Do you remember how in the past, Theresa and Angie explained the start of WWI as that time a Serbian shot an Austrian, so Britain declared war on Germany?
Well today, Theresa does a deep dive and explains how a secretive organization within the Serbian government referred to as The Black Hand is the group that trained the assassins who killed Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie.
This episode pairs well with:
The SAS raid no on knew about
Transcript
Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast. The podcasts where two compulsive nutjobs are going to mainline history names, and then we’re going to reflect and compulsively learn the stories behind them, and then regurgitate the story we’ve just heard and learned upon our fellow co-host and those of you who have decided to tune in. I’m host one, I’m Teresa, and that
Angie: is Angie, and we make new apologizing for our regurgitation onto your brains.
Theresa: And you’re going to enjoy it or you’re going to tune away, but you know, we hope you come back. You’re going to like it. So I said so. I’m going to go. I’m going to go because I have a story. I’ve been wanting to tell. I downloaded an audio book that was 24 hours long about a topic that I thought was three paragraphs long.
Okay. And then went, oh, there’s so much. Oh, and it just keeps going. And so there’s like an aspect of this that I’m going to hyper fixate on. So you’d be prepared to zoom out and zoom back in, zoom out and zoom back in because like there’s like a lot of like, there’s a shit ton of nuance. I’m going to like a heavy reduction of it down to like a single thing, but this is a very complex thing. All right. Okay. So everything I’m about to tell you is true-ish. You know what I mean? Like it’s true, but there’s like, I’m holding on.
Angie: Hold on. Are you telling an Angie story where the story’s not resolved at the end and gosh dang it, we still don’t know the answer?
Theresa: No, no, no. The story’s resolved at the end. We do know the ending and you’re going to be like, oh, but there’s like, but yeah, but there’s also, and you didn’t mention, and
Theresa: okay, like there’s going to be so much of that. Okay. So I’m hyper fixating on one thread and a very large tapestry.
Theresa: Love this for us. Okay. I am going to tell you about the Black Hand, the secret organization that started World War I.
Angie: Yes. I wanted someone to do it. Yes. I know, I know this much. Like, okay.
Theresa: All right. So here we go. My sources. The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark. This is like the heavy duty audio book and then it was just like, oh, this was okay.
And then BYU had a couple of articles both written by Michael Shackleford, the Black Hand, the secret Serbian terrorist society and Sarajevo, June 28th, 1914, the assassination of Archduke Berghand. So are we ready? Go.
I’m so excited. Yes. Bosnia and Herzegovina, their providence is just south of Austria and until 1878 they’ve been governed by the Turks. Okay. Now I know 1878 is a very long distance away from World War I, but I promise you, like, I have to zoom out to zoom in, okay?
Angie: No, this makes sense because the war doesn’t just start yesterday. It would lead up.
Theresa: Yeah. Like, when you look at the book The Sleepwalkers, it talks about how World War I seemed so improbable until you zoom in and you go, oh no, this was a slow boil. Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense. So 1878 there’s this thing called the Treaty of Berlin and that settled the disposition of lands that were lost by the Turks. They’d had a war with Russia and they did not win. Austria was granted power to administer to the two provinces indefinitely.
So they kind of pulled in these two states. Okay. Now Bosnia is comprised of three different people groups. You have the Croats who are Roman Catholic. You’ve got the ethnic Serbs that are Serb Orthodox. And then you also have Muslims that are left over from the days of Turkish rule. There’s not a people group, an ethnic people group called the Bosnians. See at the Serbs, the Croats and the Bosnians just live in Bosnia, but they’re not an ethnic group.
Angie: But they belong to any one of these three. Yeah. Right. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah.
Theresa: Now the Bosnian Serbs, they feel a very strong nationalistic desire to have their province joined to other Serb nations across the river in Serbia. Okay. And many Serbians. It makes sense. Yeah. Many Serbians are like, yeah, same, same.
You are my kin. Like let us do this thing. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Reasonable. Right. Now we’re going to fast forward quite a bit. So October 8, 1808, just two days after Austria. 1908. 1908. Thank you for translating. Got you.
Angie: We all have one job. Mine is to keep Theresa honest about the timeline.
Theresa: I mean, look, I’m going to be honest about my facts, but just don’t trust the numbers that come out of my mouth if they don’t go along chronological order. It’s what I’m here for. So two days after Austria annexes Bosnian Herzegovina. There’s tons of people, many high ranking Serbian ministers, officials, generals like Topras. Like if you’ve got any political clout, you go into this meeting in City Hall in Belgrade. And then they found this semi-secret society. So I’m thinking like the best kept open secret kind of deal. Right.
Angie: Like now where you really get the good Swami at Costco. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Theresa: So this group is called the Narodna Utbrana, National Defense, which translates to. Okay. Okay. Now this has a very pan-Slavic focus. So they believe all Slavs should join together and be a part of this brotherhood. The purpose of this group is to train and recruit partisans for a possible war between Serbia and Austria. So they’re like, should stuff kick off? We want to be prepared.
Right. Now they also undertook a anti-Austrian propaganda, which makes sense to me. You want to do a little bit of psychological warfare as well. And they’re organizing spies and saboteurs to operate within the empire’s provinces. Okay. So I honestly, this felt very CIA.
