would pull out his gun to practice his marksmanship on starlings and finches, then order the others to follow suit.
In Sarajevo itself, Princip drew on Ilic's expertise in devising a surface of innocuous urban adolescence. Princip was a celibate, nonsmoking, nondrinking, murder-intoxicated teenager. He and his friends spent their evenings as normal youths who chased pleasure through the lovely summer nights. They hung about a wine shop popular with the lads and lasses in the street just renamed for Franz Ferdinand. Princip pretended to flirt with girls. For the first and last time in his life he drank Zilavka.
Prirrcip had the plot poised, primed, and camouflagedwhen it was threatened once more, again by Ilia. Very early one morning he knocked on Princip's door. The assassination, he breathed, must be postponed-word from the Black Hand in Belgrade, whose emissary he had just met in the nearby town of Bled. Princip said that he, as mission leader, had heard nothing. He demanded proof. Ilia said that written orders were too great a risk, but here was printed evidence of the reason behind the decision-and waved a Bosnian newspaper with reports of turmoil in Serbia between militants of the Black Hand stripe and supporters of the more moderate Prime Minister. Princip read the reports. He dropped the paper and said, 'All the more reason to go forward with the plot.' The plot went forward.
Two days later Ilia waved newspapers with the bulletin that King Petar of Serbia had retired from active rule; his son Alexander was the Prince Regent. This, Ilia said, might change everything, including their business in Sarajevo. Princip answered that no order about any change had reached him; pistol practice as usual in Grabez's meadow.
These words he said aloud. Silently he determined that when the time came, Ilk should not be entrusted with a weapon.
The time came. On the late afternoon of June 27, that rainy day before the Archduke's visit, the bombs and pistols were distributed to all conspirators except Ilia. Princip instructed his team to hide the arms. They were to fool and josh the evening away at the usual wine shop-after all, it was Saturday night. But before sleep they were to spend some minutesalways singly, one by one, never together-at the grave of a Black Hand martyr in Kosovo Cemetery. Here they were to meditate; to dedicate and to consecrate themselves for the grim service they would render to Serbia tomorrow.
And at the Kosovo Cemetery they all did just that-one by one, in the misty late-night hours of June 27, 1914.
At 8:15 the next morning, while the archduke and his wife prepared to entrain for Sarajevo, Princip summoned his band for the last time. They met in the back room of the Vlajnic Pastry Shop, near the scene of the day's action. Suddenly it was Cabrinovic-not Ilia-who created a last-minute difficulty.
Since his return to Sarajevo, Cabrinovic had lived in his parents' house, telling them he'd come home to leave behind his life as a hobo radical. He'd behaved himself accordingly, working in his father's cafe, acting 'nicely'-until now; until the imminence of the climax became too much. That morning the elder Cabrinovic decided to hoist the Imperial colors from his establishment. He was a Habsburg loyalist and wished to show respect for the Crown Prince. Suddenly his son broke into protests against 'the odious flag.' An argument erupted. The father told the boy to leave the house if he didn't like its banner. The boy stalked off, shouting that soon the Austrian Crown Prince would be a joke-the Serbian King would rule Bosnia!
When Cabrinovic joined the other confederates in the pastry shop, he was still shaking with an anger all the angrier for its admixture of fear. He came into the back room spouting about his father. Princip restricted him to a whisper. Hissing furiously, Cabrinovic not only reported his fight at home but announced yet another indiscretion. He would have himself photographed right now; if he should die for Serbia this morning, at least a picture of him would survive-the world would have a photograph of him just before his sacrifice-a memento for his father!
Princip remained calm. One must be calm at the brink. Coming down hard on Cabrinovic now would only have upset the fellow still more. The thing to do was to factor Cabrinovic's instability into his, Princip's, final dispositions.
He told Cabrinovic to post himself at 9 A.M. sharp with the unarmed Ilia and the three armed auxiliaries near the corner of Cumunja Bridge and Appel Quay. Princip's own station as well as Grabez's would be some three hundred yards farther down the Archduke's route along Appel Quay, closer to City Hall.
