Black Hand (Serbia)
Unification or Death | |
---|---|
Ujedinjenje ili smrt Уједињење или смрт | |
Balkan Peninsula | |
Ideology | Yugoslavism Greater Serbia Serbian nationalism |
Notable attacks | Killing of Alexander I Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand |
(unofficial) |
Unification or Death (
The society formed to unite all of the territories with a
Background
Apis' conspiracy group and the May Coup
This section needs expansion with: events occurring in the long time span between the described regicide and the events of the next subsection. You can help by adding to it. (April 2017) |
In August 1901, a group of lower officers headed by captain
National defence
On 8 October 1908, just two days after
Establishment
Unification or Death was established at the beginning of May 1911,[10] and the original constitution of the organization was signed on 9 May.[11] Ljuba Čupa, Bogdan Radenković, and Vojislav Tankosić wrote the constitution of the organization,[12] modeled after similar German secret nationalist associations and the Italian Carbonari.[12][13] The organization was mentioned in the Serbian parliament as the "Black Hand" in late 1911.[14]
By 1911–12, Narodna Odbrana had established ties with the Black Hand, and the two became "parallel in action and overlapping in membership".[15]
1911–13
The organization used the magazine Pijemont (the Serbian name for Piedmont, the kingdom that led the unification of Italy under the House of Savoy) for the dissemination of their ideas.[16] The magazine was founded by Ljuba Čupa in August 1911.[17]
1914
By 1914, the group had hundreds of members, many of them
I (...), by entering into the society, do hereby swear by the Sun which shineth upon me, by the Earth which feedeth me, by God, by the blood of my forefathers, by my honour and by my life, that from this moment onward and until my death, I shall faithfully serve the task of this organisation and that I shall at all times be prepared to bear for it any sacrifice. I further swear by God, by my honour and by my life, that I shall unconditionally carry into effect all its orders and commands. I further swear by my God, by my honour and by my life, that I shall keep within myself all the secrets of this organisation and carry them with me into my grave. May God and my brothers in this organisation be my judges if at any time I should wittingly fail or break this oath.[18]
The Black Hand took over the terrorist actions[
Friendly relations had fairly well cooled by 1914. The Black Hand was displeased with Prime Minister Nikola Pašić and thought that he did not act aggressively enough for the Pan-Serb cause. The Black Hand engaged in a bitter power struggle over several issues, such as who would control territories that Serbia had annexed during the Balkan Wars. By then, disagreeing with the Black Hand was dangerous, as political murder was one of its tools.
In 1914, Apis allegedly decided that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir-apparent of Austria, should be assassinated, as he was trying to pacify the Serbians, which would prevent a revolution if he was successful. Towards that end, three young Bosnian Serbs were allegedly recruited to kill the Archduke. They were certainly trained in bomb throwing and marksmanship by current and former members of the Serbian military. Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Čabrinović, and Trifko Grabež were smuggled across the border back into Bosnia by a chain of contacts similar to the Underground Railroad. The decision to kill the Archduke was initiated by Apis and not sanctioned by the full Executive Committee (if Apis was involved at all, a question that remains in dispute[20]).
Those involved probably realised that their plot would result in war between Austria and Serbia and had every reason to expect that Russia would side with Serbia. They likely did not, however, anticipate that the assassination would start the chain of events leading to World War I. Others in the government and some of the Black Hand Executive Council were not as confident of Russian aid since Russia had recently let them down.
When word of the plot allegedly percolated through Black Hand leadership and the Serbian government (Prime Minister Pašić was informed of two armed men being smuggled across the border, but it is not clear if Pašić knew of the planned assassination), Apis was supposedly told not to proceed. He may have made a half-hearted attempt to intercept the young assassins at the border, but they had already crossed. Other sources say the attempted 'recall' began only after the assassins had reached Sarajevo. The 'recall' appears to have made Apis look like a loose cannon and the young assassins like independent zealots. The 'recall' took place fully two weeks before the Archduke's visit. The assassins idled in Sarajevo for a month. Nothing more was done to stop them.
Ideology
The group encompassed a range of ideological outlooks, from conspiratorially-minded army officers to idealistic youths, sometimes tending towards republicanism, despite their patrons in nationalistic royal circles. The movement's leader, Apis, had been instrumental in the
Legacy
In 1938, Konspiracija, a conspiracy group to overthrow the Yugoslav regency was founded by, among others, members of the Serbian Cultural Club (SKK).[21] The organization was modeled after the Black Hand, including the recruitment process.[22] Two members of the Black Hand, Antonije Antić and Velimir Vemić, were the organization's military advisors.[23]
See also
- Black Hand (Mandatory Palestine)
- Secret society
- Serb revolutionary organizations
- Serbian Chetnik Organization
- Young Bosnia
- Black Hand (Slovenia)
References
- ISBN 978-0191643279.