Angie: Yeah. You know, honestly, I think in my humble opinion, there has been some version of the CIA in every country that has had any lack of power since the beginning of time. Yeah. It’s just never been called the CIA until today. No. And the CIA is only the CIA here. Right. Exactly. But you get what I’m saying. Right. Yeah. There’s always been some sort of… Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Theresa: So this is all happening. There’s satellite groups that are formed in Slovenia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Austria. Now the Bosnian group goes under the name Vlada Bosma, which is young Bosnia.
Okay. So that’s the splinter cell, so to speak. So the national defense, their work is so effective that in 1909, Austria pissed off beyond belief.
They pressured the Serbian government to put a stop to the anti-Austrian insurrection. So they’re calling them out on their bullshit. Love this, Russ. They’re like, you know what? We can see what you’re doing. You’re mean-mugging us from across the room. Knock it off.
Angie: Run around, you’re in turn, you know. Exactly.
Theresa: Like we are the teacher. Quit passing notes in my class. Okay. Or drawing penises on the whiteboard. Whatever analogy I need to use here. But they’re a little ticked off. Now Russia, meanwhile, Slavic, they’re thinking like, oh, you know, we could always just… Like Serbia’s like, well, Russia will stand behind us. Russia will back us. Russia, the big bad world power. Now, Russia’s like, I’m kind of not ready to join another war. I kind of just kind of figuring stuff out, just kind of had one.
Angie: Kind of having my own issues.
Theresa: Yeah. I kind of want to, you know, be my own for a while. So they’re not ready for a show grade. So Belgrade begrudgingly complies. They don’t want to, but they’re going to. So from then on, the National Defense Group, they concentrated on education and propaganda within Serbia. And they try to fashion itself into a cultural organization.
Okay. So they just kind of like refine their strategy and focus in on the psychological aspect and then build dissent from within. Hey, I feel like that’s going to work. Honestly, like all of this, I’m just like, okay, I’ve seen this pattern play out. So many of these members, they form a new and again, secret organization.
So secretly secretive. And they continue their terrorist actions. So there’s 10 minutes they meet on May 9th of 1911. And they form a group that I will not try to pronounce in Bosnia.
And it translates to Union or death. They serious. They’re, yeah.
They become also known as the Black Hand. Okay. Okay. So this is where it’s coming from. Now, by 1914, they’re up to several hundred members, maybe as many as 2,500. That’s decent. Yeah, that’s a decent membership size.
Yeah. Now, many of these humans are Serbian officers in the army. And their professional goal of the group was the creation of a greater Serbia by use of violence if necessary. This also checks. I mean, look, if you have a goal, it’s important to understand what that goal’s success looks like, how you’re going to measure it, and then how you’re going to execute to get to set it.
Angie: That’s a good goal. That can apply to any number of different forms of life.
Theresa: I don’t care if you’re selling candy bars or building a website. This is the plan of action. Yeah, every time. Now, the Black Hand is training guerrilla warfare as well as saboteurs, and they’re arranging political murders. So they are Uber chill, very demure.
Angie: Very modest. Yeah.
Theresa: Now, they’re organized at a very grass root roots level. They only have three to five member cells, and you pretty much don’t know anybody outside of yourself.
Angie: I feel like this is just asking for problems later when you need to, like, actually, I don’t know, collect and do something with a bigger group than three to five. And this is also how World War One starts.
Theresa: I mean, maybe, right? So keep all of this in mind because there’s district committees above them and then central committees above that. So there’s layers of bureaucracy, and I think the bureaucracy bit is fascinating to me because it’s always incredible on where bureaucracy gets things going and then where bureaucracy breaks down.
Angie: Yeah. Yeah, I think bureaucracy breaks down as soon as it gets something going. We’ve built it and now paperwork.
Theresa: But you know, sometimes it’s like the paperwork, it might be a slow moving beast, but it is a moving beast.
Angie: To some degree. Yeah, to some degree, I would have to agree with you on that, yeah.
Theresa: Okay, so we have the district committee, the central committees, the central committees in Belgrade, by the way, at the top of all of that, there’s a 10 member executive committee. And that’s led by a dude named Colonel Draguten Demitrivic. Now, he is known by oppies. So from here on out, I’m going to be calling him oppies.
Angie: Love is for me. I need you to have the visual that I have. Which is? Because I have six foot. Go ahead. I think my six foot two son loves it when he’s looking at me from the top of his bunk bed down because he says I look like a child with my hands up saying oppies.
Theresa: Okay, I’m grateful that that’s what you had to because that’s all I was hearing with a two year old going oppies, oppies. Apparently, oppies is an, he gets a nickname for his strength and stamina. Oh, okay. Which is incredibly different. Okay.
Yeah. So anybody in the black hand probably doesn’t know anybody above them except for maybe one superior and very few know anybody besides them outside of their own cell. Okay, so it’s very much like you can’t write anybody out that you don’t know. I mean, keeps everybody safe. Yeah. Now, are you ready for part of their oath that they say when they’re joining?
Angie: I can’t believe you have this information. Yes. Of course I have this information. Okay.
