After The Battle 164 - The Sarajevo Assassination

2014

1914

SARAJEVO

THE SARAJEVO ASSASSINATION THE FIRST TO BE KILLED

6 4

9

770306 154103

No. 164

£5.00

NUMBER 164 © Copyright After the Battle 2014 Editor: Karel Margry Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey Published by Battle of Britain International Ltd., The Mews, Hobbs Cross House, Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow, Essex CM17 0NN, England Telephone: 01279 41 8833 Fax: 01279 41 9386 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.afterthebattle.com Printed in Great Britain by Warners Group Publications PLC, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH. After the Battle is published on the 15th of February, May, August and November. LONDON STOCKIST for the After the Battle range: Foyles Limited, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EB. Telephone: 020 7437 5660. Fax: 020 7434 1574. E-mail: [email protected]. Web site: www.foyles.co.uk United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution: Warners Group Publications PLC, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH Australian Subscriptions and Back Issues: Renniks Publications Pty Limited Unit 3, 37-39 Green Street, Banksmeadow NSW 2019 Telephone: 61 2 9695 7055. Fax: 61 2 9695 7355 E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.renniks.com Canadian Distribution and Subscriptions: Vanwell Publishing Ltd., 622 Welland Avenue, St. Catharines, Ontario Telephone: (905) 937 3100. Fax: (905) 937 1760 Toll Free: 1-800-661-6136 E-mail: [email protected] New Zealand Distribution: Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, PO Box 24486, Royal Oak, Auckland 1345, New Zealand Telephone: 021 627 870. Fax: 9-6252817 E-mail: [email protected] United States Distribution and Subscriptions: RZM Imports Inc, 184 North Ave., Stamford, CT 06901 Telephone: 1-203-324-5100. Fax: 1-203-324-5106 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.rzm.com Italian Distribution: Milistoria s.r.l. Via Sofia, 12-Interporto, 1-43010 Fontevivo (PR), Italy Telephone: ++390521 651910. Fax: ++390521 619204 Dutch Language Edition: SI Publicaties/Quo Vadis, Postbus 188, 6860 AD Oosterbeek Telephone: 026-4462834. E-mail: [email protected]

Left: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Heir Apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was born at Graz on December 18, 1863 as the eldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria (the younger brother of Emperor Franz Josef) and his second wife, Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. He became heir to the throne in 1889, after his cousin, Crown Prince Rudolf, committed suicide, and his father, who was now first in line to succeed the Emperor, renounced in favour of his son. In 1900, he married Countess Sophie Chotek, much to the aggravation of the Emperor and his courtiers, who disapproved of the fact that she was not a member of one of the grand dynasties of Europe. Franz Josef would only approve of the marriage on the condition that none of her descendants would ever rise to the throne. Sophie herself was not allowed to share her husband’s rank, rights or privileges, being continuously forced to stand far down the line, separated from her spouse, at court events. Right: Despite the handicap, the couple had a happy marriage which bore them three children: Sophie (born 1901), Maximilian (1902) and Ernst (1904). In 1913, Franz Ferdinand was appointed Inspector General of all the armed forces of Austria-Hungary, and it was in this capacity that he and his wife came to visit Bosnia and Sarajevo in June 1914.

CONTENTS THE SARAJEVO ASSASSINATION UNITED KINGDOM The Woolwich Arsenal Parachute Mine IT HAPPENED HERE The First to be Killed in Action

2

26 34

Front Cover: Fatal shots fired from this spot in Sarajevo were the catalyst for the outbreak of the First World War. (Karel Margry) Back Cover: Corporal Thomas Priday, aged 27, was always believed to be the first soldier to be killed in action in the Second World War, but in fact he died as a result of friendly fire. Each year on the anniversary of his death in December 1939, members of ASCH (a French association dedicated to the preservation of the Maginot Line forts) hold a Ceremony of Remembrance by his grave at Luttange. Here a corporal of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and a sergeant of the Black Watch, pipe major, pay their respects. (Arnault Jaffart)

SARAJEVO

Acknowledgements: For their help with the First to be Killed story, the Editor would like to thank Bernard Bettenfeld, Charles Ledig, Adrien Masson, Pascal Moretti, Arnaud Quaranta, Jean Pascal Speck, Daniel Taylor, Stuart Wheeler, and La Comédie de Picardie. Photo Credit Abbreviations: BA — Bundesarchiv; ECPAD — Médiatèque de la Défense, Fort d’Ivry; IWM — Imperial War Museum; SZ — Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo

2

The Habsburg Empire and the Balkans, 1914.

On June 28, 1914, a young Bosnian-Serb student named Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este and his wife, Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg, as they drove through Sarajevo in an open car during an official visit to the city. Princip was one of six assassins that lay in wait that day along the royal couple’s route. The murder of the heir to the Habsburg

throne precipitated a political and military crisis between the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy and the neighbouring Kingdom of Serbia, which within a month mushroomed into the catastrophe of the First World War. The assassination ‘that shook the world’ occurred on the corner of Appel Quay and Franz Josef Street, across the road from the Latin Bridge over the Miljacka river.

THE SARAJEVO ASSASSINATION

PAN-SLAVISM AND THE YOUNG BOSNIANS In early 1914 the Balkans was a hotbed of political unrest and agitation. The region where the Ottoman Empire, in an advanced state of dissolution, and the Habsburg Empire, also known as the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, were closest to one another contained several ethnic groups that all belonged to the Slavic people. Serbs, Bosnians, Croats and Slovenes all spoke basically the same language and belonged to the same cultural entity. However, whereas Serbia was an independent kingdom, BosniaHerzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia were all part of the Habsburg Empire. Bosnia-Herzegovina had been occupied by the Austrians in 1876 — a situation that had been confirmed by the Treaty of Berlin of 1878. It fermented discontent among the

Serbs, who felt betrayed at losing territory that by rights, they believed, belonged to them, and among those who thought the Austrians did nothing to improve the plight of the Bosnian peasants, the kmets, who were still locked in an oppressive feudal system. In the 1890s a movement sprang up known as Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia). An expression of radical Serb nationalism, it comprised a network of secret societies formed by young Serb students, mostly from poor peasant backgrounds, who were united in their hatred of the Austrians. Fervently patriotic and romantically believing in the unification of all Serbs in one pan-Slavic state, they

By Karel Margry spent their days reading about socialism and revolution, plotting rebellion, debating with friends in cafés, and engaging in political agitation, strikes and street demonstrations. Many of the young firebrands saw terrorism as their main weapon, and dreamed of assassination plots — against Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, or against high officials of the regime. Though without formal structure or leadership, the movement’s spiritual guiding light was Vladimir Gacinovic, an essayist and poet, a friend of Leon Trotsky, who lived in exile in Lausanne, Switzerland.

ATB

On June 28, 1914, a young Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the AustroHungarian Empire, and his wife during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. Princip was one of six young men who stood ready that day to kill the Archduke. They were misguided idealists, unwitting instruments in a larger conspiracy that had been concocted by a secret Serb terrorist organisation known as The Black Hand, which had close ties with Serbia’s military intelligence department. The assassination triggered off an international political crisis which within a month escalated into the First World War. Neither the young assassins, nor their more-experienced behind-the-scene sponsors, ever intended, nor could they possibly have anticipated, that their plot would have such dire consequences, leading directly to the death of millions.

A century later the view across the Latin Bridge has changed very little. 3

The three assassins that came from Belgrade (L-R): Gavrilo Princip, Trifun Grabez and Nedeljko Cabrinovic, all 19 years old. Discontent and frustration among the Serbs and the Young Bosnians reached a new zenith in October 1908 when the Austrians went one step further and formally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Habsburg Empire, creating a puppet Bosnian parliament in Sarajevo. Serb nationalism gave birth to a whole range of militant organisations — some overt and legal, some secret and clandestine, some outright terrorist. In 1908, in reaction to the Austrian seizure of Bosnia, Serb nationalists in Belgrade set up the Narodna Odbrana (National Defence), a semi-secret organisation designed to mobilise troops to fight the Austrians and recapture the territory. The organisation’s recruitment office, known as the Komitee and led by Major Vojislav Tankosic, became a magnet for Young Bosnians and other Pan-Slavic patriots, recruiting and training volunteers for the perceived struggle ahead. However, in 1909, after political expediency forced Serbia to humiliatingly accept the Austrian annexation of Bosnia, the Narodna Odbrana was ostensibly transformed into an institution for the promotion of Serb culture, with local branches in many towns and villages. In reality, it continued to function as a militant organisation, running a secret network of Serb agents and spies within Bosnia. Major Tankosic’s Komitee also continued to function. Its recruits fought as paramilitary guerrillas both in the First Balkan War (1912-13) when Serbia joined forces with Bulgaria and Greece and attacked the Ottoman Empire, and in the Second Balkan War (1913) when Serbia lined up with Greece, Rumania and Turkey to turn upon Bulgaria. One of the secret societies that hoped to achieve Slav unity through the use of terrorism was called Ujedinjenje ili Smrt (Unity or Death), also known as Crna Ruka (The Black Hand). Formed in May 1911 by officers of the Serbian Army, its leading figure was Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevitch (also known as Apis), who was also the Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence. Dimitrijevitch was an old hand at political murder. Back in May 1903, he and fellow junior officers (among them Tankosic) had successfully assassinated the despotic and hated King Alexander I Obrenovic and his wife Queen Draga and installed Peter I of the rival House of Karadordevic as the new king of Serbia. The Black Hand was organised at the grassroots level in cells of three to five members, supervised by district committees and by a Central Committee in Belgrade whose 4

ten-member Executive Committee was led by Apis. From 1911 onwards, the Black Hand engaged in hatching plans for political murders against the Austrians. Meanwhile, within Bosnia, political unrest was reaching boiling point. In June 1910, a Young Bosnian, Bogdan Zerajic, tried to shoot the iron-fisted Austrian governor of Bosnia, General Marijan Varesanin, in Sarajevo. He failed but committed suicide on the spot, becoming the Young Bosnians’ first and main martyr. In May 1913, faced with growing discontent and student demonstrations on the streets, Varesanin’s successor as governor, General Oskar Potiorek, introduced emergency measures, banning assemblies, closing schools, suspending courts and confiscating Serb newspapers. Prosecuted by the Austrian authorities in Bosnia, often expelled from their schools or fired from their jobs because of political activities, many Young Bosnians during this time went to live or spent time in Serbia, especially in Belgrade, where they found a large community of fellow radical compatriots. One of them was a 19-year-old student, Gavrilo Princip. Born on July 13, 1894 in the Bosnian village of Obljaj in the Grahovo valley (near the town of Bosansko Grahovo), the second of three sons in a poor peasant family, he had grown to be a quiet, earnest boy, always alone, never mingling with other children. His elder brother Jovo, who had prospered in the lumber transport business, was able to pay for his education, enrolling him at the Merchants’ School in Sarajevo at the age of 13. A lodging address was found at the house of Stoja Ilic, a widow who lived at No. 3 Oprkanj Street on the edge of town. Her son Danilo, four years older than Gavrilo, soon became a good friend. Danilo Ilic had already graduated from the Merchants’ School and was waiting to enrol at the Teachers’ College. Already in possession of a large collection of socialist and revolutionary literature, he initiated young Princip in the radical ideas of the Young Bosnians. Their friendship continued even after money shortage forced Princip to cancel the room and go live with his elder brother at Hadzici, 20 kilometres south-west of Sarajevo, from where he travelled daily to school. In 1910 Princip switched for a time to the gymnasium in Tuzla, another hotbed of radical Serb nationalism, but he was soon back at the Sarajevo Merchants’ School. Eternally broke, often starving, always avidly reading — revolutionary and patriotic pamphlets, newspapers and books — he spent

more time engaging in anti-Austrian demonstrations than in his studies. In 1912, due to his low grades and rebellious activism, Princip was expelled from the school. He decided to slip away to Belgrade, the capital of his beloved Serbia. Walking the 300 kilometres, he joined the community of émigré Bosnian students, who like him spent their days in cafés and reading rooms, discussing radical ideas. When the First Balkan War broke out in October 1912, he tried to enlist in the Komitee, the Serbian army of guerrilla volunteers led by Major Tankosic, but he was rejected because he was too small. Over the next year, 1912-13, he moved back and forth between Belgrade and Hadzici, studying and spending time at his brother’s home. In March 1914 he settled down in Belgrade again, taking a room in a boarding house on Carigradska Street, along with several other Young Bosnians. One of his boarding mates was an old friend, Trifun (Trifko) Grabez. Born in the town of Pale, not far from Sarajevo, on June 28, 1895, the son of a Serbian Orthodox priest, he had studied first in Sarajevo and then at the gymnasium at Tuzla. In early 1913, due to his unruliness and political activism, he had been ousted from school, barred from Tuzla and expelled from Bosnia. Like so many others, he went to Belgrade and there continued his studies, immersing himself in Young Bosnian circles. One of Princip’s best friends at Belgrade was Nedeljko (Nedjo) Cabrinovic. Born in Sarajevo on February 2, 1895, the eldest son of a middle-class coffee-grinding business and café owner, he was a typesetter by trade. Politically, he had started out as a social democrat (at just 14, he had founded the Printer’s Apprentice Guild) but over time had radicalised into an anarchist, always agitating, always involved in strikes. Forever at odds with his stern and unloving father, he had repeatedly left the family home and travelled widely, always on foot, always seeking jobs at printing presses, always hungry and struggling for money. He had stayed at Zagreb in Croatia for a month, lived in Belgrade on two occasions, gone to Trieste in Slovenia for a period, invariably returning to Sarajevo and more quarrels with his father. By March 1914, he was back in Belgrade for a third time, again joining the group of expatriate Young Bosnians and meeting up with Princip. A jovial fellow and a charmer of ladies, more a radical socialist than a Serb nationalist, he was not always regarded as a reliable revolutionary by his fellow Young Bosnians.

Right: Three of the conspirators pictured in a park in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, in early 1914 (L-R): Grabez, Djuro Sarac (the man who introduced the aspiring assassins to the Black Hand secret society for terrorism) and Princip. Some publications name the man on the left as Nedjo Cabrinovic and the one in the centre as Milan Ciganovic, the Black Hand member who provided the murder team with weapons and gave them weapon training, but these identifications appear to be wrong. START OF THE CONSPIRACY At the end of March 1914, a friend from Sarajevo sent Cabrinovic a newspaper clipping. It announced that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Habsburg Heir Apparent, would come to Sarajevo with his wife to observe Austrian Army manoeuvres. When Cabrinovic showed the cutting to Princip in a café later that day, the latter took him out for a stroll in the park and, seated on a park bench, suggested that they together carry out an assassination of the Archduke. After a short hesitation, Cabrinovic agreed. Some time later, having decided that they needed a third person to complete their terrorist cell, they approached Grabez, who readily agreed to take part. Their main problem now was how to acquire the weapons needed for such an attempt. For weeks they could not solve this problem but eventually Princip asked a Young Bosnian friend of his, Djuro Sarac, a veteran of the 1912 Balkan War, to introduce him to him to Milan Ciganovic, a 28-year-old Bosnian Serb, employed as a clerk on the Serbian State Railway, who was well known among Young Bosnians as a member of the Komitee and decorated veteran of the 1912 war. (Princip may not have realised it but both Sarac and Ciganovic were members of the Black Hand.) Ciganovic said he could help and in turn contacted Major Tankosic, the Komitee leader (a main member of the Black Hand), and he in turn contacted Colonel Dimitrijevitch (Colonel Apis), the chief of Serb military intelligence (and the senior figure of the Black Hand). Dimitrijevitch, who had been planning to kill the Archduke since March, probably saw the trio of Young Bosnians as a ready-made murder team delivered to him on a plate. He ordered Tankosic to provide them with weapons, give them weapon training, and see to it that they receive help in smuggling the arms into Bosnia. Dimitrijevitch had two reasons for wanting Franz Ferdinand out of the way. Firstly, he knew the future emperor was in favour of political reforms that might give the Serbs more equal rights within the Habsburg Empire — which would undermine Serbia’s own plans to unify all Serbs. Secondly, he feared that the army manoeuvres in Bosnia, which the Archduke was coming to inspect, were in fact the precursor of an all-out Austrian invasion of Serbia. The end result was that Ciganovic reported back to Princip with the news that he would provide them with guns and bombs to carry out the assassination. Ciganovic took Grabez to the office of Major Tankosic to collect the weapons but when the latter learned that none of the three prospective assassins knew how to handle a gun, he gave Ciganovic one pistol and instructed him to first teach them to shoot. Over the next six days, Ciganovic took Princip and Grabez to Belgrade’s Topcider Park for shooting practice in the park’s forest. Cabrinovic, who had a daytime job, could not come but Princip later taught him the basics and he practiced a little on the Belgrade Gun Club firing range. The rest of the weapons were delivered on May 26. In all, the young men were supplied with four guns (all Belgian-made 9mm Browning semi-automatic pistols) and six

bombs (Serb-made small rectangular military bombs with a 12-second time-delay). Ciganovic also provided them with some money; a special map showing the location of gendarme barracks and guard posts in Bosnia; knowledge of contacts and safe-houses on a clandestine route used to infiltrate agents and arms into Austria-Hungary, and a small card authorising the use of that route. At Ciganovic’s insistence, the aspiring assassins agreed to commit suicide immediately after the attempt, even if they did not succeed, so as to preserve the secrets of the plot and not betray each other or any of the other accomplices or behind-the-scene organisers.

Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevitch (also known as Apis), the Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence and the leading figure of the Black Hand. It was Apis who — behind the scenes — set up and directed the conspiracy to kill the Archduke.

Thus the amateur assassins Princip, Cabrinovic and Grabez got entangled in the Black Hand conspiracy to kill Franz Ferdinand. Probably without fully realising it, they had become agents carrying out orders from Colonel Apis. Though much of this episode remains shrouded in mystery, it seems clear that the idea to kill the Archduke had been their own but that, in seeking ways and means to carry it out, they had allowed themselves — knowingly or unknowingly — to be drawn into the web of the Black Hand, being recruited into a larger murder scheme that had been underway for some time. As it happened, the Black Hand conspiracy also involved Danilo Ilic, the young revolutionary in whose mother’s house in Sarajevo Princip had lodged back in 1907. By late 1913, Ilic was a school teacher and co-editor of Zvono (the Bell), a socialist journal that he had founded. However, in secret, he was also the leader of the Black Hand cell in Sarajevo. In December 1913 he had gone to see Colonel Apis in Belgrade. It is unknown what was discussed but soon after, in January 1914, Apis’ right-hand man, Major Tankosic called a meeting at Toulouse, France. Among those present were Vladimir Gacinovic, the Young Bosnians’ spiritual leader (who was also secretly the Black Hand’s district leader for Bosnia); Ilic (local leader for Sarajevo) and Muhamed Mehmedbasic, a 27year-old Muslim from Stolac in Herzegovina, a carpenter by trade, who was eager to get involved in murder plots against the Austrians. The aim of the meeting was to discuss possible targets for assassination. After discussing various options, the participants decided to despatch Mehmedbasic (who was sworn in as a Black Hand member during the meeting) to Sarajevo to kill General Potiorek, the governor of Bosnia. However, this plan went awry almost as soon as it started. On his way to Bosnia from France, police searched Mehmedbasic’s train for a thief, and he, thinking the police might be after him, threw his weapons, a dagger and a bottle of poison, out of the train window. Thus, he had to start looking for replacement weapons. However, before he 5

BELGRADE TOBUT

SABAC LOZNICA

LOPARE PRIBOJ TUZLA

SARAJEVO

On May 28, 1914, Princip, Grabez and Cabrinovic started out from Belgrade, with four guns and six bombs hidden about their persons, on their journey to smuggle the weapons into Bosnia and on into Sarajevo. During their nine-day trek — by riverboat, on foot, via horse and cart and by train — they received aid from various people, among them Serb border managed to find any, Ilic summoned him to Mostar and there, on March 26, told him that Belgrade had scrapped the mission to kill Potiorek. The plan was now to murder Franz Ferdinand and Mehmedbasic should stand by for the new operation. In mid-April 1914 Princip in Belgrade wrote to Ilic in Sarajevo and, in a coded letter, disclosed to him that he and two of his friends were making plans to kill the Archduke. The two had kept in contact ever since they had become friends in 1907 but it is quite possible — in fact most probable — that Princip was unaware that Ilic was already involved in the same conspiracy. Whatever the case, Ilic immediately agreed to help Princip with the execution of his plan. Now confident that weapons would be forthcoming, Princip asked him to find a second trio of assassins that could join them in the attempt. SMUGGLING WEAPONS INTO BOSNIA (May 28-June 5) On May 28, Princip, Cabrinovic and Grabez left Belgrade on the first leg of their journey to smuggle the weapons into Bosnia and onward to Sarajevo. Djuro Sarac came to see them off. Throughout their long overland trek, which would last for nine days and take them across 300 kilometres of mountains and muddy passes, they would receive help from numerous people, almost without exception Serb border officers with ties to the Black Hand or clandestine agents of the Narodna Odbrana. That day, with the four guns and ammunition in their pockets and the six bombs tied around their waists, they boarded a steamboat, travelling along the Sava river to Sabac, 60 kilometres to the west. Right from the start, there were problems with Cabrinovic. Being a talkative character, he let everyone know what he was up to and even began chatting with a gendarme, which alarmed and annoyed the other two. 6

officers who helped them across the frontier, peasants who guided them along the way, and covert agents of the Narodna Odbrana Serb cultural association. From the second day onwards, as the other two considered him a security risk, Cabrinovic travelled alone and without weapons from Loznica to Tuzla, where they joined up again on June 4.

