it; the conflict produced daily melees between people and police. Russian strikes stopped factory wheels from Moscow to Tiflis. The Duma at St. Petersburg had become so rowdy that even the nicely cravated Alexander Kerensky of the usually well-behaved Labor Party had to be escorted from the chamber for causing a disruption.
But it was Serbia-Russia's protege, Austria's bane-that shook with the most severe domestic turmoil. In Serbia the opposition between the two most powerful political camps sharpened toward a showdown. Prime Minister Pasic led one side; his Radical Party stood for measured nationalism. As nationalist, Pasic proclaimed Serbia's right to defend her interests (and pocketed, some said, commissions from the French firm Schneider- Creuzot, which was producing arms for Serbia's defense). But as a man of measure, Pasic feared that excessive action against Austria would risk a crisis before Serbia was ready. He suspected that zealots, mostly officers, would use war to usurp the government.
Pasic's chief opponent was the chief zealot: Colonel Apis, officially head of Army Intelligence, secretly leader of the Black Hand. Apis would accept nothing less than the most drastic fulfillment of the Serb cause, above all the breaking of Habsburg chains that bound Slav brethren in Austrian Bosnia.
In the spring of 1914, Belgrade simmered with the incompatibility between Pasic and Apis. The Prime Minister dismissed Apis's main supporter in the cabinet, Minister of War Milos Bozanovic. Apis's side retaliated through the periodical Pijemont. 'A gang of men without conscience,' it said about Pasic's party in May 1914, '… this government cannot be tolerated for a moment or rebellion will break out in our country.' Apis had no public connection to the paper publishing the attack. Yet Belgrade recognized him as the target of the counterattack when the Minister of the Interior banned Pije- mont. Gendarmes summoned from the countryside patrolled Belgrade's streets: Serbia's other armed force had been alerted against an army coup.
Vienna took note of Serb frictions but not of their deeper implications. Just at the end of May, the Chief of Austrian Intelligence-the one man in Vienna most likely to know Belgrade behind the scenes-retired abruptly. Apis's Habsburg counterpart, Colonel 'Ostrymiecz' von Urbanski, was pensioned off. (The War Ministry did not deny rumors that he had been caught selling to a film producer memorabilia of his late associate Colonel Redl, the famous and now posthumously cinemagenic traitor.) The loss of its director disoriented Austria's information gathering service. Yet even at its best it would not have sniffed out an event in Belgrade of which not even the Serbian Prime Minister had an inkling.
Underground, in the cellar of a shabby house, three young men went through a ceremony whose consequences would explode over millions of square miles of the world above.
On the night of May 27, 1914, Gavrilo Princip and his two disciples walked down seven steps on Krakjice Natalije Street into a small room in the basement. They were met by a figure robed and hooded in black.
'Who among you three speaks for the others?'
'I do,' said Princip, the youngest and smallest.
'Do you know one important reason why you are going to execute this mission?'
'Because the Archduke Franz Ferdinand is the oppressor of our people.'
'Do you know when you are going to execute this mission?'
'When the oppressor comes to Sarajevo.'
'When will that be?'
'On June 28. That is another important reason-that day. He dares to come there on St. Vitus Day.'
'And what is a third important reason?'
Princip hesitated. He knew that on St. Vitus Day, June 28 of the year 1389, a Serb hero had penetrated the lines of the conquering Turkish army to stab its generalissimo Sultan Murad to death, thereby establishing the date for the Serbian national holiday. He knew that the appearance of a Habsburg prince on South Slav soil on just that day was a sneer at Serb pride and a second important reason for vengeance. But Princip could not think of still another important reason.
'There are many reasons,' he said.
'We do not expect you to know that other special reason,' the black hood said. 'Very few people know it. Colonel Apis knows it. The Archduke has a special weapon. He will use it if we let him come to power. He will use the lie of moderation to steal our people's sympathy. Then he will oppress us doubly. You did not know that?'
'No,' Princip said.
'Even in our country the Prime Minister uses the lie of moderation to keep himself in power. Did you know that?'
'I have heard of it.'
'Are you ready to fight such liars with all means?'
'Yes.'
'Are the three of you ready?'
'Yes.'
Pause.
'You may go into the next room.'
The next room was lit by a single candle on a table draped in black, against walls also draped in black. The candle flickered at three men sitting behind the table in black robes and black hoods. Before them, arranged in a circle around the flame, lay an unsheathed dagger, a skull, a crucifix, a revolver, a bottle with a death's head label. This was the altar of Smrt ili Zivot, the Bosnian arm of Colonel Apis's Black Hand.
The black hood in the middle motioned the three youths to step forward. Line by line he began to recite the oath, which they repeated after him, line by line:
'I swear by the holiness of the cross…'
'I swear by the preciousness of liberty…'
'I swear by the sun that warms me. '
'And the earth that nourishes me…'
`7 swear by God in heaven. '
'By my ancestors' blood…'
'By my honor and my life…'
'As true as I am a Serb and a man. '
'That from this day on until the moment of my death…'
'I shall remain faithful to every law of this organization…'
' I shall be ever r e a d y to s a c r i f i c e f o r it…'
'To suffer for it. '
' T o die f o r it…'
'And I swear to take all its secrets with me to the grave…'
The hooded men rose to their feet. Each man reached into the pocket of his black robe. Each pulled out a little cardboard box. Each box contained a capsule of cyanide. The three hooded men handed the three little boxes to the three youths. Each of the hooded three embraced each of the youths. Not another word was spoken. The candle was blown out. The three hooded men remained in the dark. The three youths groped toward the door.
The next morning, on Thursday, May 28, 1914, Princip and his two companions boarded a steamer anchored at a Bel grade dock. They carried small suitcases and wore loose overcoats. Under his coat, each of the three had two bombs tied around his waist. Each also carried a revolver in one trouser pocket, ammunition in a second pocket, and in a third, instantly handy, the capsule of cyanide.
It was a misty, sleepy day. Slowly the ship began to plow upstream on the river Sava, westward toward Sarajevo.
Eight days later, on June 5, his excellency Jovan Jovanovic, the Serbian envoy to Vienna, bowed himself into the gold-onwhite rococo of the office of the Habsburg Minister of Finance Leon von Bilinski. For intricate Viennese reasons Bilinski doubled as Minister in charge of the Austrian province of Bosnia-Hercegovina; in that capacity he ushered his visitor to a chair. Bosnia abutted on Serbia, and the visitor had come on a queasy errand.
After an exchange of courtesies all the more elaborate for the tension between the two countries, Jovanovic ceremonially cleared his throat. It was his duty, he said, to express a certain concern of the Royal Serb Government, namely the forthcoming participation of His Imperial Highness the Arch duke Franz Ferdinand at Austrian Army exercises to be held in the Sarajevo area. Since these exercises were to take place in territory