Theresa: Go. Part of the oath is before God on my honor and my life that I will execute all missions and commands without question. I swear before God on my honor on my life that I will take all of the secrets of this organization into my grave with me. Oh, they serious. They, they have big feelings and they have big plans.
And a no mountain high enough. Thanks for that. You’re welcome. I’m here just. Yep.
Just for that. I’m here. Now the black hand, they take over all of the terrorist organization or actions of national defense and they begin working deliberately at obscuring all distinctions between the two groups. Okay.
Okay. They’re trading on the prestige and the network of the older organization. So they’re like, yeah, they’re like, Hey, hey, we’re part of national defense, pre national defense. I mean, we’re different, but we’re also the same thing, you know, now. Black hand members are also holding high and important positions in the government and the army. Okay. So incredibly embedded.
Angie: Yeah. This is, I think how it works. You get them in there, dig those quads of the.
Theresa: The crown prince Alexander, he’s enthusiastic about their existence as well as a financial supporter. So they’ve got some pretty good backing. Yeah. Of course, this means that the group is holding some heavy influence over who gets appointed into positions of government as well as the policies that are passed.
Okay. Because they’ve, it’s all the way to the top. Yeah, this makes sense. Now it’s fair to say that the Serbian government is pretty well informed of all black hand activities as a result, despite them being secretive. Okay. So best kept secret, best kept open. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, I love it. Now we get some things that kind of fall apart because 1914, the black hand becomes a little bit in their fields with the prime minister, Nikola Pasek. And they, they don’t believe that Pasek is being aggressive enough towards this pancerbian cause or his pan Slavic.
Yeah, pancer, pancer of cause. Like they’re like, he could go harder. No, okay. And go big or go home. Basically. And so now they have this kind of power struggle about who’s going to control the territories that Serbia annex and the Balkan Wars, which are another thing that kind of leads up to this boiling point.
Now, basically, the prime minister is in this very difficult place because he knows that if he stands up and says no to the black hand, it’s dangerous because again, they have this really fun tool at their disposal called political assassinations and they really like it.
Theresa: It’s very fun. Good at it.
Angie: Yeah, you know, do, do, do what you’re good at.
Theresa: And so, you know, it’s later on, oppies is thinking, you know what we need to do that Archduke, Franz Ferdinand. I think we got to offer him, you know, he’s the heir apparent to Austria.
We should just take him out. This will be a good time. You know, the ruler of Austria is just this old fart who’s going to have to give it to his nephew because his kid died. So let’s, let’s just go after Franz Ferdinand. Nobody likes him anyhow.
Ferdinand’s an ass. We’d be doing everybody a favor. You get you the solid out of it, you know. So they’re like, okay, you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to recruit three young Bosnian serfs and we’re going to train them in bomb throwing and marksmanship.
Okay. And there’s like this little bit of nuance. I was like, this would have been so much more exciting and sophomore history had they like brought this part in. Because I’m like, you were trained in bomb throwing.
Angie: Well, yeah, I mean, honestly, when you think about it, there’s a lot of school level, like high school and middle school level history that would have been so much better than nuance was taught. Instead of just the dates and the names. I mean, like, if they to like,
Theresa: lean forward and whispered and then they taught them to throw bombs. I’d have been like, yeah, can you say that again for the kids in the back?
Theresa: What is the proper bomb throwing technique?
Angie: Is it the over the over?
Theresa: Do they honor the hand that is your dominant or do they force you to throw right handed? Like I need details. Yeah, honestly, you’re not wrong. Are you pulling the pen first? Is it a different kind of thing?
Angie: Yeah, I mean, I wish I knew people have answers.
Theresa: They should, but they’re like, and then Freddie, will you read the next paragraph? But no, no, go back one. Go back one. Okay. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Prinsip, Gabrinovic and Grabes, they’re the first that are recruited. They’re the three that we, you know, the ones in the history books that are now. We come to know. Yeah. They’re smuggled across the border into Bosnia via a chain of underground railroad style contacts.
Angie: Nothing is new in this world. Nothing is new.
Theresa: Okay. Now, it’s Api’s who decides to apparently like killing the Archduke. That’s his idea. He should get credit for it. But it’s also incredibly not sanctioned by the full executive committee. He kind of goes rogue here.
Angie: I mean, it honestly checks when you think about how World Wars operant that it would start rogue.
Theresa: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the executive committee, they probably realized the reason why they probably didn’t sign off on it is they’re like, ooh, you know what, this is going to end regardless of France for now just being a putz and needing to go out. It’s going to result in a war between Austria and Serbia and they’re kind of bigger and we really don’t think Russia is going to stand behind us. Even though Russia should fight with us, they may set this one out. And if they do, even at all a little bit, we’re going to get our asses handed to us. But they’re like not anticipating World War because we’ve never had one. This wasn’t even on the option.
This wasn’t on anybody’s bingo cards. Right. Now, other in the government, they and some in the Black Hand Executive Council, they’re not as confident in Russia’s aid. They’re, they kind of sense Russia may be wanting to just set this out. Like they got some little pebbles before the boulder. They’re like, I don’t know. Russia, Russia seems sus here.