Coming ashore at Sabac, the trio soon found their first contact, a frontier guard officer, Captain Rade Popovic, playing cards in a café with friends. After showing him their introductory card and explaining that they were Bosnian students looking for a place to cross the border in secret, he advised them to take the train to Loznica, 50 kilometres to the south-west, and see his colleague, Captain Joca Prvanovic. He wrote them an introductory note and, at their request, also provided them with customs officer’s railway passes, written out under false names. Early next morning, May 29, having travelled by train to Loznica, they found Prvanovic in his office and gave him Popovic’s note. He said his revenue officers, sergeants who were based in a series of watchtowers along the frontier, would know where to cross the border undetected. He tried to phone them but could not get through so he told them to come back the following morning. Having a day off, they went to the nearby spa town of Koviljaca, which like Loznica was on the shores of the Drina river and formed the boundary between Serbia and Bosnia. Here they each sent off a few postcards to friends, Cabrinovic again annoying Princip by writing messages that seemed to hint at their clandestine plans. They had a fall-out. Princip and Grabez decided that Cabrinovic was too much of a risk and told him they had better split up. They would take over his weapons and cross the border in secret. Cabrinovic would travel alone by a different route without any weapons, cross into Bosnia at a regular frontier post using Grabez’s passport, and they would meet up again at Tuzla, 120 kilometres north of Sarajevo. Grabez had a friend in Tuzla, Stevo Botic, and they agreed to rendezvous at his home. Next morning, May 30, they returned to Captain Prvanovic, who introduced them to his three revenue officers and asked them if

they could suggest a safe passage for the Bosnian students. One of them, Sergeant Budivoj Grbic, said he knew a place near his guardhouse at the hamlet of Javoric, which overlooked a small island in the Drina often used by smugglers, and that he also knew a peasant who could lead them across the frontier. Saying goodbye to Cabrinovic in a café, Princip and Grabez — now carrying all the weapons and ammunition between the two of them — travelled to Javoric on Sergeant Grbic’s horse and cart. He put them up for the night at the guardhouse, then went to make preparations for their onward travel. Keen to practice his shooting, Princip shot a hawk from a tree in the guardhouse grounds. The following morning, May 31, the two students and their sergeant guide waded across to small Isakovic’s Island. On it stood a small hut where a peasant, Milan Cula, served simple food and drinks. Known as Milan’s Cottage, it was also a halfway house for smugglers and spies crossing the border. Here Princip and Grabez stayed for the night while Grbic went to look for some peasants who could help them on. With time on their hands, the two young Bosnians again had some target practice, firing out of the windows of Milan’s hut. Early next day (June 1), Mico Micic, a young farm labourer from the nearby Bosnian town of Janja, entered the cottage and agreed to take Princip and Grabez into Bosnia. Sergeant Grbic was actually looking for another man, a Bosnian peasant named Jakov Milovic, who was also a smuggler and occasionally acted as courier for the Narodna Odbrana. Micic said he knew Milovic, so Grbic asked him to go and fetch him, so that they could lead the students across the border together. Micic obliged and returned in the afternoon saying Milovic was on his way. As they were waiting, one of the students again produced a pistol and began firing it out of the window.

That evening, the four men — Milovic, Micic, Princip and Grabez — set off for Bosnia. Crossing a few small branches of the Drina and then passing through low cornfields, they reached the road to Janja, where Micic left them. The others carried on, keeping off the road and hiking across fields and hills. The stopped for a rest at Milovic’s home and, when nightly rain turned into storm, sheltered in a deserted stable for a few hours. Milovic was unsure about the route to Tuzla, which lay some 30 kilometres to the west, and decided to seek help from a friend, Obren Milosevic, a farmer who lived on the route. The latter was out with his oxen but his wife gave them coffee and oatcakes. By now it was June 2, the sixth day of their journey. When Milosevic returned home, he at first refused to show them the route but he changed his mind when the two young students produced their guns and bombs, laying them out on the farmer’s bedspread, and asked if he had some bags for carrying them. The implied threat was clear so Milosevic agreed to be their guide. Princip and Grabez packed the weapons in two saddlebags, giving the bombs to Milosevic to carry and the pistols to Milovic. The two peasants were still uncertain about the route to Tuzla and suggested they go to the village of Priboj, about halfway to Tuzla, to find Veljko Cubrilovic, the local schoolteacher there. Cubrilovic, 28 years old, a respected gentleman in the local community, was well known from his involvement with the Serb cultural movement Sokol, of which he led the local branch. He was also an agent of the Narodna Odbrana. Princip and Grabez were already familiar with his name too, as Sergeant Grbic had mentioned him as a useful contact along their route. The four-hour hike to Priboj, through forest trails and more nightly rain storms, was gruelling. By now Princip and Grabez had been awake and on the move for 21 hours, with little food, and they were close to exhaustion. Reaching the top of the last hill before the village, they decided to stay in hiding behind a bush with the weapons while the other two went in search of Cubrilovic. That morning, June 3, the young schoolteacher was out riding his horse in the company of the Serbian Orthodox village priest, Father Jovo Jovanovic, also on horseback. On meeting them on the road, one of the peasants, Milosevic, took off his hat in deferential greeting, and told Cubrilovic there were two Bosnian students who wanted to get to Tuzla and on to Sarajevo. Could he help? Taking leave of the priest, Cubrilovic followed the peasants and was soon introduced to the two young men who asked if they could get a cart into Tuzla, 35 kilometres away. Cubrilovic did not have a wagon but he knew a farmer who did, and told them he would gladly take them there. Thanking the peasant guides for their services, he gave them a few crowns each and, aware of the need of secrecy, advised them to return home via separate routes. He took the students’ heavy bags and put them into his saddlebags. When he asked Princip what they contained the latter, after some hesitation, replied: ’Well, if you want to know, they are weapons. We are going to carry out an assassination of the Heir and if you know about it, you have to keep quiet. If you betray us, you and your family will be destroyed.’ The farmer who owned the horse and cart lived in the hillside village of Tobut, seven kilometres north of Priboj. He was Mitar Kerovic, 65 years old and head of a household with three adult sons, Blagoje, Jovo and Nedjo. Leaving the students to wait behind some bushes, Cubrilovic went ahead. He told Kerovic senior about the young men and asked him if they could take the cart to Tuzla. The old farmer was at first reluctant, but eventually agreed.

At Priboj, they received help from Veljko Cubrilovic, local schoolteacher and representative of the Narodna Odbrana. By now Princip and Grabez had entered the house. They were wet, muddy and exhausted. The Kerovic wives gave them some coffee and food and both then lay down to get some sleep. By the time they awoke, Blagoje, the eldest son, had returned from work in the fields, as had Cvijan Stjepanovic, a family friend. It was then agreed that Nedjo, the youngest son, and Stjepanovic would take the students to Tuzla in the cart. When Blagoje asked what was in the two bags, Princip was hesitant to show it but Cubrilovic enthusiastically encouraged him on whereupon Princip took out one of the bombs and demonstrated how to prime and throw it. The students did not want to take the risk of carrying the weapons themselves so it was agreed that their peasant companions would carry them, hidden in the wide sashes of their waist belts. When in Belgrade, Princip had been given the name of a contact in Tuzla, Misko Jovanovic. Cubrilovic said he knew him well, so he drew directions to his home and also wrote a note of introduction for the students. Before he left to return home, he confided in Blagoje and Nedjo, telling them that the two students were on their way to Sarajevo to carry out an assassination of the Archduke. He praised their readiness to sacrifice their lives for the Serb cause and warned the peasant brothers to keep silent about it or else they would jeopardise their own and everybody else’s lives. Grabez reassuringly told Blagoje that they need not be afraid; he and Princip would not betray the family’s involvement. The cart left after 9 p.m., the two peasants sitting up front, with Stjepanovic at the reins, and Princip and Grabez laying in the back, resting and sleeping on the hay. They travelled all through the night. Reaching the garrison town of Lopare, six kilometres from Tobut, the students climbed down from the wagon and walked separately around the place to avoid the gendarme barracks there, rejoining the cart at the far side of town. Reaching the outskirts of Tuzla at about dawn on June 4, Princip and Grabez did not feel fit to enter the city so they asked their peasant drivers to drop them off beside the Jala river so that they could clean themselves up in the stream. They told Kerovic and Stjepanovic to go ahead, hand over the weapons to Misko Jovanovic and ask him to meet the two students after nine o’clock in the town’s Serb reading room. The two peasants rode the cart into town, walked round to the home of Jovanovic and rang at the door. Misko Jovanovic, 36 years old, was a prominent citizen of Tuzla. A prosperous

businessman, the owner of the local cinema, he was also a patriotic Serb and, like his good friend Cubrilovic, active in the Sokol and the local representative of the Narodna Odbrana. He lived with his wife and newlyborn baby in an apartment above the cinema. Despite the early morning hour — it was 7 a.m. — he received the two peasants, who handed him Cubrilovic’s note. It read: ‘Dear Misko, keep these things. Greetings, your Veljko.’ Thereupon, the peasants produced the bombs and pistols from their belts and told Jovanovic they belonged to some students who were going to Sarajevo and would like to meet him at the Serb reading room after nine. The peasants left and Jovanovic, not quite sure what to do with the weapons, took them upstairs to the attic and hid them in a box. At 9 a.m. he went to the reading room on the second floor of the cinema building, one floor below his apartment. Meanwhile, having tidied themselves up as best they could, Princip and Grabez had walked into town. When the shops opened at 9 a.m. they each bought a new pair of trousers, then went to the home of Bozidar Tomic, a student friend of Grabez, to change into them. Now better presentable, they walked to the Serb reading room. Stjepanovic was waiting for them, introduced them to Jovanovic, then left. The young men told Jovanovic they were students from Belgrade, on their way back to Sarajevo. As they were travelling without passports, and security controls were tight, they asked him if he could take the weapons to Sarajevo for them, but Jovanovic was not prepared to take that risk. They then asked him if he would be willing to keep the weapons for a few days until they could arrange for a friend to collect them. To this, still reluctantly, Jovanovic agreed. Princip noted that his interlocutor was nervous so, not sure how much he could be relied on, menacingly said: ‘Don’t play with the idea of betraying us, Sir, because I will destroy you and your entire family.’ Satisfied that they would get the weapons into Sarajevo, Princip and Grabez next went to find their fellow conspirator, Nedjo Cabrinovic. The latter had crossed the border at the town of Zvornik on the 30th, passing through a regular frontier post and using Grabez’s passport. Next morning, June 1, he took a stagecoach to Tuzla, and on arrival there went to the agreed rendezvous, the home of Grabez’s friend Stevo Botic. By now he had been waiting there for three days.

At Tuzla, local businessman Misko Jovanovic (another Narodna Odbrana agent) reluctantly agreed to hide the weapons for them until they could be collected by Danilo Ilic and brought to Sarajevo. 7

That same morning, the re-united trio caught the train to Sarajevo. During the voyage, Cabrinovic, again to the others’ irritation and dismay, sat with two policemen from Sarajevo and began chatting with them. However, it yielded an unexpected bonus for during this conversation one of the policemen mentioned that the Heir’s visit to Sarajevo was scheduled for June 28 — the first time the conspirators heard the actual date. (The date itself was a further incentive for the assassins, for June 28 was Vidovdan (St Vitus Day), the anniversary of the legendary Battle at Kosovo Polje (Field of Blackbirds) in 1389, the decisive last battle of the Serbs against the Ottoman Turks. This was a prime theme of Slav folklore and a holy day in Serb history and the fact that the oppressor would visit Sarajevo on this very day infuriated the Young Bosnians.) The long train journey continued through the night, and they finally arrived at Sarajevo early on June 5 — the end of nine-day smuggling adventure. Each man went his separate way, Princip going to the home of Danilo Ilic’s mother at No. 3 Oprkanj Street. Here he would lodge rent-free and quietly for three weeks, until the day of the assassination. Cabrinovic went to his parents’ home at No. 69 Franz Josef Street in the city centre. Grabez went to stay with his parents at Pale, 19 kilometres south-east of Sarajevo. ILIC RECRUITS A SECOND MURDER TRIO (April-June 1914) Ilic, meanwhile, had not been idle. After Princip had written to him from Belgrade in mid-April, informing him that the weapons were forthcoming and that there was a need for additional conspirators, he set about recruiting men for a second murder team that would act alongside Princip, Cabrinovic and Grabez. The first one he approached was Lazar Djukic, an 18-year-old Serbo-Croat student at the Teachers’ School, who — as a 16-yearold — had already been involved in the 1912 plot to assassinate emperor Franz Josef. When Ilic asked if he would join a conspiracy to kill the Archduke, Djukic declined but he promised he would look around for others who might be willing. It took a while before he found a ready candidate, a schoolmate of his. As it happened, and by a remarkable fluke of history, it was Vaso Cubrilovic, the younger brother of Veljko Cubrilovic, the schoolteacher at Priboj who had helped Princip and Grabez during their journey from Belgrade to Sarajevo. (Neither brother knew of the other’s involvement in the same plot.) Aged just 17, Vaso was an active Young Bosnian who believed in the political and

Danilo Ilic, 23. An old friend of Gavrilo Princip, he was also the leader of the Black Hand cell in Sarajevo and the chief local organiser of the murder plot. cultural unity of Serbs and Croats. Radical and rebellious, he had just recently been expelled from his high school at Tuzla for taking part in an anti-Habsburg protest and transferred to the Teachers’ School in Sarajevo, where he now lodged with his elder sister Vida. He too had earlier toyed with the idea of assassinating Governor Potiorek and, having heard of the Heir’s upcoming visit, with visions of murdering the Archduke. Djukic met him one evening on the streets of Sarajevo and when they got talking about a possible murder plot to kill Franz Ferdinand, Cubrilovic jumped to the occasion and readily signed up. A few days later, as they again strolled the Appel Quay, Djukic introduced him to Ilic. The two men went to a café in the hills above the city where they sat and discussed the plot. Ilic told the schoolboy the weapons were coming from Serbia but he was not to disclose that to anyone. Cubrilovic said he did not want to know who the other conspirators were and wished only to be in contact with Ilic. He agreed to find two more participants in the plot. Scouting around for possible candidates, Cubrilovic’s sight fell on a fellow pupil from his school, Cvjetko Popovic. Aged just 16, he was in his third year at school. Observing him for a few days, Cubrilovic discovered Popovic had been arrested and briefly jailed by the Austrians some time ago and carried a

grudge against them. Around May 20, he took Popovic for a walk. As soon as he steered the conversation to an attempt on the Archduke, Popovic, without hesitation, said he was willing to take part. When Cubrilovic reported back to Ilic that he had found another conspirator, the latter informed him he need not look further for a third man because he had already enlisted one. That man was Muhamed Mehmedbasic, the Muslim who had been sent out to kill Governor Potiorek back in January and who had been standing by since late March. Sometime in late May, Ilic travelled by train to Mostar, 130 kilometres south-west of Sarajevo, to meet Mehmedbasic at the Hotel Jelic. The latter eagerly agreed to join the new conspiracy. It was arranged that he would stay at his home town in Stolac until summoned to Sarajevo by Ilic. Thus Ilic recruited the second trio. He told Princip that it was ready, though without disclosing their names. Cubrilovic and Popovic were just schoolboys, immature and not very cautious. Neither of them was very reticent about their connection to the plot and they repeatedly bragged about it to their schoolmates. These did not quite take them seriously, joking they would denounce them to the authorities and reap the award for it. Repeatedly during the long wait Cubrilovic in particular seems to have had second thoughts, mainly because he realised that he might have recklessly put his sister Vida at risk. At one time he told Ilic he wanted to withdraw from the conspiracy but the latter convinced him to stay in. Both schoolboys had agreed to commit suicide after their attempt so as not to betray anyone. However, they also worried — in the not-unthinkable event that one of the others killed the Heir before they could — what they should do with their weapons afterwards. They decided to confide with a friend, Ivo Kranjcevic, and ask him to hide the weapons for them. Kranjcevic, a 19-year-old business student and the son of a retired sergeant in the Austrian Bosnian police force, tried to talk his comrades out of taking part in the plot but nonetheless agreed to take care of the weapons afterwards. ILIC HAS SECOND THOUGHTS On June 14, with the Archduke’s visit two weeks away, Danilo Ilic travelled to Tuzla by train to pick up the weapons left behind by Princip and Grabez at the home of Misko Jovanovic. To identify himself, he took a box of Stefanija cigarettes — the agreed secret token of recognition. Ilic did not want to carry the arms through security at Tuzla station himself, so he asked Jovanovic to pack them in a box and bring them to the first sta-

The second trio of assassins, recruited by Ilic (L-R): Vaso Cubrilovic, 17; Cvjetko Popovic, 17, and Muhamed Mehmedbasic, 27. 8

Right: Franz Ferdinand travelled to Sarajevo by a different route from his wife, the first stage being aboard the battleship Viribus Unitis from Trieste in Slovenia to Metkovic in Croatia. From there he took the train into Bosnia. Here he arrives at Ilidza station on June 25.

THE ARCHDUKE ARRIVES IN BOSNIA The Archduke’s four-day visit to Bosnia was officially announced on June 4. Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie would arrive in Sarajevo on June 25; in his capacity of Inspector General of the Austrian Army, he would attend two days of military manoeuvres on June 26 and 27; the royal couple would then make an official visit to Sarajevo on the 28th — St Vitus Day — and they would depart on the 29th. All this time they would stay at the luxurious Hotel Bosna in Ilidza, an spa town just west of Sarajevo. Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne since 1889, had fallen in love with Countess Sophie Chotek in 1894 and they had married in 1900. However, as a Czech countess of lower nobility, Sophie was not accepted at the Austrian court.

During their four-day visit to Bosnia, the royal couple stayed at the Hotel Bosna in Ilidza, a spa resort just west of Sarajevo. Located in a park on the west bank of the Zeljeznica river, it was one of five luxurious hotels located close to one another, the others being the Hotel Austria, Hercegovina, Srbia and Terme.

ATB

tion beyond the city, to which Jovanovic agreed. The handover took place next day, June 15, but not without some improvisation and anxiety. Ilic missed the rendezvous at the first station and, having passed two more stations, Jovanovic got off the train at Doboj (where he had some business to attend to), hoping that Ilic would show up with a later train. He did, and the handover took place. Travelling back to Sarajevo with a boxful of weapons, and wishing to avoid the police, Ilic alighted one station short of the city, took a local train into town, then a streetcar to his mother’s home, where he hid the weapons in a Gladstone bag underneath the fold-down bed in which Princip was sleeping. In the days leading up to the assassination, Ilic seems to have suffered from a sudden crisis in motivation and conviction. Historians have been at a loss to explain this unexpected change of heart in this otherwise fervent revolutionary. Some have explained it as a simple loss of nerve; others as a genuine dilemma, an inner torment, political, spiritual and moral; still others as the result of some instruction received from a messenger sent by Colonel Apis in Belgrade. The latter theory goes as follows. Back in May, Colonel Apis had given his approval but then changed his mind (perhaps because he learned that the Serbian prime minister, Nikola Pasic, had got wind of the plan) and sent Djuro Sarac (the one who had introduced the three students to Ciganovic and had seen them off when they left Belgrade) to Bosnia to try to call it off. Historians still argue whether Apis did this on his own or that he was told to do so by the Central Committee of the Black Hand. It is said (but no historian has been able to prove it) that Sarac met Ilic at Bosanski Brod on June 16 to convey him Apis’ instruction. Whatever the reasons, the fact remains that Ilic, in the ten days before June 28, suddenly backed away from the idea of the assassination and tried to prevent it from happening. On several occasions he attempted to talk both Princip and Grabez out of it, arguing that the present time was not favourably chosen and that it could have bad consequences; that it was not necessary as there were going to be improvements in Bosnia. The students disagreed with him and said they would persevere. If anything, it made them begin to distrust Ilic and disqualify him as unreliable. Apparently (but, again, there is little proof), a few days before the Archduke’s arrival, Colonel Apis again changed his mind and despatched another of his agents, Rade Malobabic, from Serbia to Sarajevo to instruct Ilic that the assassination was to go ahead after all.

