![]() ![]() He was born in Austria to the younger brother of the then emperor Franz Joseph and was thus not in the direct line of succession. These young men were a product of their times as they sought freedom from the occupying Austro-Hungarian empire to unite with the rising Serbian state in hope of a better, more equitable future.įranz Ferdinand’s life is a story of fortuitous coincidences right till fortune deserted him at the very end. Three rebellious young men, including Gavrilo Princip at the age of 19, were thus trained, armed and tasked with the assassination of Prince Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by Major Tankosic. He then volunteered to join Serbian Guerrilla bands fighting under the leadership of Major Vojin Tankosic, who was a member of a leading Serbian terrorist organisation of the times: The Black Hand. ![]() These hostilities further fuelled the young Princip as he left Sarajevo and arrived in Belgrade. The following year, Princip was expelled from school for being involved in demonstrations against the Austro-Hungarian authorities.Īfter the Balkan wars in 1912-1913 the Austro-Hungarian administration in Bosnia and Herzegovina became extremely serbophobic and declared a state of emergency as the governor closed many schools and Serb societies and inflamed the historic anti-Serb rhetoric. In 1911, he joined the ‘Young Bosnia’, a society that wanted to separate Bosnia from Austria-Hungary and unite it with the rising kingdom of Serbia. At the age of 13, Princip moved to Sarajevo and this gave him more opportunities for protest. This led to large scale discontent against the Austro-Hungarian empire. Serbia’s military successes in these campaigns emboldened its nationalistic elements and the Serbs in Austria-Hungary who were irked by the Austro-Hungarian rule.Īs a Christian Serb (serf) family living in northwestern Bosnia, the Princips (and other Serbs) were often oppressed by their Muslim landlords and forced to live off the little land they owned. This new dynasty was friendlier to Russia than to Austria-Hungary and over the next decade, disputes erupted as Serbia made strategic military moves to reclaim its former fourteenth century empire. However, this peaceful state of existence changed when as part of a military coup, the king and the queen of Serbia were violently murdered and Peter I was installed as the new king. As part of the same treaty, Serbia was accorded the status of a sovereign state which soon transformed into a kingdom under Prince Obrenovic who ruled within the borders set by the treaty. In 1878, under the Treaty of Berlin, Austria-Hungary received the mandate to occupy and administer Bosnia while the Ottoman empire retained official sovereignty. Princip was born in a family of serfs at a time when Serbia was in a state of tumultuous transition. Gavrilo Princip (1894-1918), was a Bosnian Serb and was responsible for the assassination of Prince Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenburg. Ever since I first heard the story, I have been trying to reconcile the monumental impact of this one man and this chance event on the world as it exists today. Laced with irony, rebellion, intrigue and love – the story of Princip and Prince Archduke Franz Ferdinand epitomises the butterfly effect in human history. The wheels of destiny were driving history through the movements and actions of a young Serbian boy, Gavrilo Princip. ![]() But does the world really work this way? Can one person, one event, one random turn, truly alter the course of human history?Ī hundred and two years ago, providence altered the course of the world through the actions of one man. The phrase refers to the idea that tiny changes like the flap of a butterfly’s wings can alter initial conditions sufficiently enough to alter the path of a tornado half-the-world away. The butterfly effect is a common trope in popular science and fiction that attempts to convey a hard-to-intuit scientific fact: a trifling change in the initial conditions can create a significantly different final outcome. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe.” ― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens The things that really change the world, according to Chaos theory, are the tiny things. “It used to be thought that the events that changed the world were things like big bombs, maniac politicians, huge earthquakes, or vast population movements, but it has now been realized that this is a very old-fashioned view held by people totally out of touch with modern thought. Gavrilo Princip, sitting at the centre of the front row, at his trial on December 5, 1914. ![]()
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