Angie: Now, Russia says they want to go home. Yeah.
Theresa: Russia said something about an 8am meeting tomorrow in Moscow and that they may not need to stay out too late tonight. Yeah. Yeah. Now, apparently, Russia had let them down, like in the, in recent history. So this is kind of what they had going for them. And then when word of this plot that is bubbling up goes through the Black Hand leadership and then to the Serbian government, Opus is told, don’t proceed. Shut it down. Full stop. Now, Opus kind of makes this little half-assed attempt to intercept the young assassins at the border, but oh shucks, they’d already crossed.
Angie: Darn it. I tried. I do move quickly these, you know? Yeah.
Theresa: My, these knees ain’t what they used to be. And yeah. So it’s very weaponized and competent as far as I’m concerned.
Angie: I love weaponizing competence.
Theresa: So this half-assed recall kind of makes Opus look like he’s a loose cannon and that these young assassins are these little independent zealots.
Angie: Well, I mean, that kind of is what it looks like.
Theresa: Honestly, you know, here’s the crazier part. The recall happened two weeks before the Archduke’s visit.
Angie: Two weeks. Now you mean to tell me you couldn’t get a fax or a pulling pigeon or something over the border to let them know?
Theresa: You couldn’t send a half-hoppled horse?
Angie: Yeah, seriously. I don’t think our boy at these is trying very hard.
Theresa: Yeah, I would, I’d go in on a limb and just say, he kind of went, oh no. Anyhow, what are we having for dinner? What are we having for dinner? So this is all going on. The assassins are idling around Sarajevo for an entire month. It’s ridiculous. And nothing, nothing is done to stop them. In fact, they have this incredible network that smuggle them in and then are feeding and housing them
Angie: and giving them the time of their life while they’re in Sarajevo.
Theresa: And nothing is utilized to stop them.
Angie: Okay. They couldn’t send a text message. Couldn’t Facebook message them? No. Drop into their DMs? Nothing.
Theresa: Mark, safe if you’ve abandoned the plot to assassinate the Archduke.
Angie: That needs to be the meme here for us.
Theresa: So all of this is happening. And so this kind of calls into question, how strong is the desire for the government to actually stop this plot? Because it seems like they really don’t give a crap.
Angie: Well, honestly, if Abbie fails and nobody proceeded after him to try to stop it, they’re not looking like they’re too hot about it, you know?
Theresa: They do have a couple more attempts I’m going to get into. Oh, okay. And they’re always going to leave you with more of the, what? What? Okay. So the government, the armies, they all fully know what the Black Hand’s doing. They’re all in on this game of telephone.
The Prime Minister, when he learns about the assassination plot, he goes, ooh crap. I kind of got this big problem in my hands because if I do nothing and they succeed, the Black Hand’s going to come to light. And then I’m going to be in death.
Okay. Now, if he stops it, now the Black Hand’s going to be pissed off at him. And he’s still going to be in Dutch. And he’s still going to be in Dutch. So he’s up a creek without a paddle, the whole nine, okay? Now, there’s this connection between the Black Hand, the Serbian government.
Serbia is going to be in a bad position. Okay. This is just going to be what it is. And it’s going to, he’s like, you know what? This is just going to end with War of Blastria. I might as well just send a cannon now, kind of deal, like this sucks.
Angie: Now, he’s like, send a bigger bomb?
Theresa: I just, I just honestly, just your own head in a box. Here you go. My bad. So sorry. Yeah. Now he’s like, ooh, should I, should I warn the Austrians of the plot? Because if I do, my countrymen are going to kind of see me as a traitor.
But then I’m admitting to a deeper anti-Austrian action in Serbia, which means that they’re going to be super angry at me. Like he’s, he’s in the worst place. I can only imagine this man’s indigestion.
Angie: I was just thinking his irritable vowels. You’re right. Yeah.
Theresa: I mean, it’s same, same. It’s all connected now so that there’s that weak ass attempt to intersect the assassin to the border, which fails. And when it fails, he decides, well, maybe I’m going to try to warn the Austrians in maybe a very vague diplomatic way so that I don’t expose the black hand.
Okay. And he’s like, okay. So he gets ahold of the Serbian minister to Vienna. And he’s like, look, your task, warn the Austrians. That’s your job. Warn the Austrians.
But don’t say anything about the black hand. So now this guy has some very extremist pancer abuse. And he’s not well received by the Austrian Foreign Ministry services. I mean, what do you need of a diplomat? You need him to get along with that specific office, right?
Angie: Typically, that would be what you hope, like, they’re supposed to speak the language, they’re supposed to understand the customs.
Theresa: So apparently, he spits in the face of everybody there and his only friend is the Minister of Finance,
Angie: which feels like the last person you want to go to and say, hey, maybe keep you at a duke. It seems it’s going to rain in Sarajevo.
Theresa: His entire visit. The weather is going to be deplorable. For weeks.
Angie: What you can’t see is Theresa and I’s faces at each other. Yeah, it’s going to be raining men. It’s raining men.
Theresa: It’s raining men. You shouldn’t send them to Sarajevo.
Angie: Now, I heard there’s going to be a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm. On Tuesday.