Like innumerable other buildings in the greater Sarajevo area, the Hotel Bosna suffered considerable damage during the four-year siege of Sarajevo (1992-96) in the Bosnian war, when Bosnian-Serb forces maintained a tight cordon around the city from the surrounding hills. From January 1996 to May 2000 the cluster of hotels was the site of Camp Ilidza, the headquarters of the IFOR (later SFOR) NATO peacekeeping force. Today three of the hotels (now named Hercegovina, Crystal and Terme) are back in use. The Hotel Bosna is still undergoing restoration. 9

ATB

Franz Ferdinand arriving at the Hotel Bosna. The car on the right is the one in which he would be assassinated three days later. duke — but he could not: his weapons were still at home, hidden under his bed. The following two days, June 26 and 27, the Archduke carried out the main purpose of his visit, observing the military manoeuvres. Together with General Potiorek, he watched through binoculars as the 20,000 troops of the Austrian XV. and XVI. Armeekorps played out a mock battle in hilly terrain west of Ilidza. He was very pleased with what he saw, afterwards praising the troops’ state of training and morale in a telegram to the Emperor. While her husband was attending the manoeuvres, Sophie dutifully followed the programme that had been arranged for her. It included visits to the Catholic children’s home of which she was a patron, to a number of schools, a carpet factory, both the Catholic and the Serb Orthodox cathedrals and various mosques. On the evening of the 27th there was a lavish gala dinner at the Hotel Bosna, with 40 guests from the upper strata of Sarajevo society. There had been rumours of an attempt on the Archduke’s life, and even several warnings — by the Sarajevo chief of police, Dr Edmund Gerde; by the vice-president in the Sabor (Bosnian parliament), Dr Josip Sunaric, and by others — but these had all been dismissed, ignored, even ridiculed, by Governor Potiorek. The Archduke and Duchess themselves certainly did not worry too much over it all, or at least showed themselves remarkably carefree over the warnings. THE CONSPIRACY IS ON Meanwhile, the six assassins were getting ready. On Thursday, June 25, Grabez came down to Sarajevo from Pale. On Friday, June 26, Mehmedbasic in Stolac received a telegram from Ilic, summoning him to come to the capital. He immediately journeyed to Mostar and there took a train to Sarajevo, booking himself into the Hotel Sarajevo. Meeting up with Ilic, he was introduced to

Princip in a café. The three of them signed a joint postcard to Vladimir Gacinovic in Switzerland. That same day, Princip met Cabrinovic, who had been left in the dark by the others since their return to Sarajevo three weeks before, and told him the plot was on and planned for Sunday. On Saturday, June 27, the two schoolboys, Cubrilovic and Popovic, went out to Membasa, a quiet area on the Miljacka river on the outskirts of the city, and there met Ilic. He gave each of them a gun and a bomb, explaining their use. To demonstrate the pistol, he fired a round into the railway tunnel at the Kozija bridge. He also told them the attempt would be made along the Appel Quay and instructed them where to take up position. The boys took their weapons home. That evening, Cubrilovic met two of his friends, Marko Perin and Dragan Kalember, strolling the streets. While eating ice cream at the Turkish marketplace, he told them he was carrying a gun and a bomb, even showing them the handle of the gun tucked in his waistband. Sceptical before, his friends now suspected there might be some truth in his earlier bragging. That same evening, Ilic met Mehmedbasic at the Mostar Café and, while walking him back to his room in the Sarajevo Hotel, handed him a bomb along with some instruction how to use it. That same evening too, Princip met Cabrinovic and took him to the Appel Quay, pointing out where he wanted him to stand, opposite the Austro-Hungarian Bank. Princip spent the last evening at the Semiz wine shop, drinking wine and singing Serb songs with friends. The shop was around the corner from the Latin Bridge where Princip himself would take up position the following morning. Earlier that evening he had gone to the Orthodox Cemetery of St Mark’s and put some flowers on the grave of Bogdan Zerajic, the Young Bosnians’ martyr, whom he regarded as his inspirational hero.

ATB

Emperor Franz Josef had only consented to the marriage on the condition that her children would never ascend the throne and that she would not share her husband’s rank, title or privileges. Even though she was made Duchess of Hohenberg, the Emperor and the other courtiers kept humiliatingly treating her as a commoner. Protocol stipulated that she could never sit beside her husband on any public occasion. The only exception was when the Heir was acting in a military capacity. Thus the visit to Sarajevo would be the couple’s first chance to appear in public together and for her to enjoy full royal honours. The Archduke and Duchess spent the early part of June at their estates in Bohemia, first at the castle at Konopischt, 45 kilometres south of Prague (where they entertained the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, who came on a two-day visit, June 12 and 13), and then, from June 20, at Chlumetz. On June 23, they departed together by train for Vienna, the first leg of a long roundabout journey to Bosnia. From Vienna, they travelled by separate routes, Sophie going by train to Budapest and Brod and then on to Ilidza, and Ferdinand going to Trieste to take the battleship Viribus Unitis — the pride of the Habsburg fleet — down the Adriatic coast to the Croatian town of Metkovic. There he boarded a train to Mostar and into Bosnia to rejoin his wife at Ilidza. The Archduke arrived at Ilidza station in the afternoon of Thursday, June 25, being welcomed by a guard of honour and a band playing the national anthem. Soon after rejoining his wife at the Hotel Bosna, he impulsively decided to break his carefully planned schedule and take a trip into Sarajevo with his wife for some shopping. As they walked the narrow lanes of the city’s Turkish market, a large crowd gathered and there were even some cheers. Ironically, one among the crowd was Gavrilo Princip. He saw the royal couple entering a carpet shop, so close he could have easily shot the Arch-

Local photographer Walter Tausch snapshot the Archduke kissing his wife at the hotel entrance. 10

ATB

Sunday, June 28, 1914 — the day scheduled for the royal couple’s official visit to the city of Sarajevo. At 9.50 a.m. Franz Ferdinand and Sophie alight from the special train that has taken them from Ilidza to Sarajevo Station. On the right is General Oskar Potiorek, the Austrian Governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina. SUNDAY, JUNE 28 Sunday, June 28 — St Vitus Day — dawned bright and sunny. Early in the morning, the six conspirators left to take up their positions along the Appel Quay. Although Ilic and Princip had previously assigned each man a location where to stand, this had been only an approximate instruction, leaving the assassins free to chose the exact spot on the day itself. Leaving his parents’ home early that morning, Cabrinovic first walked to the Basagic bookstore, a place where students liked to go to read newspapers. While there, he met Grabez (who had now been in town

The railway station where the royal couple alighted in 1914 no longer exists. The site, at the junction of Hamdije Cemerlica and Drinska Street, is occupied today by the Fabrika Duhana Sarajevo, a huge new tobacco factory built by the FDS company in 1960-71 (see the map on page 12).

for three days) and told him the group was to meet at Vlajnic’s pastry shop on Cumurija Street, around the corner from Appel Quay at 8 a.m.

Ilic was the first to arrive at the rendezvous, followed shortly by Grabez, then Cabrinovic, then Princip. Sitting down with the others in the shop’s rear room, Princip

ATB

BA BILD 102-03426

Right: The royal motorcade’s first stop was to inspect Austrian troops at the Filipoviceva Kasarna, Sarajevo’s modern military barracks built by the Habsburgs in the 1890s just down the road from the station. The Archduke’s Gräf & Stift open tourer was pictured as it left the barracks shortly thereafter. Franz Ferdinand and Sophie are in the back seats, with Governor Potiorek and Oberstleutnant Franz Count von Harrach, the owner of the car, in front of them. At the wheel is chauffeur Leopold Lojka, and sitting beside him is Gustav Schneiberg, the Hofkammerbüchsenspanner (Court Armourer), a member of the Archduke’s hunting staff. Note the Archduke’s pennant flying from the car. Left: Although this picture is included in virtually every publication describing the assassination, no archive caption records exactly where it was taken and it was only when Karel Margry went to inspect the former military barracks that he recognised the building. Designed by architects Karel Parik and Ludvig Huber, the barracks was completed in 1901. Named after Croatian General Baron Josip Filipovic, who commanded the Austrian forces that occupied Bosnia in 1878, it was renamed King Alexander Camp in 1918, and then Marshal Tito Barracks in 1945. A prime target of Serb artillery during the 1992-96 Siege of Sarajevo, it suffered considerable damage from shelling. Many of the barracks buildings have since been pulled down and today the site is in use as Sarajevo University campus, with part of the old grounds now occupied by the new US Embassy. Fortunately, the spot where the Archduke’s car was pictured exiting through what was in 1914 the main gate of the southern wing of the barracks, remains intact. The building on Zmaja od Bosne today houses the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 11

6 5

4 3 2

1

Meanwhile, the six assassins were waiting in line along the Appel Quay, the main boulevard running into town alongside the Miljacka river. [1] Muhamed Mehmedbasic. [2] Vaso

Cubrilovic. [3] Nedeljko Cabrinovic. [4] Cvjetko Popovic. [5] Gavrilo Princip. [6] Trifun Grabez. Danilo Ilic, the chief local organiser of the plot, stood close to Popovic.

quickly handed Cabrinovic a bomb and also some cyanide. It had been agreed that those who had no pistols — Cabrinovic and Mehmedbasic — would commit suicide by taking poison. (Some historians assume the cyanide was already provided by Ciganovic in Belgrade but this is unproven. More likely it was obtained via Dragan Kalember, young Cubrilovic’s schoolmate, who worked at a pharmacy. Historians also still disagree over whether the poison was in glass capsule or in powder form.)

ATB

Right: This is the spot where three of them had taken up position. On the pavement on the extreme left stood Vaso Cubrilovic, armed with a pistol and bomb; across the street, next to the river and approximately where the lamppost is, stood Nedjo Cabrinovic armed with a bomb; another few metres on, again on the left, at the corner with Cumurija Street and opposite the Cumurija Bridge, stood Cvjetko Popovic, also with a bomb and pistol. Below: [1] Sarajevo Railway Station. [2] Filipoviceva Kasarna. [3] Cumurija Bridge. [4] Latin Bridge. [5] Emperor’s Bridge. [6] Town Hall. [7] Konak.

1

2

12

ATB

Leaving the pastry shop, Cabrinovic strolled to the Appel Quay where he bumped into a friend, Tomo Vucinovic. Perhaps because he realised he was about to commit an historic act, and one he would not survive, he decided to have his photograph taken, so the two of them walked to Josef Schrei’s photo studio on Cirkus Square, and posed for the camera. Cabrinovic ordered six prints and, telling his friend he was departing for Zagreb, asked him to give one to has grandmother, one to his sister and send one each to friends in Belgrade, Trieste and Zagreb. He picked up the prints around 10 a.m. and gave them to Vucinovic, then took leave of him. Returning to the Appel Quay, he strolled along, pondering where he would take up position. He finally chose a spot virtually opposite the Mostar Café and just short of the Cumurija-Brücke (Cumurija Bridge), on the pavement beside the river, on the sunny side of the street, next to a lamppost (which he needed to prime his bomb) and at a spot where there were few other spectators (lest he kill or injure innocent bystanders). Meanwhile, back at the pastry shop, Ilic had taken Grabez back to his mother’s house in Oprkanj Street and there given him a pistol and a bomb. Grabez then left for the Appel Quay hoping to find Princip as he intended to throw his bomb to create a diversion so that Princip could fire his pistol at the Archduke in the ensuing mêlée. However, he could not find his friend so, strolling up and down the quay, he decided to take up position at the north-western corner of the Kaiser-Brücke (Emperor’s Bridge), two bridges short of the Town Hall. As he reasoned, this would give him two chances, because the bridge was the most-likely turnoff to the Konak, Governor Potiorek’s residence, where he knew the Archduke was scheduled to have lunch after his reception at the Town Hall. The spot also had a special historic significance for Grabez: it was here that Bogdan Zerajic had killed himself four years earlier, after his failed attempt on Potiorek’s predecessor, General Varesanin. Having left his lodgings at Ilic’s house shortly before 8 a.m. with one pistol and two bombs, and having passed one of the bombs to Cabrinovic in the pastry shop, Princip

SZ 482020

Right: As the Archduke’s car passed Cabrinovic, he armed his bomb and threw it at the vehicle, but without allowing for the delay in the device’s 12-second fuze. The bomb bounced off the Archduke’s car and exploded instead under the next vehicle, wounding its occupants and some 20 spectators lining the route. The royal couple themselves were unhurt. This is the exact spot, photographed shortly after the wrecked car had been removed.

Amazingly, a century on, and despite two world wars and the 1992-96 siege having passed over the city, the same buildings remain exactly as they were in 1914. The house on the right has made way for a second junction with Cumurija Street.

6

5 4 7

A close-up of the same spot shows the small crater left in the roadway by Cabrinovic’s bomb.

ATB

BA BILD 183-R34393

3

Today nothing marks the site where a bomb was once thrown at the Heir to the Habsburg throne. 13

7 9 8

6

10

5 4

2 3

1

The official sketch from the police investigation. [1] The lamppost against which Cabrinovic primed his bomb. [2] The spot where the bomb exploded. [3] Cubrilovic. [4] Popovic. [5] Ilic. [6] First position of Princip. [7] Second position of Princip. [8] Franz Ferdinand’s vehicle turning into Franz Josef Street. [9]

Planned route of Franz Ferdinand’s vehicle. [10] Vlajnic’s pastry shop on Cumurija Street, where the conspirators had their last rendezvous before taking up their positions. Note: the position taken up by Mehmedbasic is off the sketch to the left and that of Grabez off to the right.

went out and strolled the streets, deliberately looking for company that would not be conspicuous. With two friends he walked to the city park, engaging in small talk, until it was time for him to go to the Appel Quay to take up his assigned position: beside the Lateiner Brücke (Latin Bridge), on the sunny side of the street. This placed Princip about halfway between Cabrinovic at the Cumurija Bridge and Grabez at the Emperor’s Bridge. The second trio of assassins came to the Appel Quay independent of the other. They took up their positions without seeing their fellow conspirators or knowing where they Right: Immediately after throwing his bomb, Cabrinovic tried to commit suicide by swallowing cyanide and jumping into the river. However, his attempt failed and he was dragged out of the water and arrested. Here he is being escorted to the police station by gendarmes, who had trouble defending him from assaults by the angry crowds. had chosen to stand. Mehmedbasic had had a short meeting with Princip two days before but did not know any of the other four; Cubrilovic and Popovic only knew of each other’s involvement. Ilic had assigned Mehmedbasic a place in front of the garden of the Mostar Café, on the city side of the street. This made him the first in the long line of assassins along the avenue. Cubrilovic and Popovic took up positions on the same side of the street as Mehmedbasic, a few dozen metres further on and relatively close to one another. They were both just short of the junction with Cumurija Street, across the road from Cumurija Bridge. Cubrilovic stood in front of the home of Danilo Dimovic (an ironical choice as he was the head of the despised Serb collabora-

ATB

Left: The picture was taken along Appel Quay, on the stretch between the Latin Bridge and the Town Hall. The view is looking west. 14

ATB

Left: Driving on from the bomb attack, the royal motorcade continued on along Appel Quay to reach the Town Hall where dignitaries stood waiting on the steps to greet the royal couple. Then, as the Mayor of Sarajevo, Fehem Effendi Curcic, began his welcoming speech, the irate Archduke, exasperated by the attempt on his life, had to be calmed down by his wife before the Mayor could continue. Right: Designed by architects Karel Parik and Alexander Wittek, the grand building in pseudo-Moorish style was completed in 1896. Known as the Vijecnica, it served as the Town Hall until 1949, when it was handed over to the National and University Library of Bosnia

and Herzegovina, the central repository of Bosnian written culture and a major cultural centre for all the Balkan. During the siege of Sarajevo, on the night of August 25/26, 1992, BosnianSerb artillery set fire to the building with incendiary shells, resulting in the complete destruction of the library, an act of aggression that left the Bosnians enraged. Libraries all over the world co-operated to restore some of the lost heritage, and the reconstructed library is now temporarily housed at the University campus. A full structural and interior repair of the Vijecnica, now a national monument, began in 1996 and is expected to be completed in 2014.

tors in the Sabor puppet parliament). Popovic was a little further down, on the corner with Cumurija Street, outside the Teachers’ School’s residential home. They did not know it but all three were in fact standing in close proximity of Cabrinovic, who was virtually across the road from them. Although Ilic, the organiser of the plot, had decided not to actually take part in the attempt himself, he still did not stay away. As he was the only one who knew all six of the assassins, instead he chose to walk up and down the Appel Quay from one to the other, checking their positions and giving them lastminute encouragement. When the Archduke’s motorcade finally passed he would be standing on the corner of Cumurija Street, close to Popovic. GETTY IMAGES 56214224

Right: The other vehicles of the royal procession have reached the Town Hall, and adjutants and aides watch as the Archduke reads out his prepared response to the Mayor. The piece of paper on which it was written was bloodstained from the wounds suffered by his adjutant Count Alexander BoosWaldeck in the bomb-wrecked car.

ATB

There was only a thin crowd thronging the route, standing mainly along the city side of the quay, where there was more shadow to shelter from the hot morning sun. At 9.25 a.m. the Archduke and Duchess and their party boarded a special train at Ilidza for the short journey to Sarajevo. At 9.50, Governor Potiorek met them at Sarajevo Station. Seven automobiles were waiting. By mistake, three local police officers got into the first car with the chief officer of the Archduke’s special security detail of private detectives; the detail’s other detectives, who were supposed to accompany their chief, got left behind. The second car carried the Mayor of Sarajevo, Fehem Effendi Curcic, and the Chief of Police, Dr Gerde. Franz Ferdinand and Sophie boarded the third car, a Gräf & Stift six-passenger open touring car Left: The same view today, looking eastwards. The building on top of the hill in the background is the Prinz-Eugen-vonSavoyen-Kaserne, a military barracks and hospital for the Austro-Hungarian Army that had just been completed that year. Today it is known as the Kasarna Jajce. 15

The reception in the Town Hall over, and with Franz Ferdinand having decided that he wants to visit his wounded adjutant in the hospital, the royal couple emerges from the building.

Meanwhile, driver Lojka has turned the Archduke’s touring car around to face the opposite direction. This is another picture taken by local photographer Walter Tausch.

with its top folded down. With them in the vehicle, on seats in front of them, sat Governor Potiorek and Oberstleutnant Franz Count von Harrach, an Austrian Army transport officer, who was the owner of the car. In the front were the chauffeur, Leopold Lojka, and Court Armourer Gustav Schneiberg, a member of the Archduke’s hunting staff. The other four cars carried officials from the governor’s staff, various aides of the Archduke and some other notaries. Shortly before 10 a.m. the motorcade started on its way. Security measures along the route were incredibly lax. Despite Dr Gerde’s warnings, there had been no reinforcement of his police force and there were only the city’s own 120 gendarmes to guard the route. Their instructions were to turn and face the crowd as the royal procession passed. Right: Fearing for the Archduke’s safety, Count von Harrach takes position on the vehicle’s running board.

GETTY IMAGES 56214220

The motorcade’s first stop was for a brief inspection of troops at the Filipoviceva Kasarna, Sarajevo’s main military barracks, which lay close to the station on the route into town. It took only a few minutes and shortly after 10 a.m., the column of vehicles left the barracks for the Town Hall by way of the Appel Quay. As the motorcade proceeded slowly along the quay, a 24-cannon salute fired from the fortresses above the city sounded through the air, and there were some shouts of ‘Livio!’ (Long may he live!) from the thin crowd lining the route. At 10.10 a.m., Franz Ferdinand’s car approached the stretch where the first assassins were waiting. As it passed Mehmedbasic, the man in pole position, he for some reaLeft: With Harrach protecting the Archduke with his body, the car moves off. 16

ATB

Left: Meanwhile, Gavrilo Princip at the Latin Bridge, having missed his first chance of killing the Archduke, had walked across the road to the delicatessen shop of Moritz Schiller located on

At 10.47 a.m. the car carrying the Archduke and Duchess, and with Count Harrach still standing on the left-hand running board, is about to turn by mistake into Franz Josef Street — note the wheels are just beginning to turn to the right. Visible on the left is the large bottle-shaped sign advertising Torley champagne that stood on the corner of Schiller’s delicatessen (it can also be seen in the photo top left). Gavrilo Princip is standing just around the corner, off the picture to the left.

