Black Hand Conspiracy
A secret military society formed in May 1911 by Serbian Army officers, infamous for the 1914 Sarajevo assassination that triggered World War I.
The Black Hand (Црна рука, Crna ruka), officially named Unification or Death (Уједињење или смрт, Ujedinjenje ili smrt), was a secret military society formed in May 1911 by officers in the Army of the Kingdom of Serbia. It is famous for its alleged involvement in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, triggering World War I. The society formed to unite all territories with a South Slavic majority not then ruled by Serbia or Montenegro, taking inspiration from the unification of Italy (1859–1870) and the unification of Germany (1871).
Quick Facts
- Affiliation
- Army of the Kingdom of Serbia
- Status
- Historical (active 1911–1917)
Lore & Background
The Black Hand's roots trace to August 1901, when a group of lower officers headed by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević ("Apis") established a conspiracy group against the Obrenović dynasty. Their first meeting was on 6 September 1901, with attendees including captains Radomir Aranđelović, Milan F. Petrović, and Dragutin Dimitrijević, as well as lieutenants Antonije Antić, Dragutin Dulić, Milan Marinković, and Nikodije Popović. On the night of 28/29 May 1903 (Old Style), this precursor group—not yet the Black Hand—carried out the murder of King Alexander I Obrenović and Queen Draga at the Old Palace in Belgrade, along with Prime Minister Dimitrije Cincar-Marković, Minister of the Army Milovan Pavlović, and General-Adjutant Lazar Petrović. This became known as the May Coup. The society itself was established at the beginning of May 1911, with its original constitution signed on 9 May. Ljuba Čupa, Bogdan Radenković, and Vojislav Tankosić wrote the constitution, modeled after German secret nationalist associations and the Italian Carbonari. The organization was mentioned in the Serbian parliament as the "Black Hand" in late 1911. By 1911–12, Narodna Odbrana had established ties with the Black Hand, and the two became "parallel in action and overlapping in membership." The organization used the magazine Pijemont (the Serbian name for Piedmont) for disseminating their ideas, founded by Ljuba Čupa in August 1911.
Reader's Guide
The Black Hand's operations were built on a cell structure of three to five members, each cell supervised by district committees and a Central Committee in Belgrade. New members swore a binding oath of secrecy and unconditional obedience. The group trained guerilla fighters and saboteurs to unite Serb-inhabited territories. They used the magazine Pijemont to spread their ideas. By 1914, the group had hundreds of members, many holding key army and government positions, allowing them to influence appointments and policies. Their most famous operation was the June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, carried out by members of the youth movement Young Bosnia, which precipitated the July Crisis and led to Austria-Hungary's invasion of the Kingdom of Serbia in August 1914, starting World War I. In 1938, a conspiracy group called Konspiracija was founded to overthrow the Yugoslav regency, modeled after the Black Hand, with two Black Hand members—Antonije Antić and Velimir Vemić—serving as military advisors.
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