Theresa: So, June 5th, the Serbian Minister tells the Minister of Finance that it might be good and reasonable if Franz Ferdinand were not to go to Sarajevo. Quote, some young Serb might put a live rather than a blank cartridge in his gun and fire it.
Angie: So, are we just out shooting blanks for funsies anyway? That sounds like it’s happened before.
Theresa: Yeah, that sounds like that’s just common practice, just to fire blanks while pointing it at another human. For example.
Angie: Of high-ranking stature.
Theresa: Yeah, that’s what you do. Now, the Minister of Finance, because he is in the accounting department and not a part of diplomatic services, he doesn’t recognize this as maybe a subtle diplomatic innuendo. And so, he misses the warning completely and just responds with, let us hope nothing like that happens.
Idiot. And he just like dood dood dood. And the Serbian Minister is like, ooh, maybe he didn’t understand. But does he double down? Does he repeat himself? Does he say maybe the birds will have diarrhea in flight and migrate over his path? No, no, he doesn’t say a damn thing. He just goes, anyhow, it’s another bottle of champagne.
Would you like some quenipais? So, literally everybody in Serbia at this point is phoning it in, as far as I’m concerned. Yeah, I think you’re right. So we have the three Black Hand trainees. They made their way to Sarajevo and a month before Franz Ferdinand gets there, there’s a fourth man named Denlio Illeg and he joined the group on his own. Then we have the three recruited and then there’s…
Angie: I have a question. Yeah. And I don’t know if there’s an answer for this, but are they in Sarajevo for that whole month before just like if the idea to prep or in hopes that he’ll come sooner or like why are we there so far ahead of time? I don’t… My assumption is prep.
Theresa: I mean prep feels really hard. Like prep feels like the right answer, but how hard are you prepping? You know what I mean? Like what do you need to be prepped so hard?
Angie: Well, I think in this case they weren’t prepping, but in other cases snipers would be, I don’t know, checking their marked locations and how the wind works there and the height of the buildings. There’s like all kinds of things to check. I feel like these guys are not. I think they’re probably checked out.
Theresa: Yeah, I think checked out is probably the best way to put it because they recruit three others. They recruit Vaso Kubilovic, Cevetsko Popovic and their 17 year old high school students. Oh, okay. Okay. Like I did not realize in high school they had 17 year olds in this plot.
Angie: I didn’t know that. That’s my son’s age. Uh-huh. He’s not a plot nothing, but where dinner comes from? You would think. You would think. Holy cow. I’m such a time to be alive, I guess.
Theresa: There’s also another human, a third one, Mahmoud Mahmed Basik, a Bosnian Muslim who’s, and he’s added basically to give the group less of a pan-surb appearance. So he’s trying to round out to be the diverse folks at the table. Okay. There, they’ve got six Serbian Army pistols, no, four Serbian Army pistols and six bombs that are supplied from the Serbian Army arsenal. So each has a bomb. Four of them have guns. Okay.
Okay. Now we’re going to zoom out to Franz Ferdinand. He accepts the invitation of Bosnian’s governor. Now, he’s going to be there to inspect the Army maneuvers that are being held right outside of Sarajevo. This is kind of his exact role because he is the inspector general of the Army, and this is just a logical outcropping of this.
Angie: This is what you would do with that job. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
Theresa: And it’s also been four years since a prominent Hasbrook has visited Bosnian on a Goodwill trip. Okay.
Angie: So this is serving multiple purposes? Yes.
Theresa: Now, literally, the visit also coincides with Franz Ferdinand’s 14th wedding anniversary?
Angie: Okay. I didn’t know that.
Theresa: Now, I mean, like again, like this is all the things once you hear like, oh, holy crap. Now, his wife Sophie, she’s not of royal blood. Like, she’s blue blood, but not quite like I would have inherited the kingdom. And so she’s not permitted to ride in the same car as her royal husband back in Vienna. That’s stupid.
It is stupid. Now, these taboos, they don’t apply when you travel outside to these provincial areas. So if you go to Sarajevo, there’s certain things that are just looked the other way. You’re allowed to get away of some of the bizarre little bit of etiquette. So she was stoked because she’s going to be able to ride in the car next to her husband on their anniversary. And for her, this is a pretty thoughtful anniversary gift. Okay. That’s when you know your standards are low.
Angie: Yeah. Now, I’m just thinking about how I’ve never once been, oh, I could ride in the car next to my husband on her anniversary. Yeah. What a gift. What a treat. Thank you.
Theresa: So apparently, so this should go without saying she’s not received well at court because of her heritage at all.
Angie: For a bit of girl have normal life.
Theresa: Yeah. Oh, and when, when friends for Nana’s told he’s going to be the next, you know, to take the crown, he’s told his kids, Sophie’s kids won’t be in the line of the session. Okay. Now, I should also let you know that everybody also kind of hates France for them. That wasn’t shopping.
Angie: So they’re the shitty power couple.
Theresa: Got it. Okay. And I feel like we lose that nuance. Like my history teacher didn’t say they suck ass. Nobody likes mine. Neither.
Angie: My mind in fact never even said Sophie’s name. Here we go.