ATB

son failed to act and did not throw his bomb. Supposedly the most determined of the six, it seems he was unsure as to which vehicle was the Archduke’s and also that, just as the motorcade approached, a policeman came and stood behind him, prompting him to keep hold of his bomb as he knew the Archduke would be coming back along the same route later on. Or he may have simply lost his nerve. A few dozen metres further along, Cabrinovic on the opposite side of the street, did act. He had coolly asked a gendarme standing next to him which automobile was the Archduke’s and the unsuspecting policeman had helpfully pointed it out to him. Having already unscrewed his bomb, he now pulled it from his belt, struck it against the lamppost to prime it, and threw it at the car. Chauffeur Lojka saw an object flying through the air and, instinctively, pressed the pedal hoping to accelerate the vehicle from under it. The Archduke saw it coming too, and he started to rise from his seat, as if he wanted to sweep it away with his hand. The bomb hit the car’s folded-back cover and bounced off it into the street behind. In the excitement of the moment Cabrinovic had forgotten to count ten seconds of the bomb’s 12-second time-delay. The bomb exploded under the next car, putting that vehicle out of action and leaving a small crater in the road. Immediately after throwing his bomb, Cabrinovic swallowed his cyanide and jumped over the low wall which separated the road from the Miljacka river. The river was much lower than the street, making for a drop of well over four metres. However, his suicide attempt failed, as the poison only induced vomiting (either the cyanide was stale and had lost its power, or the dose was too small to be fatal) and the Miljacka was very shallow due to the hot, dry summer. Four people — the gendarme that had stood next to him, a Muslim detective and two bystanders — chased after him as he lay face down in the water. They dragged him across the river and hauled him out on the opposite bank, punching him as he tried to escape. When one of them asked ‘You’re a Serb, aren’t you?’ he retorted: ‘I am a heroic Serb’. As he was led away to the police station, located beside the Town Hall, he was severely beaten by the crowd. When the bomb exploded under the fourth car, there was immediate chaos as spectators began running. The Archduke’s car kept moving until Franz Ferdinand told the driver to stop. He ordered Count Harrach, who was sitting beside the driver, to go back and see if anyone had been injured. Of the people in the fourth car, two had suffered

the corner of Franz Josef Street. Right: A century later, the same building still stands and now houses a museum dedicated to the Young Bosnia movement and the events of 1914.

The same view a century later. The tall tower of the Careva Dzamija (Emperor’s Mosque) across the river on the right helps to pinpoint the comparison. 17

ATB

FELIX SCHWORMSTÄDT

As no photograph was taken at the moment that the shots were fired at the royal couple by Princip, it became the subject of innumerable artist’s impressions, many illustrated magazines commissioning a sketch artist to put the dramatic shrapnel wounds: Oberstleutnant Erich von Merizzi, Potiorek’s adjutant, and Oberstleutnant Count Alexander Boos-Waldeck, one of the Archduke’s aides. Twenty bystanders had been wounded. Count Harrach ran back to the Archduke’s car to report on the situation. At the same time an officer from the Archduke’s staff came running up to urge them to move on to the Town Hall; standing stationary in the road, they were sitting ducks for other murder attempts. The procession sped away, leaving the disabled car behind. Cubrilovic and Popovic, standing just ahead of where the Archduke’s car had stopped, and Princip and Grabez at their respective bridges, failed to act as the motorcade passed them at high speed. Arriving at the Town Hall for the scheduled reception, Franz Ferdinand showed understandable signs of stress, interrupting a prepared welcome speech by Mayor Curcic to protest: ‘Herr Bürgermeister, what is the good of your speeches? I come here on a visit and I get bombs thrown at me. It is outrageous.’ Duchess Sophie leaned over to whisper something into her husband’s ear, which must have soothed him, for after a pause he said to the mayor: ‘Now you may speak.’ He then became calm and the mayor gave his speech. Franz Ferdinand had to wait as his own speech, still wet with blood from being in the damaged car, was brought to him. Reading from prepared text, he added a few remarks about the day’s events thanking the people of Sarajevo for their ovations ‘as I see in them an expression of their joy at the failure of the attempt at assassination’. Officials and members of the Archduke’s party discussed what to do next. Should the royal couple wait in the Town Hall until troops could brought up for their protection? 18

moment into image. One of the better attempts was this sketch by Felix Schwormstädt for the Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung. Right: The actual view from where Princip fired his two shots. Franz Josef Street is today named Ulice Zelenih Beretki.

Should they proceed with the planned programme and go to the opening of a new museum in the city centre? Should they drop the programme and proceed direct to the Governor’s residence at the Konak or straight back to their hotel? Rejecting all these suggestions, Franz Ferdinand decided he would instead prefer to go to the hospital and visit Oberst von Merizzi and Count Boos-Waldeck, the men from his party who had been wounded by the bomb. He asked Potiorek if he thought there would be more attempts on his life but the governor reassured him, saying it was possible but not very likely and he would accept all responsibility for the royal couple’s safety. At 10.45 a.m., Franz Ferdinand and Sophie left the Town Hall and got back into the open convertible. Much worried that there might be more attempts, Count Harrach took up a protective position on the car’s left-hand running board, next to the Archduke, remaining there as the car drove off. There was now only a single vehicle in front of them, the one containing the mayor and the Chief of Police, Dr Gerde. In order to get to the Sarajevo Hospital, the motorcade could have stuck to the route as originally planned, which was to proceed down the Appel Quay as far as the Latin Bridge, then turn right into Franz Josef Street and go through the city centre, past the museum and on to the hospital. In the circumstances, General Potiorek thought it safer to avoid the city centre so he decided that, rather than turn right at Franz Josef Street, the royal car should continue straight along the Appel Quay and reach the Sarajevo Hospital via a roundabout route. However, nobody had thought of informing the chauffeur, Leopold Lojka, about the change in plans and driving route.

As the cars sped down the Appel Quay they passed Grabez who still stood at the Emperor’s Bridge, ready for a second attempt with his bomb and pistol, and hoping the motorcade would slow down for a left turn onto the bridge. However the cars sped past him and he was unable to act. A few hundred metres further on was the turn-off into Franz Josef Street. Not knowing about the change in route, driver Lojka decreased speed and turned right — a fateful mistake. After learning that the first attempt had been unsuccessful, Princip thought about a position to assassinate the Archduke on his return journey. He decided to move directly across the road from his position at the Latin Bridge, to the corner with Franz Josef Street. Here, on the north-east corner, stood a food and wine shop, Schiller’s Delicatessen. As Princip waited outside the shop’s entrance, a Young Bosnian friend, Mihajlo Pusara (he was actually the one who had sent the cutting about the Heir’s visit to Cabrinovic in Belgrade the previous March), came up and began talking to him. Just then, the cars of the royal procession began turning into the street. General Potiorek right away realised his chauffeur’s error and called out to him: ‘Stop! You’re going the wrong way! We ought to go via Appel Quay!’ Lojka applied the brakes and the automobile pulled up — right outside Schiller’s delicatessen where Princip was standing. Princip must have regarded his luck with incredulity but he reacted instantaneously. He drew his gun from his pocket, stepped forward and fired two shots from a distance of about one and a half metres. He barely took aim, even turning his head away as he fired. One bullet wounded the Archduke in the jugular vein, the other inflicted an abdominal wound on the Duchess.

Princip was immediately jumped upon by bystanders. Before he could turn his pistol onto himself, one of the on-lookers, Ante Velic, grabbed it from him. His bomb fell out of his belt and onto the pavement. Gendarmes began hitting him with their sabres, as did Baron Andreas von Morsey, the Archduke’s aide, who had been in the next car and had leaped out. In the mêlée, Princip managed to swallow his cyanide but, as with Cabrinovic, it did not kill him, only made him vomit as he was being dragged away to the police station. One of the spectators, a man named Ferdinand Behr, who had not realised that Princip was the assassin and had tried to defend him, was also arrested and bundled off to the police station. After the gunshots had rung out, both victims initially remained seated upright, but then the Duchess slid to one side, onto her husband’s lap. Franz Ferdinand called out ‘Sopherl, Sopherl! Don’t die! Live for our children!’. Count Harrach, still on the running board, saw blood spurting out of the Archduke’s mouth but when he asked him about the injury, Franz Ferdinand merely repeated ‘It is nothing’ six or seven times. He then choked on the blood and there was a long death rattle. As the car reversed out of Franz Josef Street, Governor Potiorek, seeing the road ahead blocked by the crowd,

ATB

Above: Princip was immediately arrested and bundled off to the same police station as where Cabrinovic had been taken earlier. This unique picture, taken by amateur photographer Milos Oberajger and reproduced in thousands of publications since 1914, is usually described as showing Princip being led away after his arrest. However, the exact identity of the person under guard is a matter of much conjecture and debate. Some publications say it is not Princip but Cabrinovic. However, comparison with the picture of Cabrinovic and his gendarme guardians taken an hour before (see page 14) make this highly unlikely. Today it is believed that the man in this picture is actually Ferdinand Behr, an innocent bystander who got arrested by mistake in the chaos after Princip fired his shots. Oberajger’s widow donated the original print of the iconic photograph to the Croatian History Museum in Zagreb in 1988. Right: Another picture taken by the same photographer a few moments later showed a tall man wearing a fez. He too was subsequently, but wrongly, claimed as being Princip.

Few publications identify the police station where the two assassins were taken and Karel was thrilled not only to pinpoint the building but moreover to find it still standing virtually unchanged along Brodac, the short narrow street that runs along the western side of the Town Hall. Today it is in use as a housing block. 19

Left: Immediately after the shooting, the car carrying the fatally wounded royal couple drove to the Konak, Governor Potiorek’s residence, but it was too late. Sophie was dead on arrival and Franz Ferdinand died ten minutes later. Right: The Konak (the word means ‘Governor’s Seat’ in Turkish) was built by Pasha Topal Serif

Ottoman, the Turkish governor of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1869 as his new residence. The Habsburg Empire used it for the same purpose. Today it is still a government building, used by the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina for state receptions and to accommodate senior foreign delegations.

ordered the driver to take the Latin Bridge and drive straight to his Konak residence, only a few hundred metres away, for medical treatment. However, it was too late. Sophie was dead on arrival and Franz Ferdinand died ten minutes later. Death was confirmed by Dr Ferdinand Fischer at 11.30 a.m. The news of the murder of the Austrian royals incensed the pro-Habsburg segments of the population of Sarajevo. That afternoon, there were anti-Serb demonstrations in the city, mainly from Catholic Croats and Muslims. Next day they turned into ugly riots, Serb-owned shops, businesses, hotels and clubs, even family homes, being raided and ransacked. Troops were called in and martial law and a curfew declared.

After an autopsy had been performed, forensic doctors worked through the night to embalm the bodies of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, while sculptor artists worked to make death masks as was the custom of the period. The following morning the couple were laid in state in one of the grand rooms of the Konak. his coffin was bedecked with symbols of his imperial status while hers bore just a black fan and a pair of white gloves. The following morning, July 3, the chapel was opened to allow members of the general public to file past the coffins and pay their last respects. The funeral service began at 4 p.m. It was attended by just the immediate imperial family and kept very short, lasting just 15 minutes. The coffins were then transported to the railway station for the journey to the family castle at Artstetten. (In life,

Franz Ferdinand had already realised that his wife would never be allowed to be buried beside him at the imperial vault in the Church of the Capuchins in Vienna so he had built a crypt at Artstetten where they could be buried side by side.) The horse-drawn hearses crossed the Danube near Pörchlarn on a ferry during the night in a violent thunderstorm and the procession arrived at the castle with rain slashing the cobblestones. The entombment took place on July 4 in the presence of hundreds of guests.

ATB

THE FUNERAL The bodies of the Archduke and Duchess lay in state in the Konak, the official residence of Governor Potiorek, for a day and were then returned to Vienna retracing the same route the Archduke had taken on his voyage to Sarajevo. On June 29 two horse-drawn hearses carried the coffins in silent procession to Sarajevo’s Bistrik railway station, where they were put aboard a train to Metkovic on the Croatian coast. The battleship Viribus Unitis carried them to Trieste, where they arrived on July 2 and from where they were taken by special train to Vienna. Arriving there late at night they were brought to the small chapel in the Hofburg royal palace, where they were laid in state. Even after the royal couple’s violent death, the martinets of Habsburg protocol saw fit to condemn their ‘inappropriate’ marriage and humiliatingly highlight their difference in social class: the Archduke’s coffin was larger than his wife’s and raised 45 centimetres higher on the dais;

Later that day a ceremonial procession brought the coffins to the Sarajevo-Bistrik railway station from where they were to begin their journey back to Vienna. Here the hearse carrying the coffin of Duchess Sophie moves up Bistrik Street. 20

From the Konak, the procession first turned left down towards the Miljacka river, then left at the Emperor’s Bridge, then left again up Bistrik Street. This is the view looking back towards the river.

ATB

Left: All those arrested for involvement in the plot were held in the military prison of the Filipoviceva Kasarna, the same barracks where the Archduke and Duchess had inspected Austrian troops on the day of their murder. This is where Princip and the others were interrogated and kept in isolated cells while their trial was being prepared. Walter Tausch pictured the main defendants in the barracks’ courtyard as they were brought out under guard to be escorted to the courtroom (L-R): Grabez, Cabrinovic, Ilic, and Princip (circled). Above: For security reasons, the trial was held in a room in one of the barrack blocks. With much of the former Tito Barracks having been pulled down it is impossible to say if that particular block still survives on the present-day University campus. ROUNDING UP ASSASSINS AND ACCOMPLICES Meanwhile, the investigation into the murder was in full swing. Immediately after they had been taken to the police station, Cabrinovic and Princip first needed medical attention and some time to recover because of the beatings they had suffered from the crowds and the effects of the cyanide, However, when the investigating judge, Leo Pfeffer, asked Princip if he was ready to be interrogated, he answered with perfect clarity and increasing assuredness. He admitted what he had done, and why, but did not give anything away about others, not even that Cabrinovic and he were part of the same conspiracy. Cabrinovic was questioned by another solicitor, State Attorney Svara, but answered with similar clear and eloquent conviction. That evening at 7 p.m. Princip was officially charged with murder. Later that same evening the police investigated Princip’s lodgings in Oprkanj Street. There they found Danilo Ilic and, having received general orders to detain all known radicals, arrested him — without knowing that he was actually the organiser of the attempt. All through the afternoon and evening there was a wave of arrests in the city as the police rounded up local Serbs, peasants, students and other suspected persons. The following day, June 29, Cabrinovic and Princip admitted that they had conspired together in Belgrade to kill the Archduke. They named Ciganovic as their helper, knowing he was safe and out of reach in Serbia. The whole plot was eventually disclosed when Ilic broke down on July 1 and, in an attempt to save his neck from the gallows, betrayed the six assassins and all others who in one way or another had helped them. It appears Pfeffer promised him mercy in exchange for his co-operation. More details became known when Princip decided to tell all on July 2, his motive being that if he confessed accurately at least no harm would come to innocent people. The result was a general round-up of nearly all of those involved. The other four assassins had all silently got away from the scene of the assassination — Mehmedbasic, Cubrilovic and Popovic fled after seeing Cabrinovic’s bomb go off, and Grabez after he heard the two shots fired by Princip. Grabez first went to the home of an uncle, where he hid his pistol and bomb. On

June 30, he returned to his parents’ home in Pale. Next day, July 1, he travelled with his girlfriend to Visegrad, on the Serbian border, but he was arrested during the voyage as he had no travel permit. His passport showed he had come from Serbia on May 30 (it had in fact been used by Cabrinovic) and, suspecting he might have something to do with the murder plot, he was sent to Sarajevo and jailed. Popovic, who had hid his pistol and bomb in the basement of the Prosvjeta (Serb cultural society) offices, was arrested on July 3 at Zemum, where he had gone to lay low with his parents. Cubrilovic went to his pre-arranged rendezvous with his schoolmate Ivo Kranjcevic and handed him his bomb and pistol. (Kranjcevic subsequently hid the weapons, first in the house of Ivan Momcinovic, a friend of his parents; then, after the son-in-law of the latter family had confronted him over this reck-

lessness, in his own mother’s house; and finally, realising the risks he was taking, burying the bomb in a city park and the gun in the Muslim cemetery.) Cubrilovic was arrested in the town of Dubica, on Bosnia’s northern frontier, on July 3. In the days following, all the Bosnians who had assisted Princip and Grabez during their journey with the weapons were arrested, as were those Sarajevans who — knowingly or unknowingly — had helped to hide the weapons afterwards. Also arrested were the school friends of Cubrilovic and Popovic who had known about the plot but had not reported it to the authorities. All of the hidden bombs and pistols were subsequently retrieved by the police. Mehmedbasic was the only one to escape arrest. He hid for the night with some Muslim friends, left Sarajevo on June 30 and managed to get across the border into neutral Montenegro on July 3. He stayed there

In all there were 25 defendants. Seated in the front row are (L-R) Grabez, Cabrinovic, Princip, Ilic and Jovanovic. 21

WIKIMEDIA

HANS WEINGARTZ

until November (by which time the First World War had broken out) and then made his way into Serbia, enlisting in the Serb army and becoming a close associate of Tankosic and Colonel Apis. All those arrested were locked up in chains in isolated cells at the military prison in the grounds of the Filipoviceva Kasarna, the same military barracks inspected by the Archduke on the day of his death. They were interrogated, with intimidation and threats, and exposed to constant violence and abuse from the prison guards.

tor’s justice or taking revenge for a defeat. Thus it was decided to go ahead with the proceedings early. The trail opened on October 12 and lasted for 11 days, until October 23, with the verdict and sentences announced on the 28th. It was held in a makeshift courtroom within the military barracks. There was no open gallery for family or interested parties, only a few journalists and specially invited spectators. Presiding judge was Luis von Curinaldi, who was assisted by judges Bogdan Naumowicz and Mayer Hoffman. In all there were 25 defendants: six of the seven assassins: Princip, Cabrinovic, Grabez, Cubrilovic, Popovic and Ilic; ten of the people who had assisted in smuggling the weapons:

Veljko Cubrilovic, the schoolteacher from Priboj; Misko Jovanovic, the cinema owner from Tuzla; the peasants Mico Micic, Jakov Milovic, Obren Milosevic, Mitar Kerovic and his sons Blagoje, Jovo and Nedjo, and Cvijan Stjepanovic; Lazar Djukic, the man who had introduced Ilic to Cubrilovic; Ivan Kranjcevic, who had hidden Cubrilovic’s weapons; the four student friends of Cubrilovic who had known about the plot: Branko Zagorac, Marko Perin, Nikola Forkapic and Dragan Kalember; and finally three members of the household where Kranjcevic had left Cubrilovic’s weapons: Ivan Momcinovic, Franjo Sadilo and his wife Angela Sadilo. The only one missing was Mehmedbasic, the assassin that got away.

ATB

THE TRIAL On July 28 — exactly one month after the assassination — Austria declared war on Serbia, the start of hostilities that would mushroom into global war. General Potiorek, fully occupied with leading an army into the neighbouring kingdom, wanted to delay the trial of the conspirators until after conclusion of the campaign. However, Count Leopold Berchtold, the Austrian foreign minister, pointed out that the trial could very well disclose details that would help to justify the attack on Serbia; moreover, if they waited until the war was over, the Austrian government could easily be accused of applying vic-

Left: Of the 13 defendants sentenced to imprisonment, six went to Theresienstadt, the Bohemian fortress town 60 kilometres north of Prague, where they were incarcerated in the so-called Kleine Festung (Small Fortress). Of these six, four died before the First World War was over: Cabrinovic and Grabez in 1916, Lazar Djukic in 1917 and Princip in 1918. By then the other two, Cvijan Stjepanovic and Ivo Kranjcevic, had been transferred to Zenica in Bosnia from where they were released in November 1918. In the Second World War, Theresienstadt (Terezin in Czech) gained further notoriety, the town being used by the Nazis as a Jewish ghetto and the small fortress as a Gestapo prison. Right: Today both places are memorial sites and the tiny Cell No. 1 where Princip — the Kleine Festung’s best-known prisoner — languished in complete isolation for four years can still be seen, complete with its chain shackles fixed to the wall.

Left: The first memorial in Sarajevo to the assassination was raised in honour of the slain Archduke and Duchess. Fourteen metres high, it was erected by the Austrians in 1917 on the corner of Appel Quay and the Latin Bridge. Right: This memorial lasted 22

for just two years before being pulled down in 1919 after Bosnia had become part of the newly created Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The bronze relief portrait of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie that formed part of the memorial is today held at Artstetten castle.

BEELDBANK WO2 21052

SZ 482009

With the Serbs dominating the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia, it was no wonder that Gavrilo Princip became hallowed as a national patriot, one who had helped to fulfil the pan-Slavic ideal. On February 2, 1930, a marble plaque was unveiled on the façade of the delicatessen shop, above the spot where he had stood and fired. In Cyrillic writing it read: ‘Here on this

Princip expressed regret at having killed the Duchess, stating that his intention had been to kill Governor Potiorek, rather than her. In his final plea, Cabrinovic even asked forgiveness from the three young children of the late Heir. They were however much less clear when it came to the organisational background of the assassination. Throughout the trial the judges constantly tried to make a link to the Serbian government, looking for proof that it had been party to planning the murder. Although they seemed unaware of the existence of the Black Hand they were highly suspicious of the role of the Narodna Odbrana. When questioned about this, Princip and Cabrinovic denied any connection with that organisation or with Serbian official circles, insisting that they had acted on their own. Though they admitted to knowing Ciganovic and Tankosic, they never mentioned Colonel Apis. Ilic, the main organiser, infuriated the judges because he constantly evaded clarity in his desperate attempts to save himself. In general, the assassins did their best to protect the people who had helped them with smuggling and hiding the weapons — especially the adults among them (who faced the death penalty) — by testifying that they had threatened them and forced them to participate.

