia was administered by Austria-Hungary but still formally part of the Ottoman Empire. He was the second of nine children; six of his siblings died in infancy. His mother wanted to name him Špiro, after her late brother, but a local Orthodox priest insisted on Gavrilo, after the Archangel Gabriel, hoping the name would help the sickly infant survive. The Princip family were Serbs who had lived in northwestern Bosnia for centuries, originally from Montenegro. They were poor farmers, part of a class of Christian peasants called kmetovi, often oppressed by Muslim landlords. Princip’s father, Petar, had fought in the Herzegovina Uprising against the Ottomans, then returned to farming about four acres of land, giving a third of his income to the landlord. He also carried mail and passengers across the mountains to make ends meet.

Princip started primary school at age nine, over his father’s objections—the family needed him to tend sheep. He did well, and his headmaster gave him a collection of Serbian epic poetry as a reward. At thirteen, he moved to Sarajevo. His older brother Jovan first planned to enroll him in the Austro-Hungarian Military Academy, but a shopkeeper warned against making him “an executioner of his own people,” so Princip entered the Merchants’ School instead. Jovan paid for his education with money earned hauling logs. After three years, Princip transferred to the Sarajevo Gymnasium, where he became politically aware.

In 1911, he joined Young Bosnia, a secret local group that wanted to free Bosnia from Austrian rule and unite the South Slavs. After taking part in anti-Austrian demonstrations in Sarajevo, he was expelled from school. He walked to Belgrade, Serbia, to continue his education. During the First Balkan War, he tried to volunteer with Serbian irregular forces fighting the Ottoman Empire, but was rejected for being too small and weak.

In 1913, after Serbia’s unexpected success against the Ottomans, the Austrian military governor of Bosnia, Oskar Potiorek, declared a state of emergency, dissolved the parliament, imposed martial law, and banned Serbian cultural and educational societies. Inspired by earlier assassination attempts by Slavic nationalists and anarchists, Princip persuaded two other young Bosnians to join a plot to kill the Habsburg heir during his announced visit to Sarajevo. The Black Hand—a Serbian secret society linked to Serbian military intelligence—gave them weapons and training, then helped them get back into Bosnia.

On Sunday, 28 June 1914, during the royal couple’s motorcade through Sarajevo, the teenage Princip fired a pistol into their convertible car, mortally wounding both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. He was arrested immediately. At his trial, along with 24 other Bosnians, he said: “I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria.” Because he was only nineteen, he was spared the death penalty and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was held at the Terezín Fortress. The Serbian government did not inspire the assassination, but the Austrian Foreign Office and Army used the murders as a reason for a preventive war that led directly to World War I.

Princip died on 28 April 1918 of tuberculosis, worsened by harsh prison conditions. The disease had already cost him his right arm, which was amputated. His legacy is controversial: many Serbs see him as a hero who fought colonial oppression, while Bosniaks and Croats often view him as a terrorist.