Gavrilo Princip
Sobriquet: Ductus.
Appearance:
Background: Gavrilo Princip was born in Obljaj, a poor part of Bosnia, which was then in the Austria-Hungary empire. His parents, Petar, a postman, and Marija had nine children, six of whom died in infancy. His impoverished parents could not provide for him and sent him to live with an older brother in Zagreb, now the capital of Croatia.
On October 6th 1908, Bosnia-Herzegovina was declared a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire by Emperor Franz Joseph. This created a stir among Slavic people of southern Europe and the Russian Tsar who opposed the annexation.
In February 1912, Gavrilo took part in protest demonstrations against the Sarajevo authorities for which he was expelled from school. Following his expulsion, he moved to Belgrade. There, he sought to gain admission to the First Belgrade Gymnasium but failed the entrance exam.
In 1912, many Serbs were being mobilized for the First Balkan War. Gavrilo planned to join the Komite (an irregular Serbian guerrilla force and secret society for Unification or Death) "Ujedinjenje ili Smrt", also known as the "Black Hand." Gavrilo, however, was rejected by the Komite in Belgrade because of his small physical stature.
Gavrilo then went to Prokuplje in Southern Serbia where he sought a personal interview with Serbian Major Vojislav Tankosić. Major Tankosić, however, rejected Gavrilo on a similar basis (Gavrilo was a victim of tuberculosis), but offered him another, secret way to show his patriotism.
Major Tankosić had recently interviewed other Serbian patriots who had contracted the fatal disease and as one of the highest ranking members of the Serbian "Black Hand" had hatched a plan to use these "walking dead" to assassinate the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria upon his announced visit to Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914.
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