On October 28, the judges passed final verdicts. Princip, Cabrinovic and Grabez were sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, Vaso Cubrilovic to 16 years and Popovic to nine. Princip had a narrow escape because the civil register in Grahovo mistakenly gave his date of birth as June 13, 1894 (which would have made him 20), and it was only because his lawyer, Dr. Max Feldbauer, was able to prove he was born a month later that he escaped being hanged. This luck did not befall five of the older defendants: Ilic, Veljko Cubrilovic, Jovanovic, Milovic and Nedjo Kerovic all received the death sentence. (Milovic’s was later commuted to life imprisonment and Kerovic’s to 20 years.) Old Mitar Kerovic was sentenced to life imprisonment. Of the other defendants, Djukic and Kranjcevic received ten years; Stjepanovic seven, and Zagorac and Perin three. Nine were acquitted: Micic, Milosevic, Jovo and Blagoje Kerovic, Forkapic, Kalember, Momcinovic and Franjo and Angela Sadilo. The judges did not believe the defendants’ stories claiming that official Serbia was not in any way involved in the plot. The verdict ran: ‘The court regards it as proved by the evidence that both the Narodna Odbrana and military circles in the Kingdom of Serbia in charge of the espionage service, collaborated in the outrage.’

BAYERISCHE STAATSBIBLIOTHEK/FOTOARCHIV HOFFMANN 35336

BAYERISCHE STAATSBIBLIOTHEK/FOTOARCHIV HOFFMANN 34006

The defendants were all either accused of high treason or being accessory to high treason. None was accused of murder. The reason for this was that high treason could be punished with death whereas murder could not. Austrian law did not permit the death penalty to be passed on anyone under 20, so the younger defendants knew beforehand they would escape with their life. The defendants had been assigned lawyers, each of them defending several of the accused. Except for Dr. Rudolf Cistler, who represented the Cubrilovic brothers as well as Kranjcevic and Kerovic and made a sincere effort at defending his clients, the others acted more like state prosecutors than as defence councillors. The defendants were called one by one and questioned by the presiding judge. Sometimes, in order to clear up some obscurity, two or more were brought together for a confrontation. In general the assassins — notably Princip, Cabrinovic and Grabez — spoke their minds openly about their ideology and motives. They made it clear that they regarded themselves not as criminals but as Serbian patriots, even heroes of national liberation. They stated that they did not hate Austria, nor the Habsburg dynasty, nor Franz Ferdinand as a person, but that they saw his assassination as a means to free their impoverished Bosnian Serb people and promote the Slav cause.

historic place, on St Vitus Day, June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip proclaimed freedom.’ Right: However, in April 1941, after the German invasion of Yugoslavia and the capture of Sarajevo by the Wehrmacht on the 15th, pro-German ‘white-shirts’ were quick to remove the hated plaque from the building. This was then ceremoniously handed over to the German army.

A few days later, on April 20, the plaque was presented to Hitler aboard the special train that served as his Führerhauptquartier, then standing in Mönichkirchen in Lower Austria. The occasion was the Führer’s 52nd birthday and the officer delivering the present was Leutnant Mittelmann.

The plaque was subsequently put on display in the ZeughausKriegsmuseum, the large permanent exhibition on Germany’s role in the First World War that ran in the Berlin Zeughaus on Unter den Linden during the war years. We have tried to locate the present whereabouts of the plaque but without success. 23

ATB

WIKIMEDIA

affected the health of the remaining 12 prisoners and this soon took its deadly toll. At Möllersdorf, Milovic and Nedjo Kerovic succumbed in April 1916, and old Mitar Kerovic in September of that year. Of the Theresienstadt inmates, Cabrinovic died from tuberculosis on January 27, 1916; Grabez from illness on August 21, 1916, and Djukic fell victim to psychosis and died in a psychiatric ward in Prague on March 19, 1917. Princip languished on for another year — a living skeleton in shackles — finally dying from tuberculosis on April 28, 1918. All were buried in unmarked graves. Cubrilovic, Popovic, Stjepanovic and Kranjcevic survived the harsh imprisonment and all four were released in November 1918, at the end of the Great War, having served only four years of their sentence. (Popovic lived on to the age of 84, passing away on June 9, 1980; Cubrilovic died on June 11, 1990, aged 93.)

In 2006 yet another plaque was put up, this one worded more neutrally: ‘From this place on 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the AustroHungarian throne Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia.’

RALPH JOHNSON

RALPH JOHNSON

FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS Princip, Cabrinovic and Grabez were taken to the Small Fortress of Theresienstadt in Bohemia, 75 kilometres north of Prague. The others were taken to the prison at Zenica, 70 kilometres north of Sarajevo. When Austria’s war against Serbia was going badly, and the Serbs recaptured Belgrade in December 1914, the Austrians decided to move the latter group out of Bosnia. Djukic, Stjepanovic and Kranjcevic went to Theresienstadt, nine others to Möllersdorf, just south of Vienna. Marko Perin went alone to another prison in Bohemia, where he died from illness shortly after. Ilic, Veljko Cubrilovic and Jovanovic, their appeals denied, were hanged by the Bosnian state executioner Alois Seyfried in the courtyard of the Sarajevo barracks on February 3, 1915. Their incarceration in cold, damp, unlit isolation cells and malnutrition increasingly

However, at the start of the Bosnian-Serb siege of Sarajevo in 1992, official and public perception changed radically, the largely Muslim population of the city now regarding the museum as something imposed on them by Serbia and viewing Princip first of all as a Serb terrorist. The upshot was that the museum was shut down, the footprints removed and the plaque smashed. Though most of its collection got lost in the chaos of civil war, the museum re-opened in 2006 (right). Today it is named the Museum of Sarajevo 1878-1918 and displays the assassination as part of the broader history of Bosnia-Herzegovina under Habsburg rule.

ATB

In the 1950s, with Yugoslavia restored as a Communist republic and Princip again hailed as a pan-Slav patriot, the old delicatessen shop was opened as the Young Bosnians Museum, documenting that movement’s role in the creation of a South Slav nation. A new plaque (left) was put up, its inscription suitably phrased according to the ideology of the period: ‘From this place on June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip with his shooting expressed the people’s protest against tyranny and our people’s centuries-long aspiration for freedom.’ Later, the exact spot where Princip stood was marked with a set of footprints embedded in the pavement.

Left: In July 1920 the remains of Princip and his fellow conspirators were brought back to Sarajevo and interred together in the Serb Orthodox Cemetery of St Mark. The repatriation was the initiative of a specially formed ‘Committee for the Transport of the St Vitus Day Heroes’ who collected funds for its realisation. The bodies united in the cemetery were those of Princip, Cabrinovic, Grabez, Ilic, Jovanovic, Veljko Cubrilovic, Jakov Milovic, 24

Mitar and Nedjo Kerovic, and Marko Perin. The only one missing was Lazar Djukic, whose grave was never found. Also reinterred with the conspirators was Bogdan Zerajic, the Young Bosnians’ martyr who had killed himself in 1910 after his failed assassination attempt on Governor Marijan Varesanin. Later a chapel was built at the site, incorporating an arched black-marble plaque with all the 11 names inscribed (right).

Right: ‘United in marriage, united in fate’, reads the inscription on the twin sarcophagi of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie in the vault at the Hohenberg family castle at Artstetten, 100 kilometres west of Vienna. The castle itself houses a substantial exhibition on the life of the Archduke and his family.

WIKIMEDIA

HEERESGESCHICHTLICHES MUSEUM

CARLOS QUINTO

Mehmedbasic, the one that was never caught, was arrested in 1916 by the Serbian police suspected of involvement in a plot to kill the Serbian Prince Regent, Alexander. Tried at the Salonika show trial in 1917, he was sentenced to 15 years. Pardoned in 1919, he returned to Sarajevo only to be killed by Croat-Fascist Ustashe on May 29, 1943 during the Second World War. The key Black Hand members who had put the young assassins on their fateful trail had diverse ends. Vojin Tankosic fell in battle during the Great War on October 17, 1915. Colonel Apis was arrested and tried in the same Salonika trial as Mehmedbasic and sentenced to death, being executed on June 26, 1917. Milan Ciganovic weathered out the war in the United States and lived in Belgrade until 1927.

EDWIN RUIS

Left: Major artefacts connected with the 1914 assassination are preserved at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Army Historical Museum) in Vienna. The foremost exhibit by far is the original Gräf & Stift double phaeton luxury tourer in which the royal couple were shot, still displaying two clear bullet holes, one just behind the right rear door and one through the rear.

Right: Also on display is Franz Ferdinand’s bloodstained uniform jacket. The museum also has the chaise longue on which the Archduke was laid at the Konak after he had expired; the dried posy of flowers that the Duchess had been carrying tucked into her waist belt during the visit (visible in the photo on page 16) and many other artefacts. Left: The museum also has in its collection three of the four pistols that were supplied to the assassins. All four were of the same type, Belgian-made 9mm .380 ACP Browning FN model 1910 semiautomatic pistols, with serial numbers 19074, 19075, 19120 and 19126. Recovered by the police, they had originally been preserved by Father Anton Puntigam, a Jesuit priest from Sarajevo and confidant of the royal couple, who had been given them by the orphaned Hohenberg children. For many years they were kept in storage at the Vienna headquarters of the Jesuit Order but they were finally handed over to the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in 2004. However, on inspection, it was discovered that the serial number of one of them had been tampered with, so it would appear that someone had substituted one of the guns with a fake copy! It is often stated that Princip used number 19074 but the original trial records make it clear that in actual fact he used 19075. 25

THE WOOLWICH ARSENAL PARACHUTE MINE Between March and October 1942, an unexploded parachute mine, buried in the Thames foreshore at Woolwich, threatened both the Royal Arsenal as well as the ships bringing vital supplies into London’s docklands. The recovery of the mine and its subsequent disarmament was the responsibility of Lieutenant Charles Tanner. This proved to be a particularly tricky operation which resulted in Tanner receiving the George Medal. Lieutenant Tanner was no stranger to the muddy banks of the River Thames. As Mine Disposal Officer with the Land Incident Section of the Admiralty (previously known as ‘Rendering Mines Safe’), he had learnt his trade in the late summer of 1941 while assisting

Australian Lieutenant Geoffrey John ‘Jack’ Cliff working on three mines that had buried themselves in the soft sludge on the northern banks of the river. In fact they had come to rest dangerously close to the oil storage tanks at Thames Haven. The importance of this fuel storage area to the war effort was obvious. The mines were buried at depths of up to 16 feet so it required some considerable engineering skills in order to extract them. This involved the building of coffer dams and bridges. The Royal Engineers helped on occasions such as these and it was a Lieutenant Lombard of No. 22 Bomb Disposal Company and his men of No. 216 BD Section who undertook the excavating and timbering at these incidents.

Top: The Luftwaffe first began droppng magnetic mines in British waters in November 1939 and the following September saw them being used against land targets where the blast effect was enormous. The Luftmine A (abbreviated to LMA) was 5ft 8ins long and weighed 500kg. Being a weapon designed for naval use, dealing with parachute mines became 26

By Chris Ransted Wally Fielding, a sapper with the unit, recalled that their company included a number of conscientious objectors who helped to recover at least one of these mines. ‘It was a long hard difficult job and a wet job. When the hook of the mine [parachute shackle] was uncovered, one of the lads got a hook on just in time as the shaft filled with water. One of the members of the Non-Combatant Corps was an artist who made oil paintings of the whole event but they were impounded for the duration’.

the responsibility of the Admiralty. Left: Here Lieutenant Charles Tanner, an officer with the Land Incident Section, was pictured dealing with a mine in very unfavourable conditions. Right: In the summer of 1941, Royal Engineer bomb disposal companies were called in to give assistance to the Navy in the recovery of one of the Thames Haven mines.

Each of these three mines that Tanner helped work on took between a fortnight and a month to recover but it was not until the following year that he found himself in charge of the operation to recover the mine buried in the Thames foreshore at Woolwich. This had been dropped on the night of March 20/21, 1942, landing off Margaret Ness without exploding. Its discovery was as a result of the parachute being seen on the mud at low water. This was washed ashore on March 30 and removed by the police who delivered it to the Flag Officer-in-Charge London, Admiral Sir Martin Eric DunbarNasmith. The site was just outside the fence to the Woolwich Arsenal and the Thames was buoyed to warn shipping to keep clear of the danger area. The sea-wall where the mine lay was a steep stone embankment rising some 20 feet above river bed.

Reproduced from Ordnance Survey Sheet 177, © 1975

MINE HERE

WOOLWICH ARSENAL

Recover work on the mine which landed in March 1942 on the Thames foreshore, just outside the prime target of the Woolwich Arsenal, did not begin until October. Left: By then it had completely sunk into the mud so the first job was to locate it With an average depth of about ten feet of water over it, and the tide running at four knots, each day there was only a window of around five hours in which the site was uncovered. It was assumed that the mine was an active magnetic mine fitted with an Mk IV unit as these were the type that was being dropped at the time. This mine was a potential danger to not only shipping, but also the sea wall and the Royal Arsenal. It was therefore decided that it had to be removed, the task being given to Lieutenant Tanner. Tanner was assisted by Lieutenant Roger Peers and seamen from the Land Incident Section. Also eight men and two steam sterilisers were loaned by No. 25 BD Company, RE to help with the task. On October 6 operations began to try to locate the mine but, as it had now been buried for six months, it was a laborious job of probing the soft mud into which the men sank over their knees. Covering an area of about 40 square yards per day, after ten days’ work the mine was finally located with its rear two feet below the surface of the mud. As it was lying at an angle with the fuze underneath, it was necessary to excavate to a depth of about nine feet to be able to access it. Everyone was fully aware that the mine was most probably in a highly dangerous state, and that when the mud was washed clear of the clock, it could very possibly restart and detonate within seconds. The German fuzes were actually designed as a self-destruct mechanism to stop the mine from being recovered. On impact with the water, a weight inside was thrown forward

using long probes. This had to be undertaken very carefully for if the mine had a malfunctioning fuze, the slightest tap on the casing might cause it to detonate. Right: Once it had been pinpointed, a walkway had to be built out across the soft mud.

The long building in the background of the wartime picture was Sherry’s wood yard. It has been patched up over the years and is one of the few wartime-era buildings in the area to survive. Rather ironically it now belongs to McGrath’s, a company involved in the demolition business. The large pylon that was once behind it has been relocated in front and the original replaced by two smaller ones. Because the banking has been extended, the spot where the mine was located is now somewhere under the river bank close to this spot. 27

Right: To make it possible to excavate down to the mine, a shaft, shored up with timber, had to be sunk around it and pumps kept running to try to lower the water level. Here Lieutenant Tanner (left) stands in the excavation, possibly with Able Seaman Percy Fouracre. which started a clock that ran for about 17 seconds before exploding the mine. However, if the fuze pocket was immediately covered by at least eight feet of water (or wet mud), the water pressure automatically halted the timer before it had fully run down. A separate pressure switch would then start another clock that would arm the mine for its intended purpose — making it sensitive to any changes in the surrounding magnetic field as a result of a ship passing. The weight in the fuze had a tendency to jam in its groove, either because of a speck of dirt or through the jolt caused by a mine hitting something solid, as opposed to water. Thereafter, any subsequent disturbance, however slight, might then cause the weight to move again and start the brief countdown to detonation. This would certainly have been in the minds of those working on the foreshore that day. Lieutenant Tanner’s intention was to render the mine safe without moving it. The plan

The fuze pocket ran from one side of the mine’s casing to the other. At one end of the pocket was an electrical detonator that was activated by the magnetic unit. At the other end was the primer. This was held in place with a large compressed coil spring behind it. Having the primer and detonator located at opposite ends of the pocket meant the mines could be safely transported was to make an eight-foot hole, sinking all the runners to their full length in the mud to form a coffer dam before starting excavation, jetting the boards down by water pressure. The excavation was then carried out by an ejector pump, but mud was deliberately left under the mine to prevent it moving, the weight of it also being supported on a cross strut.

As soon as the detonator pocket, which was on top of the mine, was clear of the mud, Lieutenant Tanner, with the help of Able Seaman Percy Fouracre, tried to unscrew the bung. However, it was jammed in tight and the tool broke when Tanner applied his full strength. The bung had obviously swollen and was, for all practical purposes, immovable.

Preparing to lift the mine. In the background is the Creekmouth Power Station opened in 1925 and closed in 1981. 28

prior to use. However, once in water the two would come together as water pressure had the effect of releasing the primer and allowing the spring to force it into contact with the detonator. Thus the mine became armed. The self-destruct fuze, that was also controlled through water pressure, was fitted into a shorter separate parallel pocket on the same side of the mine as the primer. Excavation continued and the following day a safety zone of 400 yards was evacuated and shipping diverted to the northern shore . . . just in case! Lieutenant Peers cleared away the mud from the underside of the mine to expose the fuze so that Tanner could work on it with clean hands before attempting to make it safe.

Most of the buildings on the northern bank have gone, the site now being the home of the weekend Dagenham market.

Having removed the fuze, the mine is manhandled ashore to the narrow-gauge railway system within the grounds of the Royal Arsenal.

Tanner found that the fuze had come out of the pocket and that at last the mine was safe. On removal of the clock, it was found that the soluble plugs had dissolved and the mechanism had stopped but as soon as pressure was applied it restarted. The battery was also found to be in perfect condition. This operation — which appeared almost hopeless at the beginning — had lasted for five weeks. The party worked under the most filthy and dangerous conditions knee-deep in mud, there was no chance of running away from the mine should anything have occurred. Once the fuze had been removed, the next job was to steam out the explosives. This was not without complications as matches were prohibited items within the Arsenal and had to be left at the gatehouse. This meant that Lieutenant John Setchell of No. 25 BD Company, RE had to get a letter of dispensation from someone of a very senior rank before he could light the paraffin burner used for producing the necessary steam. This permission, however, was conditional on him working only on the foreshore and whilst under the supervision of a security guard who, incidentally, chose to monitor the operation through binoculars from half a mile away!

The procedure first involved the removal of a small access plate and inserting a gag that looked like a small pop-rivet. This gag was a brass rod that basically had the same effect as water pressure in stopping the timer from running. This could be a fiddly job at the best of times and often the timer would start as the access plate was removed. Speed was then of the essence as the mine would detonate in a matter of seconds if the timer was allowed to run down. On inspection Tanner found that the fuze was badly corroded, right down to the hydrostatic valve which he could not move in spite of pushing on it with all his strength with a screwdriver. And, owing to the corrosion, he could not tell if it was already in the down position. As the only alternative to removing the fuze was burning or steaming out the explosives with the fuze ungagged, he decided he was justified in taking the risk of actually trying to remove the fuze ungagged. This procedure was approved by his superiors so he carefully removed the keeper ring and tried to pull the fuze out from a distance but on all five attempts the cord broke as the fuze was so firmly corroded in. The only way to get a straight pull on the fuze was to move the mine into a vertical position. To do this Tanner first removed the magnetic primer. This was in perfect condition and in fact fell out on his face as he lay under the mine! The mine was then pulled until it was vertical at which point a two-inch block and tackle was fitted to the extension ring on the fuze. However, on pulling this from a distance, the extension ring came off and sheared the threads on the fuze. Fortunately a steel

The London Gazette of April 16, 1943 read: ‘The King has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the George Medal, for gallantry and undaunted devotion to duty, to Temporary Lieutenant Charles Graham Tanner, RNVR’. Gazetted at the same time was Able Seaman Fouracre’s award of the British Empire Medal.

extension fitting with adjustable jaws was available in the Land Incident Section for this very contingency. The following day this tool was adjusted to fit on what remained of the jammed fuze, the block and tackle was secured and, at a distance, 16 men on the river bank took up the strain. The rope tightened hard and then something appeared to snap. On returning to the mine Lieutenant

The river bank has been extended into the river since the war, thus the railway is now inside the fenced area to the left. 29

The following year, Tanner, since promoted to Lieutenant-Commander, lost his life — together with Able Seaman Fouracre — OUT NEWTON, YORKSHIRE Sadly, Tanner’s luck was not to last as a year later he was killed along with Fouracre while working on another mine. It was soon after 1 a.m. on September 22, 1943 that a Dornier Do 217K-1 (U5+CM) of 4/KG2 crashed at Out Newton, Yorkshire. The aircraft was on a mine-laying mission from its base at Deelen in the Netherlands and was flying very low — about 50 feet — when searchlights from Kilnsea and Spurn caught it. As a number of beams converged on the aircraft, the gunner tried desperatly to put them out with a burst of machine-gun fire but, with pilot blinded, he flew into the ground at Threefoot Lane, approximately 400 yards west of Southfield Farm. The Dornier scattered itself over 250 yards from the impact point, all the crew being killed. The pilot, Feldwebel Helmut Rumpff; his observer, Feldwebel Siegfried Vomweg; the wireless operator, Gefreiter Arno Ehemann, and the gunner, Obergefreiter Kurt Stiegler were buried in Hull North Cemetery. Found among the wreckage were two unexploded G-type mines and Tanner, who was by then a Lieutenant-Commander, and Able Seaman Fouracre were sent to deal with them together with Lieutenant Frank Price. He was another experienced mine disposal officer who, earlier in the year, had worked on a particularly difficult mine (his seventh) in the garden of a house next to an ordnance factory in Cardiff. This mine had smashed its way through some concrete slabs, split open, and buried itself eight feet underground. On impact the fuze had been forced inside the body of the mine and the top of it had sheared off. The official report on the subsequent operation to deal with it stated that the clock, firing lever, striker, etc., together with the explosive gaine and picrics, were jammed in the pocket. The fuze was therefore set to run on the slightest vibration and there was no method of gagging it. 30

while they were dealing with two unexploded G-mines from a Dornier which had been shot down just inside the Yorkshire coast.