Theresa: Yeah. So it should go without saying because this whole thing has been a shit show that security is not of the utmost priority when they go to Sierra Eva. Shocking. Now it’s so okay. Franz Ferdinand. He’s brave, but he dislikes the presence of secret servicemen. So brave and stupid.
Angie: That’s a great combination.
Theresa: He also doesn’t like the idea of soldiers between the crowd and himself. Right. Okay. That makes sense. We’re sensing.
Angie: He wants to be seen as a man of the people. Yeah. So for the most part, he’s welcomed warmly by the Bosnians. Sarajevo is not hostile. So he’s like, look, there’s a lot of things we don’t need for this.
Theresa: We can kind of, we don’t need to do all that. Sorry. I don’t like the sense because I am easygoing and they love me anyhow. So he thinks. Now. The arrangements that were made are not based on the assumption that the streets are going to be lined with assassins, which is an incredibly important thing to think about.
They’re like, you know what, ain’t nobody going to. You’re good. So Sarajevo at this point only has 120 policemen there who are going to work this.
Three city in the whole of the city. Okay. Yeah. So it’s around 10 a.m. and the Arch Ducal party leaves the army camp where Franz Ferdinand had performed a brief review of the troops. So he did a thing and the motorcade consists of six motor vehicles that headed for city hall for a reception that’s hosted by the mayor.
There’s a chosen route down this really wide avenue called Apple Key and it followed the north bank of the river. The first automobile you have the mayor, the city’s commissioner of police and in the second automobile at the top folded down flying the Hapsford pennant road, Franz Ferdinand, Sophie and a general. The driver is the car’s owner whose account and he obviously rides in front because he’s the driver. Now the third automobile in the procession carried the head of France’s military, Sophie’s lady in waiting, the general’s chief adjunct, adjunct.
Angie: Wait, the head of the military for Ferdinand, right? Yeah. Okay. I thought you said for France’s military and I’m like, why Franz? Well, Franz is Franz Ferdinand.
Theresa: I’ll go by his first name, not Franz. Sorry. Good. Thank you for calling that out because I would have heard it in post and gone. Well, great. What do I do now?
Angie: I didn’t invite this party. Yeah. There’s no croissants in this deal. Franz, you stay home.
Theresa: Okay. So basically a bunch of notable but not top brass, well top brass but not the headliners. Right. Okay. And the sixth automobile is empty. It’s a spare in case something happens, right?
Okay. So it’s a warm sunny morning because it’s the best day for parade because nobody said it was going to ring. Many of the houses and buildings are lined. They’re decorated flags, flowers. Everything is just swept beautiful.
It’s an incredible small, low European city. It’s going to be gorgeous. There’s crowds that are lining. Everyone wants to see the imperial couple. And then you’ve got the assassins strung out throughout the group. Okay.
They take up their assigned positions. The first in line is Mokhmet Basik. And he’s to the west of the bridge.
Near him we have Cabrinovich and the others are all the way out to another bridge called the Kaiser Bridge. Now the motorcade approaches the crowd and the crowd begins to cheer. Franz Ferdinand’s car passes Mokhmet Basik and he freezes. This guy just stalls, doesn’t do a damn thing. The next man in line.
Angie: Well, he was there just as the token diverse, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Not to say that that’s an excuse and that’s not exactly why he was there. But if I was just called to be there because I was the one white lady in the group, I might just walk away.
Theresa: I mean, I think if you’re the first person in the group, the chance of you breaking is more likely. The one next to you going, I can’t break because they broke. Fair.
Angie: So fair. And I mean, why are we doing this? Like, what is, yeah. Yeah. So fair.
Theresa: Like, I kind of feel bad that we know the dude’s name. Yeah. Now, okay. So all that to say, could bring the Vic, he ends up having a bit more chutzpah in him, if that’s the right word to use here. He takes the bomb from his coat pocket. He strikes the bomb’s percussion cap against the lamp post, takes aim and lobs it. As he’s lobbing it, the bomb is flying through the air.
There’s a ton of things that take place all at once. The count, who’s the driver of the car, he hears the bomb that hits the lamp post to strike the percussion cap. He thinks they had a flat tire. Someone yells, bravo, now we have to stop. The driver who had seen the object flying, he does the opposite.
He slams his foot on the gas and he just goes as fast as he can. As a result, the bombed-in lamp was supposed to go. So he saved his life.
Exactly. Now, Franz Ferdinand, he catches a glimpse of this thing going through the air. He raises his arm, deflects it away from Sophie, who is sitting to his right. So Franz Ferdinand strikes the bomb with his arm and the bomb glances off his arm nuts.
Angie: I had no idea that ever happened. Right?
Theresa: Okay, it goes off his arm under the folded car top, into the street behind them, and then the explosion injures about a dozen spectators. The third car’s hit with fragments and it stalls. So one of the guys receives a cut in the back of his head.
The others in the party, they had minor cuts. Okay? Now, the first and second cars continue on for a few moments and then they stop and they assess whether everybody’s injured or not.
Okay. Cabrinovic, the guy who threw the bomb, he had some cyanide tablet that he was given for when things hit the fan. He takes it and jumps into the river. A couple of problems with this. The cyanide he was given was old. So it only made him vomit and the river’s only a few inches deep.