With this deployment, the unreliables (Cabrinovic, Ilic, the auxiliaries) would be tested first because they would see the target first. If they failed, the serious core of the squad, namely Princip backed by Grabei, could still bring the enterprise to the desired end.
Still calm, Princip dismissed his group. They bade each other farewell since they might never see each other alive again. Princip told them to leave the pastry shop one by one and to arrive at their respective posts a few minutes apart along different paths. Cabrinovic was allowed to go to a photographer's studio on condition that he appear at the exact spot at the exact time, as ordered.
Cabrinovic swore to his leader that he would. During that brief huddle in the back room, Princip had managed to invest Cabrinovic with some of his own self-control. Cabrinovic proved that a few minutes later in the street. He stumbled on an old crony (with whom he presently had his picture taken), and then on two girls of their acquaintance. Crony and girls wore their Sunday clothes; they were on the town for the gala morning that featured an Archduke's visit. Crony and girls joked with Cabrinovic. None of them noticed anything amiss.
Neither did Maxim Svara, son of the Attorney General of Sarajevo and a former schoolmate of Princip's. Princip happened to run into him on the way to what no one must know was his battle station. Princip casually small-talked with Maxim, pistol and bomb arranged so as not to bulge his jacket even slightly. For six blocks they strolled together on Appel Quay. All along they watched flags being run up on poles and people assembling to watch the Habsburg prince ride by. Then the two youths wished each other good day. Maxim turned left to the Cathedral where the bishop was offering High Mass in honor of the dynasty. Princip continued walking along the Quay until he reached Latin Bridge.
From 9 A.M. on he stood there. He waited in the gathering crowd. His ear was cocked for the motorcade. His hand was ready for the trigger of his pistol, for the cap of his bomb, for his capsule of cyanide.
Just after 10 A.M. he heard cries of 'Zivio!.. Zivio!..' followed by a powerful growl of car engines and then, suddenly, a detonation. The bang faded into shouts. At once Prin cip pressed forward fiercely through the throng and saw, at last, the bomb-smashed wooden shutter of a store front with the Habsburg flag waving above, a big car with gesticulating generals and blown-out tires, some people sitting on the curb bloodying their Sunday best-and Cabrinovic held in a rough grip by two gendarmes… Cabrinovic retching from the cyanide, dripping from the river across which he'd obviously tried to escape. No sign of the Archduke, but Princip assumed his body had been spirited away.
So Cabrinovic, the unstable, had come through after all. Yet obviously he had been prevented from swallowing the cyanide and might not be able to remain silent under tough interrogation. He would give away the Black Hand. Princip's fingers tightened around the Browning. He must kill first Cabrinovic, then himself. That moment a whole new stampede of gendarmes came down on Cabrinovic with their gold-crested helmets and whisked him off. Princip heard the sputter of car engines being cranked up. The motorcade sped off much faster than it had come. And everywhere people who had been closer to the lead car were saying how calm the Archduke had acted, how crazy these fanatics must be with their bombs, how lucky the Archduke had not been hurt.
The Archduke had not been hurt.
It had all been for nothing-at least so far. Desperately Princip looked for his confederates in order to regroup. But they were hard to find in the excitement everywhere and the rapid influx of new spectators. The bomb had made the high visit dramatic. Now the Archduke was much more than an interesting sight. He had become a sensation. Very soon this sensation was due to drive back from City Hall, again along Appel Quay. More and more people brimmed on the sidewalk. Nobody of Princip's team was among them, no matter where he looked. They had all fled. They had scattered. They had deserted. Princip was alone. Alone with his bomb, his pistol, and the knowledge of how unlikely he was to use either because of the precautions the enemy would now take.
But, having driven himself so far without mercy, he decided to go on without much hope. He crossed over to the other side of the Quay. That way he would be closer to the automobiles, just in case the Archduke really did return along Appel Quay, as called for by the original schedule. Once more, he waited, this time at the corner of the quay and a side street. He heard the church clocks strike 10:30 A.M., tolling all is over, all is over, into his ears. He heard the motorcade return at 10:32, and all would have been over indeed-the very spot on which Princip stood