As the fuze pocket was exposed, Price immediately pressed his thumb on the firing lever to prevent any movement and carefully removed the whole fuze pocket. He himself then had to be lifted from the hole by two assistants while he maintained pressure on the mechanism. Plaster of Paris was mixed up and poured into the fuze pocket but until this had set Price was unable to let go without the risk of the fuze pocket exploding.

Now at the site of the crashed bomber at Out Newton, the men were ready to make an attempt at disarming one of the mines. Though G-mines looked like bombs they were actually mines designed to be dropped in water being fitted with a unit in the rear designed to detect shipping. And, as they had no parachute, they could be aimed far more effectively — into the entrances of harbours for example.

The 1000kg Bombenmine, as its name suggests, was a dual-purpose weapon having the shape of a conventional bomb enabling it to be dropped with or without a parachute. It could be used as a sea mine with magnetic and acoustic fuzing or as a highcapacity bomb against land targets. It was basically the Luftmine B fitted with a bakelite tail unit. This concealed a photo-electric cell designed to detonate when exposed to light. The Luftwaffe nicknamed the BM1000 ‘Monika’ but to the Admiralty it was the ‘George’ Mine or more commonly the G-mine.

OUT NEWTON

SOUTHFIELD FARM

CRASH SITE

The Dornier had crashed some 400 yards west of Southfield Farm at Out Newton, scattering the wreckage over a wide area, although the present-day view shows no signs of the

drama that took place here on September 22, 1943. While working on the first mine, it suddenly exploded, killing Tanner outright and mortally wounding Fouracre.

Despite the tragedy occurring to such an experienced team, the second G-mine still had to be dealt with, the task fell to Lieutenant-Commander Ernest Gidden who was flown to Yorkshire to take over. He found the mine about 200 yards from the

crater caused by the explosion of the first one but, taking no chances, he waited until equipment arrived to X-ray the device. Three days later, when the plates had been developed and examined, he safely defuzed it.

These G-mines also contained a fiendish booby trap. Hidden beneath the rear cover were photo-electric cells so that if the cover was removed in daylight the mine would explode. Tanner would have been well aware of this fact and it was standard procedure to work on these mines at twilight or with the bomb disposal officer and the mine covered by a tarpaulin. Other booby traps could also be found in mines such as a mechanical switch that would operate if a stud holding the rear cover was unscrewed. Although the exact cir-

cumstances are not known, it can be assumed that this mine was fitted with a booby trap such as this for at noon on September 22 the mine suddenly exploded. Tanner was killed outright and Fouracre and Price seriously wounded. They were taken to nearby Withernsea Convalescent Hospital for emergency treatment but Fouracre quickly succumbed to his injuries. Though Price was badly injured, he survived and was quickly transferred to Beverley Base Hospital in East Riding, Yorkshire.

The same afternoon another mine disposal expert, Lieutenant-Commander Ernest Gidden, was flown by the RAF from London (Hendon) to assess the situation and deal with the remaining mine. He found that it was lying about 200 yards from the enormous crater left where the other one had exploded. Tanner’s driver stated that he had been sheltering in a ditch at the bottom end of the field at the time of the explosion but confirmed that Tanner had been carrying out standard procedure. He went on to say that Tanner appeared to have no inkling of trouble when the mine suddenly went off.

31

Reproduced from Ordnance Survey Sheet 107, © 1995

CRASH HERE

At this point, events took a bizarre turn when the crash site was invaded by a group of schoolboys, no doubt alerted by the thought of getting their hands on some souvenirs. Having cycled down from Withernsea, they were approaching the wreckage when the mine exploded. They returned the following day and,

The explosion was also witnessed by a number of inquisitive schoolboys. They had heard about the crash and had cycled five miles to the site and were walking across the fields towards the aircraft wreckage when the mine went up. One of the boys later described how there were ‘lumps of earth and shrapnel flying around’. They ran away at this point but returned the following day and a group of lads managed to steal a number of items from the wreck by sneaking up along ditches. They said that there were no guards present but it was more likely that they had pulled back to safe distance due to the danger from the other mine that was still sitting in the field. At least one of the boys believed he had clambered over it while looking for souvenirs! Items removed by the lads included a Luger, a machine gun and a cannon along with some ammunition. These were hidden in bushes until they could return after dark to recover them. Later they were moved to another hiding place — the ‘pulley room’ in the tower of Withernsea St Nicholas church above the bell ringer’s chamber and below the belfry. Most of the boys were in the church choir and knew that the church bells would only have been used in the event of an invasion. Later they apparently test fired the guns on the beach taking the precaution of attaching a piece of string to the triggers and pulling from a safe distance. The intention was to take the guns to the top of the church tower at night and shoot down a German raider. However, before this plan could be put into action the authorities tracked down where all this missing weaponry had gone and the boys all ended up in court. 32

seeing the place unguarded (no doubt because the second mine was still live), they collected a number of choice items including a Luger and a machine gun. Being choirboys at Withernsea, they hid their stash in the church tower. It then appears that they even test-fired the guns on the local beach!

On arrival at the crash site, Lieutenant Commander Gidden made a close inspection of the second mine and found that the casing had some coloured paint marks on it that he had not seen before. He phoned his CO, Captain Curry, and it was agreed that the mine should be X-rayed as it was likely that it contained a booby trap. George Cross holder, Lieutenant Commander Robert

Armitage, was sent with an X-ray van to undertake this task. It could have been while the crew were waiting for this van to arrive that the schoolboys managed to access the crash site. It was another three days before the X-rays were completed and it was possible to analyse their contents. As a result, it was possible to dismantle the second mine without incident.

Despite having studied satellite photos and walking the fields, there is today no sign of the crater which was probably filled in soon after the event as farmland was very precious during the war. Seventy years later all that researcher Paul Johnson found was this fragment of crumpled aluminium.

Left: The old Withernsea Convalescent Home where the casualties were taken has since been demolished, replaced by a modern

Lieutenant-Commander Tanner’s remains were laid to rest near the family home at Tilford All Saints Churchyard close to Farnham, Surrey. A plaque was fixed close to the west door to the church which stated: ‘This Porch and Door were restored in 1948 in Memory of Charles Edward Tanner, MD, FRCS. Beloved Physician Born 1861 Died 1934 and of his son Charles Graham Tanner GM, RNVR, Aged 35 Killed in Action 1943 Undefeated’. In 2011 a memorial plaque was also placed in the chapel of Tanner’s old school, Marlborough College. Able Seaman Fourcare was also buried close to his family home at West Buckland St Mary’s Churchyard in Somerset. Tanner’s medals, a group of four including his George Medal, Atlantic Star, 1939-45 Star and War Medal, sold in recent years for £4,000. Lieutenant Price was decorated as on September 28, 1943 the London Gazette announced that he had been awarded the MBE for great bravery and steadfast devotion to duty.

hospital . . . but the outer wall still survives (right). Note the church tower next door where the guns from the wreckage were hidden.

Lieutenant-Commander Tanner — nominally on the strength of HMS President, the London headquarters of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve — was laid to rest (below) in All Saints Churchyard at Tilford in Surrey (right). Able Seaman Fouracre’s grave lies in St Mary’s Churchyard in West Buckland in Somerset (below right).

The families of servicemen who died in the United Kingdom could elect to mark graves, either in their own individual way, or allow

the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to erect a standard headstone after the war. Thus the contrast here. 33

BELL ARCHIV

Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914 and soon afterwards the first elements of the British Expeditionary Force

(BEF) began crossing the Channel to France and at dawn on August 23, the Battle of Mons began.

THE FIRST TO BE KILLED IN ACTION

34

Due to the confusion, his death was not registered and when some time later his mother wrote to the regiment asking about her son, they were unable to give her any information, other than that he might have been captured. Parr was buried by the Ger-

By Jean Paul Pallud mans in St-Symphorien Military Cemetery, south-east of Mons, but when a permanent headstone was erected on the grave after the

PATRICK NEAME

FIRST WORLD WAR The day after German forces ignored Belgian neutrality in an attempt to outflank the French Army, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. It was August 4, 1914 and 17 days later the first British soldier was killed in action on the Western Front. Private John Parr (L/141916) lived in Finchley in north London, then in the County of Middlesex. He had enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment on May 6, 1912, declaring his age as 17 years 10 months (although research later revealed that he was only 15 or 16 when killed). Serving as a reconnaissance cyclist with the 4th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment (part of the 8th Brigade in the 3rd Division), John was shipped to France, landing at Boulogne-sur-Mer on August 14. The regimental history states that on August 21 the battalion was billeted in the village of Bettignies, a little north of Maubeuge, just a kilometre short of the Belgian frontier. Two platoons of D Company were part of an outpost line north of the village. On August 21, Private Parr and another cyclist were sent northwards into Belgium for a scouting mission to Obourg on the canal just east of Mons, a journey of some 15 kilometres. It is believed that the two cyclists encountered a cavalry patrol from the German 1. Armee whereupon Parr was killed. (The battalion did not officially come into action until the morning of August 23 and the regimental history states that the night of August 21/22 passed without any contact with German patrols.) A few days later the British were forced to retreat so Parr’s body could not be recovered.

Private John Parr was killed on August 21, the first British soldier to be killed in action in the First World War. He was buried in St-Symphorien Military Cemetery, two kilometres east of Mons (Grave 10 in Row A of Plot I).

ATB

IWM Q-957

The following day, August 12, the King visited General Sir Douglas Haig, the Commander-in-Chief of the BEF since the previous December when he took over following the dismissal of Field-Marshal Sir John French. Also present were Général Joseph Joffre, C-in-C French Army, Président Maurice Poincaré, and Général Ferdinand Foch commanding the Groupe d’Armées du Nord. was accidentally shot by a colleague at Romford, Essex, while in the German protectorate of Togoland, the first British soldier to die at the hands of the enemy was Private

Bai of the Gold Coast Regiment. He was killed in action on August 15 and is now commemorated on the Kumasi Memorial in Ghana.

ATB

IWM Q-950

war, his age was stated as 20. Also his date of death was shown as August 23 and it was not until 1982 that research enabled the headstone to be amended with his correct age and date of death. Also killed on the 21st — although later in the day — was Bombardier James Ketteridge of the Royal Field Artillery. It was the first friendly-fire death on the Western Front as General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, the II Corps commander, explained. He wrote that on the 21st he was returning from GHQ at Le Cateau to his own headquarters at Bavai when ‘I found the road blocked, bullets flying, and the sound of firing. Fairly puzzled as to how the enemy could have got there, I got out of my motor to find a battery in considerable confusion held up by sharpshooters across the road. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. The battery had been challenged by some French Territorials on outpost duty with the result that fire was opened on it and one of our gunners was killed. It was a bad beginning.’ By the time Private Parr became the first British soldier to be killed in action on the Western Front, over 300 British and Commonwealth soldiers and sailors had already lost their lives. On the very day that war was declared — August 4 — Private Joseph Viles of the 1st Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry, died in a traffic accident, and two days later an officer and 150 men (plus 18 German prisoners) were drowned when HMS Amphion was sunk by a mine off the Suffolk coast. Another friendly-fire incident took place on August 9 when Corporal Arthur Rawson of the 1st Battalion, Cambridgeshire Regiment,

Havelock Hudson, commander of the 8th Division, reviewed men of the 25th Infantry Brigade at Fouquereuil, just southwest of Béthune. Right: Although a century has passed, the main street of the village remains remarkably unchanged.

IWM Q-949

King George V visited the Western Front on several occasions during the First World War, beginning in December 1914. Left: During a visit in August 1916 to the sector where the offensive on the Somme was underway, the King and Major-General

Left: Haig’s residence was at Beauquesne, 40 kilometres southwest of Arras. Right: The Château Le Valvion is now a private

property but the owners, Mr and Mrs Sénéchal, kindly allowed us to take this comparison. 35

ECPAD 3ème Armée 39 C-871

SECOND WORLD WAR On August 23, 1939, Britain and France entered into an alliance with Poland to come to her aid should she be attacked by Germany. When the German invasion of Poland took place on September 1 (see After the Battle Nos. 65 and 158), Britain and France delivered an ultimatum for Germany to withdraw her forces. In France the evacuation of the population from the villages lying in front of the Maginot Line (the fortification built by the French along the Franco-German border in the 1930s — see After the Battle No. 60), began at once. Germany ignored the ultimatum and Britain and France declared war on September 3. The evacuation of the border area with Germany — the so-called ‘Zone Rouge’ — continued and by the time the operation was completed at the end of September, over 600,000 persons had been displaced. In the north of the département of Moselle, east of the Moselle river, a series of large Maginot Line forts had been established at Métrich, Billig, Hackenberg, Coucou, Mont des Welches and Michelsberg facing the German border. The villages in front of this sector of the Zone Rouge, like Elzing, Buding, Monneren, Veckring and Dalstein, were all evacuated. Behind the Line at this point, the villages not evacuated were Elzange, Kédange, on the main east-west road (now the D918), and Eberswiller, some 20 kilometres from the actual border. By the end of September, the population from 214 communes in the Moselle département had been relocated in south-western France. Following the declaration of war, the British Expeditionary Force crossed to France and by the end of October, 158,000 men had arrived on the Continent. The majority of the BEF troops were stationed along the Franco-Belgian border in northern France but it was all something of an anti-climax — the beginning of the so-called ‘Phoney War’.

Following the declaration of war in September 1939, the 3rd Brigade was the first British unit to be posted to the Moselle region to gain front-line experience with the 3ème Armée. Its units arrived in the sector of Hombourg-Budange in the beginning of December and took over from the French 80ème Régiment d’Infanterie during the night of December 2/3. Its first priority was the reinforcement of the wire defence works.

GERMANY

BIZING

WALDWEISTROFF

MONNEREN

ST-FRANÇOIS-LACROIX

VECKRING

KÉDANGE

DALSTEIN

This plan from 3rd Brigade files shows the dispositions of the 42ème Division d’Infanterie facing Germany in December 1939. 36

ATB ECPAD 3ème Armée 39 C-879

ATB

For the 3rd Brigade’s first spell on the Saar front, the 1st Duke of Wellington’s Regiment took over the forward position — the so-called ‘Ligne de Contact’ — with three companies in front, between the Grossenwald wood on the left and the Hartbuch wood on the right, and one company in reserve at Bizing. Battalion headquarters was at Waldweistroff. On the left flank lay the French 94ème Régiment d’Infanterie, and the 151ème Régiment d’Infanterie was over on the right. The 2nd Sherwood Foresters took up the reserve position — the ‘Ligne de Recueil’ — with headquarters at St-FrançoisLacroix. The 1st King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, deployed in the main defence position on the Maginot Line, had their HQ at Dalstein. Right: The tactical unit marking on this carrier of the 2nd Sherwood Foresters — a white ‘22’ on a brown square — denotes the second battalion of a junior infantry brigade. The 3rd Brigade headquarters had the serial number ‘20’, the 1st Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (senior battalion) had ‘21’ and the 1st King’s Shropshire Light Infantry (junior battalion) ‘23’.

ECPAD 3ème Armée 39 C-880

ECPAD 3ème Armée 39 C-874

Left: Elements of the 2nd Sherwood Foresters assembled at Monneren. Each of the three battalions were scheduled to occupy the forward position for periods of several days. For its first spell, the 2nd Sherwood Foresters remained for eight days in the ‘Ligne de Recueil’ while the brigade’s two other battalions rotated in the forward position. Above: New buildings in the southern portion of Monneren make it difficult to take a perfect comparison, hence this closer shot, but the characteristic extension of the church on its right proves that the photo was taken here.

Left: Midday meal at Monneren. It is difficult to know the date when these pictures were taken but it might be when the 2nd Sherwood Foresters was in the front line between December 10 and 15 for a section of the battalion’s carriers was then stationed in reserve at Monneren. The other two were in a gully near the Menskirch wood some distance south-east of the village. Above: This is Rue de L’Eglise, the church lying 200 metres or so further along the street on the left. 37

ATB

IWM O-2296

Led by a major, officers of the Royal Engineers return from an inspection of the installations near Kédange.

ATB

ECPAD 3ème Armée 39 C-882

Above: To house the battalion deployed in the main defence area, a camp comprising 40-50 huts was constructed on a wooded hill overlooking Kédange. It was large enough for three companies while the fourth and the brigade staff and services were provided with billets in the town and nearby villages. Construction by British engineers with the help of French troops began well before the arrival of the main force and the camp was nearly completed when the 3rd Brigade arrived. Additional billets were provided for a time in the French barracks of the Maginot troops at Veckring. Etienne Virte, who was then 14 years old and happy to work for the British in one of their kitchens, recalls that the camp was clean and neat in spite of the mud, duckboards being laid between the huts. He remembers how the British soldiers favourably impressed the local population due to the quality and abundance of their equipment and their obvious professionalism. Also, compared to the meagre pay of the conscripted French soldiers, the British were rich men — Mr Virte remembers their daily pay was some 30 francs compared to the 50 centimes of the French — although the Tommies spent every penny on drink in the local bars. As a result, French and British military police were overworked trying to keep drunken soldiers in order.

ECPAD 3ème Armée 39 C-877

Apart from odd pieces of foundation, nothing remains to be seen of the camp that lay along both sides of this track.

Left: French and British soldiers chatting together in Kédange. Above: This is now Rue de la Forêt, the small street that climbs the hill to where the British camp lay in 1939. 38

ATB

ECPAD 3ème Armée 39 C-875 ATB

Left: French and British troops and vehicles in the main street of Kédange. Above: No. 25 Rue du Collège, looking south. The side road leading to the camp lies in the background, branching off to the left.

ECPAD 3ème Armée 39 C-907

ATB

Incredibly, over seven decades later, the old farmhouse at the western entrance of Kédange along the road to Klang remains unchanged.

On November 17, it was agreed by the French and British commands that some BEF troops should be sent into a sector of the front facing the German defences for training under conditions more realistic than those along the quiet Belgian frontier. Also the measure would help counter German propaganda which was claiming that France was fighting Great Britain’s war. The 3ème Armée sector east of the Moselle river facing the Saar was chosen and the I and II Corps were instructed to send a series of brigades in succession. With its three battalions, each brigade was to take with it an anti-tank company, a machine gun company, a Royal Engineers field company and a field ambulance. Four Royal Artillery officers would at the same time be attached to the French artillery supporting the brigade in the line. Called Saar Force, this brigade-sized unit was to occupy the sector previously held by a French regiment and be attached to the French division there. The first brigade to join with the 3ème Armée was the 3rd Infantry Brigade, under Brigadier Henry Curtis, which entrained at Douai. ‘Never had I seen such a magnificent collection of cars, carriers, tea kettles and kitchen stoves’, noted Lieutenant René de Chambrun, French liaison officer with the BEF who went with them.

Left: Some days after the British brigade arrived in Kédange the French laid on a welcoming parade. Général Joseph de La Porte du Theil, the commander of the 42ème Division d’Infanterie, takes the salute on the steps of a house that had been requisitioned earlier by the French army to house the colonel commanding the town. The British officers present included Brigadier Henry Curtis commanding the 3rd Brigade. Above: The same house still stands along Rue du Collège. 39

ATB

ECPAD 3ème Armée 31 C-784

40

The British delegation passes in front of the massive Block 8 which housed three 75mm howitzers.