Angie: You were there for a whole month and you didn’t know the river’s only a few inches deep.
Theresa: You know, look, they were drunk at the time. There were other things to be, like there were public houses available.
Angie: There were other things to do.
Theresa: I got it. Right, I got it. Yeah. So the crowd sees as them, they arrest him and the motorcade continues on to City Hall passing by the other assassins. Okay.
Now, they either thought that Cabrinovic had succeeded or they failed to act and froze up as well. Unclear. Okay. Okay.
At City Hall, Fransford Mandet has some big feelings about all of this and he confronts the mayor. I mean, fair. I mean, I would, my adrenaline would be a little high. My heart rate would be a bit up there and I would probably spout out and say some stuff because you turned the oven on. I’m going to cook. I love that phrase.
Good for you. So Fransford Mandet says, and I quote, Mr. Mayor, one comes here for a visit and is received by bombs. It is outrageous. I think I’d have gone a bit harder. But here we are.
Here are some trees. Now, after a pause, he regains himself and he let the mayor speak. The mayor, either completely unaware of what’s happened or maybe he’s just ill-equipped for crisis and he had one stump speech and this wasn’t it.
He launched into his prepared speech to the crowd, your royal and imperial highness, our hearts are full of happiness. That’s how it starts. Wow. Yeah. His improv skills were not up to snuff.
Angie: I don’t think he actually knew what improv was. No, no.
Theresa: Probably, I’m hoping, was also unaware that this guy just had a bomb lobbed at him.
Angie: I mean, I think he’d be pretty aware after he said that. He said when he got there, but, you know, hey, yeah, but either way,
Theresa: either way, mistakes from it, which I think is the title of the entire episode. And yes, I would have to agree. By the end of the mayor’s speech, for the end, he’s regained his composure completely. He thanks the mayor for the cordial welcome and the activities go on as planned.
Of course they do. Now, there’s discussions happening about do we change everything that we had planned coming up because, I mean, this wasn’t a fascination attempt. And the R-student is like, no, no, we’re not going to cancel the visit to the museum and the lunch at the governor’s residence.
That’s going to happen. But we will do a slight deviation because I want to go visit my man, Marisi, at the hospital who got the cut on the back of his head. All right. That makes sense. Yeah. So that feels noble.
That feels honorable. So the same motorcade goes out along the same route, but neither the mayor’s driver nor Franz Ferdinand’s driver had been informed of the change of schedule because that would have been the do-in-the-hospital’s job. And the do-in-the-hospital is in the hospital. So we took out a key chunk. Now, the young assassins, they didn’t have a plan B.
They had planned, like, somebody on this route will just take him out. We’ve all failed now. And, yeah.
Okay. So they had no idea that Franz Ferdinand was going to follow his original itinerary. And so they all took up kind of various positions along the key. Gavriel Princip, he crosses the key and strolls down Franz Joseph Street, and he steps into Marie Schiller’s food store to get a sandwich. It’s my favorite part of the whole story.
And as he emmers, he meets a friend who inquired about a mutual friend. Hey, have you seen our man? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pietro or whatever it is. You know, like, they’re just shooting the shit. Now, the mayor’s car, followed by Franz Ferdinand’s car, they turn off of a pel-qui, a pel-qui, onto Franz Joseph Street as originally planned to travel in the museum. And that’s where the general leans forward. And he says, what is this? This is the wrong way.
We were supposed to take a pel-qui. Now, the driver put on the brakes and began to back up. And the car stopped literally in front of Schiller’s store five feet away from Princip.
Angie: It is so wild to me that, like, this is the part of the story I’m familiar with, and I can’t… It always just kind of sits there in the back of my mind that, like, this happened on accident. Yeah. Yeah.
Theresa: Now, Princip, standing there, and I can only imagine sandwich in hand.
Angie: The whole hoagie. I’m seeing it. Yeah, right.
Theresa: And he’s kind of like, oh crap, I see what’s going on here. And then he pulls his pistol from his pocket, takes a step towards the car, and fires twice. The general looks directly at Princip as he fired, and he thought the report was a little quiet. And so both Sousferdinand and Sophie are still sitting upright. So the general thinks the shots missed, given the assault, and ordered the driver to drive directly to the governor’s residence.
Angie: Okay. Did not… Was not aware of that part.
Theresa: Princip then turns the gun himself, but gets mobbed by the crowd, and police had to come rescue Princip from the crowd before they could arrest him. Now, Princip had also followed the poison, but it came from the same batch as Convrilovich, so he becomes violently ill, but doesn’t die. Okay.
Angie: Now… What is the point of cyanide, if all it’s going to do is make you violently ill?
Theresa: I mean, if you’re just trying to fake death, not the… That’s the way to go, but if you’re trying to end it, yeah, maybe not suffer unduly. So the car goes across the bridge, there’s blood streaming from Princip’s mouth. He’d been shot in the neck. Sophie, seeing this, explained for heaven’s sakes what happened to you, and she sank from her seat. The general and the driver thought that they had fainted, and were trying to help… Or thought she’d fainted and tried to help her up.
