Gavrilo Princip Essay

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Gavrilo Princip, though not a well known historical figure, set off a major chain of events that led up to World War I. Although Princip is often skimmed over or forgotten he still held much importance in the history and making of World War I, many believe that it was his doings that set off the chain reactions that caused the War. Gavrilo Princip was born in June or July, the son of a postman and one of nine children. And had been known from a very young age to have quite poor health. He attended schools in both Sarajevo and Tuzla, and later left for Belgrade in May of 1912. Where in Serbia he joined the secret society Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia) which was a Serbian nationalist organization devoted to the freeing of Bosnia from Austro-Hungarian rule, and uniting Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. But what really set Gavrilo Princip’s place in history was his assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his Wife Sophie. While the Archduke was not well liked by the other royals and often targeted by opposing groups because of his push for political reform, his death was still the spark needed to ignite the War. Princip received all of his weapons from the Black Hand, Narodna Odbrana, a secret terrorist society dedicated to ending the oppressive rule of Austro-Hungarian. Although Princip was the one responsible for the actual assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand he was only one of three men sent to murder the Archduke. The three men were sent by Dragutin Dimitrijevic, “the chief of the Intelligence Department in the Serbian Army and head of the Black Hand, to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, during his visit to Sarajevo on 28 June 1914”(). The three men had specific instructions to commit suicide after the assassination so there would be no one left behind to tell who was responsible. They were each
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