ATB

Arriving in the beginning of December in the sector of Hombourg-Budange, the brigade had three battalions: the 1st Battalion, The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (West Riding); the 2nd Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), and the 1st Battalion, The King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. Brigade headquarters established itself at Kédange while the field ambulance serving the brigade had its main dressing station at Veckring. The French division in the sector (to which the British brigade was attached) was the 42ème Division d’Infanterie up until December 24 when the 22ème Division d’Infanterie took over till February 22. The positions held by the infantry comprised the ‘Ligne de Contact’ — a line of observation posts some 1.5 kilometres from the German outposts. About five kilometres to the rear was the ‘Ligne de Recueil’ designed as a delaying position. The main fortifications of the Maginot Line then lay some six kilometres behind this second line. The British troops were very impressed with the French defences, one officer of the 1st KSLI commenting that ‘We were all astonished at the Maginot Line. As I drove through I hardly noticed anything more than the strong anti-tank obstacle of rails, several belts of barbed wire and a few small pillboxes, so well were the forts concealed. Inside, the forts resembled a battleship, each having command post and control rooms, turrets, magazines, engine room, living accommodation, kitchen, hospital, and so on.’ During this phase of the ‘Phoney War’, the troops of Saar Force were kept busy improving field works and training under active service conditions. Patrols were sent into no man’s land up to the German frontier to reconnoitre enemy positions accompanied by Royal Engineers’ sappers who were tasked to deal with any mines. One sapper from the 59th Field Company later described a typical patrol: ‘Lightly armed, bayonets lashed back to prevent rattle, six inches only protruding, blackened faces, balaclavas replacing tin hats, the patrols moved swiftly and silently. We could neither match them in speed, silence or concealment. We simply had not been trained for it. Our nuisance value far outweighed our help with the booby traps and to our shame it was found more expedient to train the infantry to deal with the booby traps than for us to learn infantry skills.’ When not manning the forward positions, the British troops were barracked in a large camp established in a wood at Kédange but also in houses and farms (in this rear area the population had not been evacuated) and in various buildings like the railway station at Hombourg.

the fort at Hackenberg in late 1939. The tour began at the ammunition entrance. Right: Nicely preserved and restored, the fortress is open to the public (see After the Battle No. 60).

ECPAD 3ème Armée 31 C-780

Left: The British were very impressed with the defences of the Maginot Line with its huge subterranean installations. This series of photos was taken when a British delegation visited

Having been subjected to American shelling in November 1944 when the German garrison opposed their advance for two days, Block 8 now wears the scars of battle. One howitzer has been restored and is now on display.

ATB

ECPAD 3ème Armée 31 C-797

The British party inspects the anti-tank ditch on the north-western side of the fortress. Block 25 lies in the left background.

Though the bushes make an exact comparison difficult, the ditch is still kept clear of vegetation.

ECPAD 3ème Armée 31 C-794

94ème Régiment d’Infanterie with the 151ème Régiment d’Infanterie on the right. The plan was to rotate each of the battalions in the forward positions, each one spending a week in the outposts. On the 5th, moving to occupy the forward line, the 1st KSLI advanced from Kédange to Monneren. They started out at about 3.45 p.m. and spent that night and the following day in Monneren. On the night of December 6/7, they moved forward to the Sauerberg woods on the left wing of the sector immediately behind the line of outposts where they remained throughout the day, taking over outpost positions from the 1st Duke of Wellington’s at dusk. All ammunition, tools, stores and rations were left in situ to be handed over to the newcomers but ‘loaded Bren gun magazines, pouches and Brens themselves will not be handed over from one unit to another’. However the change-over of personnel that night did not include the antitank and machine gun companies. The men of the 1st Duke of Wellington’s moved back to Monneren, behind the Ligne de Recueil, then pulled further back to Kédange on the night of December 8/9. The 1st KSLI was now manning the Ligne de Contact in front of Waldweistroff. D Company was on the left, B Company in the centre, A Company on the right, with C Company in reserve.

The battalions of the 3rd Brigade entered the line during the night of December 2/3, relieving the French 80ème Régiment d’Infanterie. The 1st Duke of Wellington’s Regiment occupied the Ligne de Contact with its headquarters at Waldweistroff; the 2nd Sherwood Foresters the Ligne de Recueil with its HQ at St-François-Lacroix; and the 1st King’s Shropshire Light Infantry the fortified area with HQ at Dalstein. All the French troops in the brigade sector, including the fortress troops, were under the command of the 3rd Brigade. Over on the left lay the

ATB

The 135mm retractable turret of Block 9 was demonstrated being put through its paces. It was raised, lowered and rotated which must have greatly impressed the British party, especially as all this was achieved in complete silence. Sited to cover the approaches of the fortress to a range of 4,000 metres, the 135mm howitzers were to smash German infantry attacks or destroy any party of engineers trying to come close with explosive charges. It fired the heaviest shells of all the artillery on the Maginot Line, having a rate of fire of six rounds per minute. The fort had turrets like this one in Block 9 but also had howitzers firing through embrasures in casemates.

One of the highlights of a visit to the Hackenberg fortress today is that one can watch a demonstration of the 135mm turret on the roof of Block 9 moving up and down and rotating. 41

C. BLANQUART

ECPAD Marine-62-622

Left: The 1939 visit to the British Expeditionary Force by King George VI was timed to take place on the anniversary of the first visit by his father to the BEF on December 6, 1914. The King

arrived at Boulogne on December 4, although this particular picture was taken after the tour, when he was about to return to Britain. Right: The same maritime station in the winter of 2013.

THE VISIT OF KING GEORGE VI TO FRANCE IN 1939 December 4 His Majesty leaves Folkestone for Boulogne aboard HMS Codrington. At Boulogne, His Majesty is greeted by General John Gort commanding British Expeditionary Force. Drive to the C-in-C’s residence, Château d’Immercourt, at Saint-Laurent-Blangy near Arras where His Majesty stays. The Préfet du Nord and the Préfet du Pas de Calais are presented. Général Robert Voruz, French attaché to London from 1929 to 1936, and now head of the Liaison mission to the BEF, General Ridley Pakenham Walsh, Chief Engineer, BEF, Reverend Naylor and Colonel Kennedy dine with His Majesty. December 5 Visit to Douai aerodrome with Air Vice-Marshal Charles Blount, commanding the Air Component, 50th Wing, 52nd Wing, 70th Wing, 1st Air Stores Park, Communication Squadron, etc. Air Commodore Arthur Capel, Wing Commanders Noel Lloyd Desoer and Claude Pelly, and Group Captain John Frances Entwistle are among those presented. Visit to I Corps at Douai, Bachy, Bercu, and Rumegies with Lieutenant-General Sir John Dill commanding I Corps: 15th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Infantry Brigade, 1st Guards Brigade, 6th Infantry Brigade, 4th Infantry Brigade, 5th Infantry Brigade, and Cameron Highlanders. Général Gaston Billotte, commanding the 1er Groupe d’Armées, and Général Georges Blanchard, commanding the 1ère Armée, are presented at I Corps HQ. Return to Château d’Immercourt. General Frank Macfarlane, director of Military Intelligence, BEF, and Air Vice-Marshal Blount are invited to dinner. December 6 Visit to II Corps at Avelin, Seclin—Templemars road, Seclin aerodrome (visit RAF here), and Annappes: 12th Infantry Brigade, 8th Infantry Brigade, 9th Infantry Brigade, 7th Guards Brigade, 4th Division, 60th Wing, 61st Wing, 51st Wing, etc. At Seclin, Group Captains Goddard, Knowles and Keen, Wing Commanders Jarvis, Rugg, Hardman, Bird and Whyte, and Commandant Pierre BastienThiry are among those presented. At Annappes, Général Henri Giraud, commanding the 7ème Armée, Général Eugène Pagezy, commanding the 1ère Région Militaire, Général Marie-Bertrand Fagalde, commanding the XVIème Corps d’Armée, and Général Victor Gillard, commanding the Lille area, are presented. Return to Château d’Immercourt. General Sir Victor Fortune, commanding 51st Division, General Sydney Wason, commanding Royal Artillery, BEF, Brigadier Arthur Freind, Director of Labour, BEF, and Brigadier Colin Jardine, Military Secretary to Commander in Chief BEF, are invited to dinner. There was a golden rule during the war that the movements of royalty should not be disclosed in advance but on this occasion the King personally insisted on the restriction being relaxed. 42

December 7 Colonel Reynolds is presented, and His Majesty meets the Press. Visit to GHQ troops at Arras, Izel-les-Hameaux, Noyelle-Vion, Avesnes-le-Comte, Grand-Rullecourt, Lucheux, and Beauval — Welsh Guards, Anti-aircraft Regiment, Royal Engineers, RASC, RAOC, 2nd Anti-Aircraft Brigade, etc. At G Ops, Brigadier Ralph Chenevix-Trench, Signal Officer in Chief, BEF, Brigadier Frederick Hotblack, Adviser Armoured Fighting Vehicles, BEF, Brigadiers Arthur Clough, Arnold Minnis, Guy Ormsby-Johnson, and Hugh Scott-Barrett, and Father Coghlan are presented. Travel by train to Amiens, where Her Majesty gives a luncheon party for the French President, Albert Lebrun, and the Prime Minister, Edouard Daladier, in a formal meeting timed to commemorate the anniversary of the first visit of his father, King George V, to the BEF on December 6, 1914. Travel by overnight train to Reims. Général Maurice Georges, commanding the North-East Theatre of Operations, dines with His Majesty en route to Reims. December 8 Visit to Advanced Air Striking Force (AASF) in the Reims area — Ludes, Tours-sur-Marne, Athis, Plivot, Villeneuve, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Avize, Epernay, etc., — accompanied by Air Vice-Marshal Patrick Playfair, commanding the AASF. At Plivot, His Majesty decorates Flying Officer Reginald Graveley and Sergeant Frederick Gardiner with the Medal of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire. Général Joseph Vuillemin, C-in-C French Air Force, and the Mayor of Reims are among the luncheon guests. Accompanied by the Duke of Gloucester and General Gort, the King boarded a train to travel through the night to the 3ème Armée sector in the Moselle area to visit those elements of the BEF in the line there. Général Maurice Gamelin, French Supreme Commander, dines with Her Majesty. December 9 The train arrived at the small railway station of Novéant, south of Metz, at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday, December 9. Général André Prételat, commanding 2ème Groupe d’Armées, Général Charles-Marie Condé, commanding the 3ème Armée, and many other Generals welcomed the King. Visit to the 3ème Armée and the Maginot Line in the Moselle area: Kédange, Veckring, Monneren, Hackenberg, Mont des Welches, and return to Novéant. His Majesty boarded his train in the evening that sped through northern France on the night of December 9/10. Early on the 10th, Sunday morning, His Majesty embarked on HMS Codrington at Boulogne and returned to England, arriving December 10. The journey to France was not kept secret and the British Press headlined reports with the King’s own words: ‘Tell My People Where I Am’.

ATB

BELL ARCHIV

IWM O-1792

General The Viscount John Gort, commanding the British Expeditionary Force, was at Boulogne to meet the King and escort him to his residence, the Château Dewals at Saint-Laurent-Blangy, near Arras, where His Majesty stayed for the duration of his visit. Above: The old château on Rue Henri Barbusse is now a care home for elderly people.

The King was pictured visiting blockhouses that had been constructed along the French frontier, Belgium having declared its neutrality.

ATB

IWM O-1785

The King began his tour of the British Expeditionary Force on December 5 by visiting Douai airfield where squadrons of the Air Component of the BEF were stationed. By then there were two British air forces in France: the Air Component under General Gort’s command and the Advanced Air Striking Force which was under the orders of Bomber Command in England. Liaison and coordination of operations proved difficult and it was soon decided to unify the two commands. (In January 1940 the Air Component ceased to be part of General Gort’s command, and also the Advanced Air Striking Force left Bomber Command, both coming under Air Marshal Arthur Barratt as Commander-in-Chief, British Air Forces in France.) The King then visited the commander of I Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir John Dill, whose headquarters was also at Douai. On the following day the British Press reported that ‘the King spent eight hours with his armies in France, visiting front-line positions, and reviewing a Highland battalion a quarter of a mile behind barbed wire. He passed through miles of troops drawn up on the muddy roadsides. His movements could be traced by rolling bursts of cheers which marked his progress in the Royal car flying his standard and accompanied by red-tabbed convoys.’ In France, the newspaper Le Jour referred back to the visit of King George V to the British front lines in 1917, and commented: ‘After 22 years his son again realises how encouraging it is for the soldiers to see his familiar and respected figure.’

The King then climbed on top of another bunker ‘to survey a potential battlefield and hear a full explanation of future tactics’. Although it had not been finished by the time of the King’s visit, the construction date on this casemate, still visible today, is 1939.

The pair of casemates still stand today near Bachy. One (dated 1937) lies just east of the village and the other (dated 1939) stands in a field north of the Route de Wannehain. It appears that the King inspected both of them. 43

ATB

IWM O-1994

On December 7, while waiting to take the salute as the Welsh Guards marched past at Izel-les-Hameau, 15 kilometres west of Arras, the King was photographed with French commanders. On the left is Général Marie-Bertrand Fagalde of the XVIème Corps d’Armée; chatting with the King, Général Henri Giraud, commanding the 7ème Armée, and on the right Général Eugène Pagezy, commanding the 1ère Région Militaire.

COMÉDIE DE PICARDIE

ECPAD Journal de guerre No. 11

Above left: The same day (December 5), the King lunched at this estaminet in Bachy then used as the corporals mess of a Guards battalion. The Press reported: ‘A camouflaged car drew up and the King, in a field-marshal’s uniform, trench coat and high boots, stepped out, carrying a gas mask and a swagger cane. He was spick and span, despite trampling over cobbled roads and turnip fields at intervals of the 95-mile journey.’ The King entered the dining room, warmed his hands before the stove, and sat like the remainder of the party on a wooden chair. ‘He declined wine but drank a mild whisky and soda’, continued the report, ‘and partook of a meal of chicken pie and coffee’. Meanwhile, guardsmen patrolled around the building, managing to keep in step even on the ploughed field at the back of the estaminet. The following day was spent with the units in the field, His Majesty first visiting II Corps. There he inspected elements of the 3rd Division — the 7th Guards Brigade and the 8th and 9th Infantry Brigades and the 12th Infantry Brigade of the 4th Division. He then visited the RAF at Seclin aerodrome. On December 7, having met the Press, the King went on to visit General Headquarters troops in the Arras sector including the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, the 2nd AntiAircraft Brigade, Royal Engineers, Royal Army Service Corps and Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

BELL ARCHIV

Sadly the historic café is now closed but the building still stands beside the D955 just west of the village.

Left: Later that day the King travelled by train to Amiens where he was to host a luncheon for the French President, Albert Lebrun, and Prime Minister, Edouard Daladier. The venue was the famous restaurant Grands Salons Godbert. He was then to journey by overnight train to visit the following day (December 44

8) squadrons of the Advanced Air Striking Force of the RAF based on airfields in the Reims area. Right: The restaurant on the Rue des Jacobins closed its doors in 1973, the 18th-century building being converted into a theatre named the Comédie de Picardie.

IWM O-1737

DECEMBER 9 On December 7, the 3rd Brigade was secretly informed that His Majesty King George VI would be visiting the brigade and attached troops on Saturday, December 9. The presence of the King so close the German border was considered most confidential and the brigade directed that only company commanders should initially be informed. Arriving at 9.15 a.m., the King first paid a short visit to the Brigade HQ in Kédange and went on to see the BEF camp, inspecting one of the men’s huts and an officers’ hut. His Majesty then moved north to see a French battery of heavy artillery. The party arrived at Veckring at 10 a.m. where the King reviewed detachments of the BEF — the 26th Field Company, RE, and the 3rd Field Ambulance – together with a formation of French troops before moving on to Hackenberg. After spending an hour and a half inspecting the huge Maginot fortress there, the King was driven to Saint-FrançoisLacroix to inspect more detachments of the BEF. Platoons of the 1st KSLI, the anti-tank company and the machine gun company were drawn up on the roadside as he arrived. The party then walked to where they could see the hills of the Saar some ten kilometres to the north-east. The observation point was

side Brigade HQ while a French band played the British and French National Anthems. At the King’s side is Général Pagezy. Behind stands Général Maurice Gamelin, the French Supreme Commander, and Général de La Porte du Theil, commander of the 42ème Division d’Infanterie. Further back on the left is Général André Prételat, commanding the 2ème Groupe d’Armées. The King spent just three minutes in the headquarters building (a comfort stop perhaps?) before joining the convoy to proceed to the camp on the other side of Kédange (see page 38) where the 1st Duke of Wellington’s Regiment was lined up ready for inspection.

ATB

On the evening of December 8, the King boarded the train again to travel through the night to the 3ème Armée sector in the Moselle area to visit those elements of the BEF at the front. As this was close to the German frontier, this part of the visit was kept secret and when the 3rd Brigade was notified of the plan two days earlier, it directed that only company commanders should be informed. The train arrived at the small railway station of Novéant, south of Metz, at 8.30 a.m. on December 9. The party then drove north to arrive at Kédange at 9.15. Above: Here the King inspected a Guard of Honour of a hundred men from the 2nd Sherwood Foresters drawn up out-

Though now partly hidden by trees, the house still stands unchanged by the side of Rue de Thionville. Mr Virte told Jean Paul how young fir trees were hastily cut down and lined up to hide the dung heaps outside the farms along the route of the King’s visit. 45

ATB

ECPAD Journal de guerre No. 11

Above: The French Army disposed of the old barracks decades ago but the complex still stands, now occupied by the huge Paintball Veckring with 40 paintball battlegrounds.

It was not until the King was safely back in Britain that it was revealed that His Majesty had visited British troops in direct contact with the German Army. The parade detachments were drawn up under orders of Colonel Grégy commanding the 94ème Régiment. The subsequent Press report described how the men inspected were ‘in spick and span condition’ in spite of the fact that they had just come back from the front line where they had occupied ‘trenches and strong points for some days’.

ATB

ECPAD Journal de guerre No. 11

an orchard on the top of a hill where the trees were supposed to conceal the party from the Germans but a battery suddenly opened up with a few stray shots. Général Maurice Gamelin, the French C-in-C who was escorting the King, was furious and demanded to know ‘Who chose this position?’ He also complained that the place was ‘too near the enemy’. Moving on to the Mont des Welches, another fortress of the Maginot Line, the King lunched there before carrying out another inspection of a company of the 2nd Sherwood Foresters and two units from the French 80ème Régiment d’Infanterie. The King and his party departed the 3rd Brigade area at 2.15 p.m., the latter’s war diary entry stating that the visit ‘was marked by great enthusiasm from British and French troops in the area’.

ECPAD Journal de guerre No. 11

Above: Departing from Kédange at 9.45, a Royal Salute was given as the cars moved off to their next stop which was to inspect a French battery of heavy artillery. Ten minutes later the party left in time to arrive on schedule at 10 a.m. at the barracks of the Maginot troops at Veckring. For 20 minutes, in company with Général Gamelin, the King inspected French and British detachments: a company of the 94ème Régiment (the French regiment holding the line on the left of the British brigade), the 3rd Field Ambulance and the 26th Field Company, Royal Engineers. Of the latter the directive detailing the visit stated ‘less one section’ . . . just three simple words yet meaningful words of tragic importance, as we will see later on.

The British detachment was drawn up in front of the main building showing the emblem of the Hackenberg fort. 46

Veckring today. The emblem can still be seen just off to the right of what was once the entrance door.

ATB

ECPAD Journal de guerre No. 11

BELL ARCHIV

Right: At 10.30 a.m. the party arrived at Hackenberg, the largest of the Maginot fortresses. The underground tramway took the King first to Block 8 and then Block 9 where the operation of the 135mm turret was explained to him (see page 41). He was then shown a crew room in the underground barracks, the infirmary, the electric plant, and finally one cell of the huge M1 ammunition store. Here the King sits facing General Gamelin (not in shot) on the tramline with Général Condé, commanding the 3ème Armée, on the left. After an hour and a half inspecting the huge fortress, the King moved on to St-François-Lacroix where he arrived just after midday to inspect detachments of the 1st King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, of the anti-tank company and of the machine gun company drawn up at roadside. The King then walked up to a vantage point, an orchard on the top of a hill, from where they could see the hills of Germany some ten kilometres to the north-east. For 20 minutes, His Majesty ‘looked out across the undulating landscape, sprinkled with woods, which lies between the Maginot forts and the Siegfried Line. In the distance he could see Germany, and below him evacuated villages and farms, and the pine woods where his troops were now holding part of the first line of defence.’ At one stage there were a few anxious moments when a German battery opened up but none of the shots came anywhere near the fort.

Maginot Line! Here the party enters the fortress via the Entrée du Matériel. Right: This fort was abandoned by the army after the war, the entrance now in poor shape having been covered with earth to prevent access by vandals.

Emerging from the subterranean fortress at 2 p.m., the King inspected a guard of honour consisting of three companies — two from the French 80ème Régiment and one from the 2nd Sherwood Foresters.

