Free Republic

A monument to Gavrilo Princip was unveiled on Sunday in Belgrade in the presence of Serbian and RS [Republika Srpska in Bosnia] presidents Tomislav Nikolic and Milorad Dodik. Princip was a member of the Young Bosnia (Mlada Bosna) movement in the early 20th century, who on Vidovdan (St. Vitus Day, June 28) 1914 in Sarajevo assassinated Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. “Gavrilo Princip was a hero, a symbol of the idea of freedom, the assassin of tyrants and the carrier of the European idea of liberation from slavery,” Nikolic said at the ceremony. As far as Germany and Austria-Hungary were concerned,...

The German invaders occupied Sarajevo on April 15, 1941. Two days later, the local population looted and torched the Grand Synagogue. And on April 19, the local Germans (Volksdeutsche) removed a memorial plaque to Gavrilo Princip; it was sent to Hitler as a trophy and birthday gift. In 1930, a memorial plaque was erected above the street corner where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, with the following inscription: “At this historic place Gavrilo Princip heralded freedom on Vidov-Dan, June 15 [28] June 1914” (Serbian: „На овом историјском мјесту, Гаврило Принцип навијести слободу, на Видов-дан 15 [28] јуна 1914“) The...

Serbia’s government is commissioning a statue to honor Gavrilo Princip, the boy-assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Novosti, Serbia’s largest newspaper, revealed this week. To avoid any speculation about its intended symbolism, the statue will be erected atop the Belgrade Fortress on June 28, the 100th anniversary of Princip’s fateful gunshots, which, conventional wisdom holds, ushered in World War I. “Serbia and the Serbian people are thus righting a wrong committed against Princip, who has never before had a monument dedicated to him,” writes the pro-government paper.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife descend the steps of the City Hall, Sarajevo, and innocent bystander Ferdinand Behr, inset Photo: © IWM History has not been kind to the teenager who triggered the First World War by assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand on a sunny Sunday morning in Sarajevo. So colossal was the impact of his actions and so modest his backwoodsman background that the story of Gavrilo Princip has often been overlooked, misrepresented and misunderstood. Muddled theories, often as batty as they are unverifiable, have circulated ever since Princip fired his Browning 9mm pistol on June 28,...

...Another Model 1910 is one of the most notorious weapons in history. That pistol was used in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914 by the 19 year-old Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip to assassinate Austrian Arch-duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife – the event that triggered the First World War. As it happens, I’ve been thinking about Princip lately – not the pathetic little man – but what he represents. When, amazed at his luck that the Imperial motorcade had stalled in front of him, Princip pulled out that pistol and started shooting, he unknowingly tripped a series of switches in palaces...

IT WAS a shot that echoed round the world. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand - heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire - was assassinated in the Balkan city of Sarajevo more than 90 years ago it heralded the beginning of the most brutal conflict the world has ever seen. Yet during this week of remembrance commemorations which culminates in Remembrance Sunday on November 14, a Hampshire man has made an incredible discovery. Historian, Brian Presland, from Chandler's Ford visited the Vienna Military Museum where the car which the archduke took his last fatal drive is preserved to this day. When he got...

The war we're losing Posted: June 30, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc. June 28, the day in 2004 that the Americans transferred sovereignty to Iraqis and proconsul Paul Bremer hastily departed Baghdad, is a day freighted with historic significance. On June 28, 1914, 90 years before, Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip fired the shots that killed the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and led, five weeks later, to World War I. On June 28, 1919, German representatives, their country under an Allied starvation blockade, prostrate before a threat by Marshal Foch to march on Berlin, signed the Versailles...