Click here to see our comprehensive article on World War 1. This article is part of our extensive collection of articles on the Great War. In the end, malnutrition and the disease claimed his life. Conditions were harsh and he contracted serious skeletal tuberculosis only three years later, which ate away his bones in such a way that his arm had to be amputated. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, which, in hindsight, may have been a harsher sentence as he did not survive prison. As he was 19 years old at the time of the assassination, he was 27 days too young for the Habsburg law to give him the death sentence. The plotters hoped that by killing Franz Ferdinand, they would provoke the Austro-Hungarian Empire to declare war on Serbia. Princip tried to commit suicide by the same cyanide that didn’t work for his fellow conspirator and the pistol he then lifted to his head were wrestled from his hands by a bystander before he could shoot himself. No Death Sentence for Franz Ferdinand’s Killer During his life in Sarajevo, the Austro-Hungarian government implemented martial law, seized all schools and prohibited many Serbian societies, which made Princip very bitter. Although Princip was initially rejected when trying to volunteer for the Black Hand Servian guerilla band, he managed to get some military training through the Serbian Chetnik Organization. His parents were Christian peasants (serfs) and Gavrilo’s brother paid for his education, but he was expelled from school in 1912 for his involvement in a Demonstration against theĪustro-Hungarian authority. He was born to a poor family and named “Gavrilo” after the Arch Angel Gabriel because his parents hoped that it would help the sickly baby to survive (they had lost six infants previously). Princip was a Yugoslav nationalist who believed that the Yugoslavs had to be united and freed from Austria. The pregnant Sophie had instinctively thrown her body over that of her husband and was also killed. Princip was still loitering in the area and spotted the car, walked up to it and shot Franz Ferdinand twice, point blank from a 1.5m distance.
Later on the day, the Archduke decided to go visit the wounded officer at the hospital and the driver took the wrong route and tried to reverse as he realized his mistake. The procession was stopped and Cabrinovic was arrested after a failed attempt at suicide (he swallowed an expired cyanide pill and jumped in the river). Nedjelko Cabrinovic threw a hand grenade at the car, but it rolled off and instead wounded some bystanders and an officer in one of the other cars in the procession. The members of the group were posted all along the route on which the Archduke and his wife would tour Sarajevo in an open car (with almost no security).
The AssassinationĪlthough the group had carefully planned the assassination, things went wrong, their plans were foiled and the assassination almost didn’t take place. The person who however ended up killing Franz Ferdinand, partly by chance, was Gavrilo Princip. Danilo Ilic recruited Vaso Čubrilović, Muhamed Mehmedbašić, Cvjetko Popović, Trifko Grabež, Nedeljko Čabrinović and Gavrilo Princip and coordinated the assasination. The assassination was planned by a group of six people (one Bosniak and five Serbs) that were part of the Young Bosnia Movement.
Princip and Cabrinovic were both too young to receive the death penalty.The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, was the event that started World War 1.
Princip and Cabrinovic are both sentenced to twenty years of hard labor, while four other conspirators are sentenced to death. Princip and Cabrinovic are found guilty of high treason along with twenty-two accomplices.
The declaration of war sets off a series of cascading declarations that lead to World War I. On the same day, Sir Thomas Barclay of England predicts the danger of war in central Europe is greatly lessened by the assassination.Īustria-Hungary issues an ultimatum to Serbia.Īustria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.
Martial law is declared in Sarajevo in the wake of the assassination. Gavrilo Princip is immediately arrested for the shooting and Nedjelko Cabrinovic is caught fleeing after the bomb attempt. Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife are killed by an assassin's bullets just hours after they escaped another assassination attempt.