Today is St Vitus’s Day. The day is particularly significant
in Serbian history, as in 1389 it saw the Battle of the Field of Blackbirds (or
Kosovo) in which the expanding Ottoman Empire destroyed the Serbian army and
set the course for centuries of Ottoman dominance of the Balkans.
By 1914, that dominance had collapsed. The nineteenth-century
had seen the creation of an independent Serbia ,
and during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, Serbia had increased its territory
by 80% at the Ottomans’ expense. 28th June 1914 was the first anniversary
since the Kosovo battlefield had come under Serb control.
For the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie Chotek,
then visiting the town of Sarajevo in Austrian-ruled
Bosnia ,
the day had a different significance. Fourteen years earlier, Franz Ferdinand
had humiliated himself in front of the Austro-Hungarian court in order to marry
her. Emperor Franz Josef did not consider Sophie Chotek a suitable wife for his
heir, since although she was an aristocrat, she did not come from one of the
great European dynastic families.
The Emperor only grudgingly gave his consent to the marriage
on condition that Sophie would not have the title of Empress and that their
children would not have the right to inherit the Habsburg throne. The Archduke
was so in love and determined to marry Sophie that he swore an oath to this
effect on 28th June 1900, and married her three days later.
The Archduke and his wife were not popular at court, and one
reason (aside from their upcoming wedding anniversary) Sophie was so determined
to accompany Franz Ferdinand on his 1914 tour of Bosnia was that, being far
from disapproving Vienna, they could officiate at public events together. Although
they had received various warnings about the dangers of going to such an
unsettled region, the couple were relaxed and felt welcomed, even shopping at
the Sarajevo
bazaar a few days before their official visit to the town. The Archduchess
rebuked a Bosnian Croat leader who had said it was too dangerous for the couple
to visit:
‘You are wrong after all […]. Everywhere we have gone here,
we have been treated with so much friendliness –and by every last Serb too–
with so much cordiality and unstimulated warmth that we are very happy about it’
She could not have known that, as she walked through the
narrow streets of Sarajevo ’s
bazaar, that she and her husband were being shadowed by a young Serb named
Gavril Princip.
Princip likely did not know about the significance of the 28th
June to the royal couple, but he was deeply familiar with its associations for
Serbs. He was part of a group of perfervid Serbain nationalists who saw
themselves in the tradition of Miloš Obilić, legendary Serbian
hero of the Battle of Kosovo, who had assassinated the Ottoman Sultan. Like Miloš,
they were prepared be martyred in the attempt, either at the hands of their
enemies or by their own cyanide capsules.
Their targets were the Archduke and his wife. It
was Princip who fired the fatal shots, which led Europe
into the Great War, and gave us a very different anniversary to remember .