- ISBN 978-1107070769.
- ^ "Black Hand | secret Serbian society". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
- ^ Gavrilo Princip and the Black Hand organization. Bookrags.
- ISBN 978-0415119269.
- ^
David Stevenson (2012). 1914–1918: The History of the First World War. Penguin. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-141-90434-4.
- ^ Borislav Ratković; Mitar Đurišić; Savo Skoko (1972). Srbija i Crna Gora u balkanskim ratovima 1912–1913. Beogradski izdavačko-grafički zavod.
Y августу 1901. нижи официри су, под руководством капетана Драгутина Димитр^евиhа – Аписа, створили заверенички покрет против ди- насти е ("Црна рука").
- ^ Antić & 2010-11-20.
- ISBN 978-0718192952.
- ISBN 978-8635503332.
- ^ Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti (1955). Posebna izdanja. Vol. 243. p. 199.
Оригинални Устав истого, друштва од 9/22 ма]а 1911 год. са своеручним потписила опт.
- ^ a b Stanoje Stanojević (1929). Narodna enciklopedija srpsko-hrvatsko-slovenačka, knjiga 2 (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb. p. 181.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Trotsky, Leon (1916). "The Big Lie: The Defence of Small Nations". Retrieved 6 November 2022.
- ISBN 978-8635504032.
- ISBN 978-0313319495.
- ^ NIN. nedeljne informativne novine. Politika. 2004.
- ^ "Пијемонт". Veliki rat. National Library of Serbia.
- ^ Pressonline.rs Archived 12 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine Press (7 October 2011). Retrieved on 2011-11-08. (in Serbian)
- ^ "Šta je bila Crna ruka i ko je bio Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis". BBC News na srpskom (in Serbian (Latin script)). 2 April 2021. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
- ^ Vladimer Dedijer, The Road to Sarajevo
- ^ Kazimirović 1995, p. 653.
- ^ Kazimirović 1995, p. 654.
- ^ Zečević 2003, p. 335.
Sources
- Antić, Antonije (20 November 2010). "Škola gnezdo zavere". Novosti.
- Apis, Dragutin T. Dimitrijević (1918). Tajna prevratna organizacija. Velika Srbija.
- Dedijer, Vladimir (1966). The Road to Sarajevo. Simon and Schuster.
- Kazimirović, Vasa (1995). Srbija i Jugoslavija, 1914–1945: Srbija i Jugoslavija između dva svetska rata. Prizma. ISBN 978-8670840010.
- Kazimirović, Vasa (1997). Crna ruka: ličnosti i događaji u Srbiji od prevrata 1903. do Solunskog procesa 1917. godine. Prizma. ISBN 978-8670840164.
- MacKenzie, David (1995). The "Black Hand" on Trial: Salonika, 1917. East European Monographs. ISBN 978-0880333207.
- MacKenzie, David (1998). The Exoneration of the "Black Hand," 1917–1953. East European Monographs. ISBN 978-0880334143.
- MacKenzie, David (1989). Apis, the Congenial Conspirator: The Life of Colonel Dragutin T. Dimitrijević. East European Monographs. ISBN 978-0880331623.
- MacKenzie, David (1982). "Serbian Nationalist and Military Organizations and the Piedmont Idea, 1844–1914". East European Quarterly. 16 (3): 323–.
- Remak, Joachim (1971). The Origins of World War I: 1871–1914. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. ISBN 978-0136427445.
- Zečević, Momčilo (2003). Prošlost i vreme: iz istorije Jugoslavije. Prosveta. ISBN 978-8607013937.
Further reading
- Bataković, Dušan T. (2006). "Nikola Pašić: The Radicals and the "Black hand" challenges to parliamentary democracy in Serbia 1903–1917". Balcanica (37): 143–69. .
- Blakley, Patrick R. F. "Narodna Odbrana (The Black Hand): Terrorist Faction that Divided the World" (PDF). Oswego Historical Review. 2: 13–34. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
- Gilfond, Henry (1975). The Black Hand at Sarajevo. Bobbs-Merrill. OCLC 1692249.
- Jelavich, Barbara (1991). "What the Habsburg Government Knew about the Black Hand". Austrian History Yearbook. 22: 131–50. S2CID 146532495.
- Nešković, Borivoje (1953). Istina o solunskom procesu. Narodna knjiga.
External links
- "The Constitution of the Ujedinjenje ili Smrt (Unification or Death)". "Black Hand over Europe" by Henri Pozzi, 1935. Projekat Rastko. 1935 [1911].
- Lutz, Hermann. "The Serbian 'Black Hand'," The Freeman, Vol. 7, N°. 164, pp. 179–81, 2 May 1923.
- John Paul Newman: Black Hand, in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.