Francford had, knowing his wife better, suspected the truth. Sophie had been shot in the abdomen and was bleeding internally. So he cries out, Sophie, dear, Sophie, dear, don’t die. Stay alive for our children. Mmm.
Devastating. I mean, checks. Now, the black hand and their involvement wouldn’t get unraveled for several years to come, and Vienna felt that they shouldn’t have to wait for conclusive proof that they had enough circumstantial evidence to just go for it.
Okay. So they took a hard line to get Serbia and the other powers of Europe begin to take sides. And everyone’s like, look, you know, you remember the last time you were shot, you remember this? We traded sandwiches for Doritos. You’re on my team.
You said you hate so-and-so, so you’re on my team. Gang rules. Mm-hmm.
Yep. Now, the wheels of war begin to turn in game speed. The stakes kind of keep growing, and this squabble gets bigger and bigger. And it ends up becoming less about the Archduke, Ferdinand, and Sophie being shot, and more just about these tensions. Like, they begin to refer to it as the July crisis, not the assassination of the Archduke. Okay. Because they’re like, look, we hated them anyhow. This guy’s been a pain in the ass for years.
Angie: And so that was one of those things where I was like, oh, oh.
Angie: Now, the involvement- Yeah, I kind of-that’s funny. I kind of thought, like, up to this point that he was like the beloved son of, and it was-and that’s why. No. It was just a devastating blow that Dad was like, absolutely not to war.
Theresa: The beloved son, he ended up killing himself. Of course. And so then they had nobody else, and Frans Ferdinand was like the next in line as like the nephew, and he’s like, well, put down the comic book and drop them out and do, and I suppose, I guess, you can sit on the throne when I kick it. Do we know the name of the beloved son? I think that was Frans Joseph. I think. I’m not quite sure. Now that you asked me, I can’t-off air, I seem to be stopped recording. I’ll be like, oh yeah, so and so. But right now, I’m like, I don’t know.
Angie: I don’t remember. No, no, no, you asked me on the spot. This wasn’t in my notes. I-I sped up. Yeah.
Theresa: So you get the panic dancer, not the real one. Yeah. I’ll Google it later. It’s fine. That’s good. We can Google it now, but I’d lose my steam. But basically, like, it takes a ton of time for everything in the black hand to come to the top, because everybody else is too busy being like, well, I hated you for years, and I hated you since that. And then you stepped on that borderline, and that was part of my territory, and we should have gotten that first. But that is how a small secret organization started World War I. Thank you for that. Oh, and I should mention that this black hand is not a secret organization called the black hand that I mentioned during Mrs. Sherlock Holmes’ episode.
Angie: You know what? That’s so funny. I had to go back and look through one of my episodes, because I thought that one of the secret organizations I had talked about was a black hand, but it was a black dragon. Yeah, no.
Theresa: So there’s been a couple of black hands. This is-this is not that one. And also, part of the problems leading up between Austria and Serbia was a pig war, but it wasn’t the pig war that we talked about in American history.
This one was not near as petty. Yeah, so there’s like a lot of the- Sad. Wait, what? No, not that one. Serbia didn’t care about the Americans versus the British shooting each other’s pigs.
Angie: It’s only happened twice, but it’s just weird that it’s happened more than once. Yeah. Yeah.
Theresa: So that’s been kind of what’s been running through my brain as I’m like trying to tease all of this apart, being like, but wait a minute, who was Uppies again? You know? Uppies. Yeah. He was Uppies.
Angie: He was Uppies. I wonder what happened to him. Oh crap. I don’t remember.
Theresa: I feel like I knew that and then I didn’t put it down.
Angie: I bet you he lived the rest of his life in like marginal obscurity and died like old.
Theresa: Well, I mean maybe because they did go to war, right? And he was a high-ranking dude in the government.
Angie: Okay, so I could go both ways.
Theresa: So yeah, I can’t say I know fully what happened to him.
Angie: Either way, thank you. That was awesome. My pleasure. You’ve made my day.
Theresa: Yeah. So that was just a lot of the, and I tried so hard to take so many names out because it was just like, well, this person’s important for a paragraph. Yeah.
Angie: Yeah. No, that makes sense. No, I think you did a fabulous job. Well, thank you.
Theresa: And I think we have like an awkward amount of time where it’s like this could be an entire episode.
Angie: I think we’ll have like five minutes.
Theresa: Yeah, pretty much because I can’t say I paid attention to when we started. We started just after one. Oh. Yeah, so you’re good. Oh wow, this wasn’t a entire episode then. Okay, well on that note, it’s you’re thinking, holy crap, I can’t wait until they told us about Uppies. Does Down get a story?
Angie: Tune in next week. Downies get to be here?
Theresa: Yeah, like, rate, review, subscribe, share us with our favorite person who you know would probably start a secret organization to lead to a next world war. We all have that one friend that’s a little unhinged.
Angie: Or the one friend that’s totally a little unhinged and would stop and get a sandwich on their way when it’s vaccination. I’m that friend. Look, we’ve got time for snacks. Oh, we always have time for snacks. And if you have time for snacks, welcome to the club. Yeah, we can be friends. And on that note, goodbye.
Theresa: Bye.
Unhinged History 
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