Jean Paul could find no trace of the hut but he was thrilled to find one of the concrete pillars that had originally supported the fence still standing amidst the trees and bushes that now cover the area.

ATB

ECPAD Journal de guerre No. 11

Left: The party then drove to another Maginot fort — the Mont des Welches — where His Majesty was to lunch with Capitaine François Tari, the fortress commander, and his staff, as this fort had the reputation of having the best cuisine of the whole

47

The 3rd Brigade files now preserve this French map from late November detailing the mines already laid and those still available in the sector south of Bizing. The British inherited this area when they took over from the French in December. The report accompanying this map refers to seven ‘barrages’ with 119 mines alreay in place; another 100 stored close to the barrages and 323 held in the village of Waldweistroff. All these reports leave no doubt that Corporal Priday was killed in what today would be called a ‘blue-on-blue’ incident and the 1st KSLI’s Operation Instruction No. 4 for

this patrol makes it clear what happened. Having placed booby traps in two places on a route suspected to be used by German patrols, the section of the 26th Field Com-

ATB

IWM O-2309

That night, a patrol from the KSLI entered no man’s land together with sappers from the 26th Field Company. ‘December 9. A raiding party organised by the KSLI. Booby traps prepared by Lieutenant R. T. Wiltshire placed in position by him, covered by KSLI. Object of booby trap was to catch enemy patrols but patrols of the KSLI party touched them off by mistake. Lieutenant Wiltshire led a party from slightly in rear to the site of the trap with stretcher bearers and brought back casualties.’ The entry in the 3rd Brigade war diary explains that the ‘First casualties of war, British Expeditionary Force, are reported by 1st KSLI — a section of a patrol walked into own booby trap — one killed, four badly wounded.’ It adds the vital information of where the incident happened — Bizing at 6 p.m. – a location that was right in the centre of the positions occupied by the 1st King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. At Veckring, eight kilometres from Bizing, where the main dressing station was located, the 3rd Field Ambulance war diary recorded: ‘December 9, 2300. Six casualties from KSLI arrived. All GSW [gun-shot wounds] from explosion of a trip bomb’. The timing seems to indicate that it took some hours for Lieutenant Willshire to summon help. The I Corps war diary, dated December 11, made clear that a fire-fight followed the explosion of the booby trap. ‘Report received of first casualties (1 killed, 4 wounded) of 3rd Infantry Brigade on the Saar Front. This had been caused by a patrol leader losing his way in the dark and walking into one of our own booby traps. The ambush party unfortunately fired into the ensuing mêlée.’ As the 3rd Field Ambulance war diary states that all had suffered gun-shot wounds, and the I Corps report makes clear that most, if not all, casualties were as a result of a confused fire-fight, this would seem to indicate that the explosion of the booby trap might not itself have been responsible for the death of the Army’s first soldier: Corporal Thomas Priday, 1st KSLI. The 1st Division’s Intelligence Summary Report No. 14 also mentions the incident briefly: ‘One KSLI patrol walked into one of our own booby traps at night loosing one killed and four wounded’. Unfortunately the 1st KSLI war diary for December 1939 has not survived.

German reconnaissance aircraft occasionally flew over the British positions and on December 22, the 12th Brigade reported that ‘at 12.55 an enemy aircraft, identified as Henschel Hs 126, dived from uncertain height to about 500 feet and flew along the Bizing—Halstroff road, then made off over Remeling at this height’. Armed with Brens mounted on AA tripods, anti-aircraft positions were provided in the ‘Ligne de Contact’. 48

While researching the story, Jean Paul organised searches of the British lines and in the Hartbuch, a wood on the right wing of the British sector, Jean Pascal Speck and Arnaud Quaranta found 70 fired .303 cartridges plus a handful of French 7.5mm 1929C ammunition. Of the .303s, most had been fired by a Bren as the primers bore the mark left by the oblong firing pin. (The firing pin of the Lee-Enfield, which used the same ammunition, left a round impression.)

LIGNE DE CONTACT

2

GERMAN PATROLS 3

6

5

7

8 1 4

9

9

IGN 1/25,000 MAP No. 3411E

RAILWAY STATION

WITHDRAWAL ROUTE

Although the order issued by the 1st KSLI for the operation scheduled for the night of December 9/10 does not appear to have been preserved in British archives, Jean Paul discovered in Paris a copy of ‘Instruction No. 4’ which had been sent to the French Army. It stated that a section of the 26th Field Company, RE, was to place booby traps on the railway line suspected as being a route [dashed red line] used by German patrols to infiltrate and reach Hill 301 [1]. A party of the 1st KSLI was detailed to cover the placing of these booby traps, the rendezvous with the RE party being at a road-block [2] in the sector covered by No. 17 Platoon. The party was then to join [dashed blue line] a forward post [3] from where they were to move off. The RE party were to set the booby traps at two places: under the railway bridge [4] and across the railway cutting [5]. In order to ambush any German patrol that might try to infiltrate, the covering party were then to take three positions in order to watch the booby traps. One section at location [6] was armed with Thompsons and grenades; a Bren-gun

team was set up at [7] and another Bren and grenade party at [8]. Once their task was completed, the engineers were to return south to the railway station [dashed blue line]. The covering party was to remain in their positions until 3.30 a.m. and then pull back the same way. No. 10 Platoon was warned not to open fire down the railway line before 6 a.m. next morning. Also, the two machine guns of the 2nd Cheshires set up at the edge of the Grossmerter Wood [9] were directed not to open fire in the sector of the railway line during the night. However, no sooner had the engineers pulled back than a section of the 1st KSLI lost its way in the dark and triggered one of the booby traps at around 6 p.m. Assuming that the explosion had been set off by a German patrol, the covering party then opened fire and six men were wounded in the ensuing mêlée. When the confusion finally abated, Lieutenant Wiltshire led a party from the 26th Field Company from Bizing with stretcher-bearers to bring back the casualties. About 11 p.m. the casualties finally reached the 3rd Field Ambulance station at Dalstein. 49

ATB

ATB

The combined party then advanced as a body to the forward position where No. 17 Platoon [3] was deployed, and it was from there that they set off at 5 p.m. The location of the platoon post was about here, some distance off to the east, down below the crest in the background. The two booby trap points were some 600 metres off to the east.

Left: The first booby trap [4] was placed under this railway bridge north-west of Grindorff. This photo is taken from the eastern side of the line, from where the German patrols would have approached the underpass. A section of the covering

party armed with a Bren [7] lay some 300 metres off to the right of the photographer. Right: Though it is impossible to be certain, could these impact marks in the wall of the bridge be relevant to the drama of December 1939?

pany, RE, withdrew leaving the covering party from No. 20 Platoon to monitor the traps. Suddenly there was an explosion triggered by a section of the covering party having lost their way in the dark. Assuming that a German patrol had set off the booby trap, the main covering party opened fire as they had been directed to do. The machine gun positions of C Company of the 2nd Cheshires, covering this sector of the front, were probably not involved in the mêlée as they had been specifically ordered not to fire during this night. They had two machine guns at the edge of Grossmerter Wood, some 500 metres south of the ambush point, and four more on the high ground near Bizing, another 500 metres further south. From their main dressing station at Veckring, the 3rd Field Ambulance rushed the badly wounded Corporal Priday to the civilian hospital at Luttange, 15 kilometres away. Marie-Louise Nadé was then a close friend of one of the nurses at the hospital. Although now over 94 she still remembers clearly her friend being summoned that night to attend a wounded British soldier, and how she described his awful injuries: ‘He had holes everywhere; he was bleeding from each of these’. Corporal Priday, aged 27, Service Number 4031789, was buried in the local churchyard on December 11. In mid-December the 12th Brigade relieved the 3rd Brigade. The 4th Brigade took over at the beginning of January, 50

ATB

ATB

ATB

Once Jean Paul had converted the grid references given in Instruction No. 4 onto a present-day map, he was then able to identify, visit and photograph the various locations for this account. The road-block [2] where the covering party of the 1st KSLI had a rendezvous with the Royal Engineers at 3.30 p.m. on December 9 lies here at the edge of Winkelmerter Wood.

The second booby trap [5] was laid across the railway cutting some 550 metres north of the bridge. Closed for decades, the line is now completely overgrown with trees and bushes, including a thorny and aggressive species. Searching about point [5] with metal detectors, we only found the nose of a shell. (It should be remembered that using a detector is strictly prohibited in public areas in France and only allowed on private land with the agreement of the owner.)

ATB

ATB

Searching location [6] where the No. 20 Platoon covering party was deployed armed with Thompsons, Arnaud Quaranta could not believe it when the detector beeped at this very spot. Could this be spent .45 ammunition fired on the night of December 9/10? We dared not risk damaging the cabbages to find out!

This photograph was taken from the western entrance of the bridge and it shows the field where the third section of the covering party [8] lay in wait. Armed with a Bren, they were deployed some 100 metres away up the hill in between the two trees seen on the right.

ATB

ATB

Led by Lieutenant Reginald Wiltshire, the party from the 26th Field Company bringing back the casualties returned through Grindorff railway station, a kilometre south of the ambush bridge. This was actually the route in Instruction No. 4 to be used by the covering party on completion of its watch on the booby traps. Left: The old station is now a private property. This stretch of railway line was built in 1909 when the Moselle area between Merzig and Bettelainville (Bettsdorf) near Thionville was German. It was inaugurated in 1917 and taken over by the French when the region was returned to France in 1918. On September 3, 1939, the day the war began, the Germans blew the bridge over the Sarre river, it being rumoured that an army engineer was panicked by thunder and lightning that he mistook for a French attack! The Germans re-opened the line late in 1941, from Mondorf, just west of the blown bridge, to Bettelainville. After the war passenger traffic resumed between Hombourg-Budange and Waldwisse, but this ceased in 1948, leaving only freight trains. The line was finally closed in 1959, the land and buildings being sold off and the track lifted in the late 1960s.

From the 3rd Field Ambulance main dressing station at Veckring, the badly wounded Corporal Priday was rushed to the civilian hospital at Luttange.

relieved in turn by the 8th Brigade in February. All in all, nine brigades rotated to serve in Saar Force between December 1, 1939 and April 21, 1940. Then the first elements of the 51st (Highland) Division went into the line, taking over the whole of the HombourgBudange sector from the 7ème Division d’Infanterie on May 6. The division was to remain there until May 20 when it was transferred to the Somme. Before the ‘real’ war began on May 10, on this front the 8th Brigade lost two men killed in January; the 15th Brigade one in February, and the 1st Guards Brigade one in February. The Royal Army Service Corps had three men killed in January, the artillery two in February, and the Royal Army Medical Corps one in March. The 51st (Highland) Division also lost three men killed in this sector. On December 18, the papers carried the headline: ‘First casualties of BEF Maginot Line night patrol’. The news described a supposed clash in no man’s land on a ‘dark and bitterly cold night’, and told how the more seriously wounded ‘were taken to a casualty clearing station and later to a French hospital’. On January 24, 1940, the War Illustrated published a photo of Corporal Priday, claiming he was the ‘first British soldier to be killed in the war’ while leading a patrol. Not surprisingly, no word filtered 51

Illustrated on January 12, 1940 but with no further clues. By December 1939, well over one hundred British servicemen had died in France from a variety of non-battle causes — aircraft crashes, illness, road or other accidents, etc. For example, the second burial at Luttange, next to Corporal Priday, is that of Corporal Dennis McGillicuddy of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, who died from a brain abcess on December 23.

ATB

On December 5, 1939 France Magazine published this photo under the heading ‘In the soil of France now rest British soldiers’. The caption does not give any names, neither a date nor the location, but it refers to ‘two British soldiers [having] just been taken to their last resting place’. An examination of the possible casualties has not yielded a positive identification for these two men. The same photograph was reprinted in War

Corporal Thomas William Priday (Service Number 4031789) was aged 27 when he was killed near Grindorff. He was the son of Allen and Elisabeth Priday of Redmarley, Gloucestershire, and was buried in the Communal Cemetery at Luttange, six kilometres south of Kédange, on December 11. 52

through to the Press of how he had been killed by his own side. Although Priday was claimed to be the first British soldier to be killed in action, many British servicemen had already died from a variety of causes. Just two hours after Britain’s entry into the war on September 3, Pilot Officer John Noel Isaac crashed his Blenheim at Hendon, and three days later Pilot Officer Montague Hulton-Harrop was shot down and killed by another RAF pilot in the so-called Battle of Barking Creek (see The Blitz Then and Now, Volume 1). The first RAF battle casualties occurred on September 4 when 25 crewmen were killed when five Blenheims and two Wellingtons of Bomber Command were shot down during an attack on German warships at Brunsbüttel and Wilhelmshaven, the RAF’s first raid of the war (see After the Battle No. 148). The RAF units with the BEF in France had their first losses to German fighters on September 20 when two Battles were shot down while flying reconnaissance sorties over the German frontier just east of the Saar. Five airmen were killed (see The Battle of France Then and Now). As far as the Army was concerned, many men of the BEF had already lost their lives from accidents in France — 15 alone in September — like Warrant Officers James Sharratt and Frank Clark, both of the 27th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, killed in a road accident at La Chapelle d’Anthenaise near Laval on the 23rd.

ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE

WALDWISSE

MEMORIAL 3

4

Patrick Everitt, born in Singapore on December 26, 1916 was the only son of Sir Clement and Lady Everitt. The family returned to the UK in 1927 and settled in Sheringham, Norfolk. In 1935 Patrick was admitted to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst — this picture was taken in 1936 — being commissioned on January 28, 1937 when he joined the Royal Norfolk Regiment.

IGN 1/25,000 MAP No. 3411E

1

GERMAN POSITIONS

BRITISH POSITIONS

The War Diary of the 2nd Royal Norfolks describes the ill-advised reconnaissance undertaken by Lieutenant Everitt on January 7, 1940 in some detail. The grid references have enabled Jean Paul to produce this map pinpointing the salient points. On that freezing Sunday morning, Everitt was ordered to lead a ten-man covering party for 20 men who were setting up a wire entanglement at the southern tip of Grosswald Wood [1]. The ground was covered with snow. About 11 a.m. he decided to lead part of his patrol to the crest of a hill [2] facing Waldwisse, saying that he was going to observe the German positions [red line] from there and make a sketch map of them. About 11.30 a.m. he suddenly stood up and started down the hill [dashed blue line], five men following him. Some time before midday, a German machine gun opened up from near the railway station [3] and Lieutenant Everitt fell to the ground, badly wounded [4]. The five men with him were pinned down for some time, before managing to return to their lines sometime after 2.30 p.m.

ATB

ATB

At the end of December, the 4th Infantry Brigade took its turn at the Saar front, with the 1st Battalion, Royal Scots, the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment and the 1st Battalion, The Border Regiment. On January 4, 2nd Lieutenant Patrick Everitt of the 2nd Royal Norfolks led a three-man patrol into Germany. ‘This is the first time a British patrol has actually crossed the frontier during the present war’, was the entry in the battalion war diary. Everitt was warmly congratulated by the brigade commander for this action. Three days later, Lieutenant Everitt and ten other ranks formed the covering party for 20 men of the 1st Border Regiment who had been detailed to set up a wire entanglement at the southern tip of Grosswald woods, south-west of Waldwisse. At approximately 11 a.m. he led part of the patrol to the top of the hill to the east, facing Waldwisse, saying that he was going to see what he could observe of the German positions and make a sketch map of what he saw. After a pause of about 30 minutes, Lieu-

2

This is the view from the German side of the valley, looking westwards from their positions along the railway line. This clearly shows how Everitt was foolish to descend the facing slope while in full view of the German gunner 350 metres away.

Looking eastwards, our photograph was taken in the warm light of a winter’s evening 75 years later. Allowing for the new growth of trees, this would have been Everitt’s view of the German side of the valley just before he was hit. 53

ARNAUD QUARANTA

tenant Everitt suddenly stood up from behind the crest and moved down the hill towards the small stream down at the bottom. Half the patrol followed him at which point a German machine gun opened up. A report received at 1 p.m. said that five men were pinned down and that Lieutenant Everitt had been seen to drop. The patrol finally pulled back — reportedly at 2.51 p.m. — save for Everitt. A search for him after dark was unsuccessful, but marks in the snow indicated that he had fallen into the hands of the Germans about 150-200 metres from Waldwisse station. The battalion war diaries make it clear that Everitt ‘exceeded his instructions in moving forward over the hill in this manner, as his patrol had a protective mission only’. The Germans took the gravely wounded Everitt to hospital where he quickly died of his wounds. He was buried with full military honours in the Weiskirchen Cemetery, a village 30 kilometres north-east of Waldwisse. He was actually the first British soldier to be killed by German fire. On January 10, the 2nd Royal Norfolk Regiment were proud that Captain F. P. Barclays was awarded the Military Cross in recognition of his gallantry during the patrol of the night of January 4/5, reportedly the first decoration to be awarded to the BEF in the Second World War. Bearing in mind that this was the same night that Lieutenant Everitt had led the first patrol across the frontier possibly his rash behaviour in endangering his men on January 7 deprived him of receiving this award. The German 79. Infanterie-Division that held this sector in December 1939 erected a memorial by the side of the road south-west of Waldwisse recording the event, the inscription reading: ‘On January 7, 1940 the 54

which we heard distinctly, and lay still. The next in command decided that his duty was to preserve the lives of the remainder of the patrol instead of risking them in a hopeless attempt to bring in the bullet-riddled body of the leader. It was a shocking business getting back. We had to scramble up the side of the hill in full view of the enemy, and were lucky to find an occasional hollow. With the bullets still whistling about us we reached the crest and threw ourselves the other side.’ Above: The spot where Everitt was hit, in between the two copses in background. He had come down the slope on the right, the German positions being over to the left. Local people remember how a single apple tree once stood there, to which the Germans pinned a wooden board with an inscription about ‘the first Englishman’ being captured just there.

ATB

Under the heading ‘Our officer raced to certain death’ the War Illustrated reported the death of Everitt in their issue of February 23, 1940 ‘as told by an NCO who accompanied him on his last patrol’, and it describes how Everitt’s rash behaviour clearly endangered his men. ‘As we reached the top [of the crest] we paused to survey the situation. In the valley down below in the outpost we could plainly see the Nazis moving around, and apparently unaware of our proximity. The Lieutenant went ahead, walking upright, and as we followed I called him, “Keep down, Sir!” As we got nearer to the German trenches I called him again to lie low but he forged ahead, his gun at the ready and watching on every side for a sign of the first enemy outpost. At that moment a burst of machine-gun fire came rat-a-tat from the German lines. He dropped to the ground and rolled over, gave a cry

A youngster in 1940, Bernard Bettenfeld points out the exact spot at the side of the D855, a few hundred metres south of Waldwisse in the distance, where the Germans erected a memorial to Everitt’s death. Some time after the war, the memorial was hit by a car which skidded off the road and demolished it. For some months the broken stones lay scattered in the field before an inhabitant of Waldwisse salvaged them to use in the foundation for a wall in his garden. Living in Remeling, four kilometres to the west, Bettenfeld always wondered what had happened to the stones and in 1995 decided to try to find out. After many years of fruitless effort, finally in 2007 he had a breakthrough and discovered where they were, but it took him another five years before he was able to recover the five heavy pieces from the garden wall as his plan was to reassemble the memorial. In 2013, Bettenfeld told his story in Souvenirs d’un enfant de la frontière (Memoirs of a Child from the Border). The memorial is now waiting in trusted hands for its future to be decided.

ATB ATB

ATB

A unique battlefield memorial. On either side an arrow marked ‘450 Meter’ served to direct visitors to the exact spot where the mortally wounded Everitt was captured.

The inscription reads: ‘On January 7, 1940 the first Englishman captured on the Western Front was taken on this slope’. first Englishman captured on the Western Front was taken on this slope’. Included was an arrow marked 450 metres to direct visitors to the precise spot where Everitt was captured, while the motto of the division ‘Tapfer und Treu’ (Courageous and Loyal) was engraved on the reverse. This division fought in the battle of France in June 1940, ending the campaign in Langres in eastern France where it remained until April 1941. From July the division was engaged on the Eastern Front before it ceased to exist at Stalingrad.

On the reverse is engraved ‘Tapfer und Treu’, the motto of the 79. Infanterie-Division, the unit that erected the memorial.

The memorial remained at the side of the road for some years until it was demolished when struck by a car in the late 1940s. The broken stones lay scattered in the field below before an enterprising inhabitant of Waldwisse took a fancy to them to use them in the foundation for a wall in his garden. In 1995, Mr Bernard Bettenfeld, who used to play football in the field behind the memorial when a youngster, spotted that it had disappeared although it took him some time to find out what had happened to it.

When he tracked the ‘owner’ down, Mr Bettenfeld managed to persuade him that it should be preserved, and that he could have the broken stones providing he rebuilt the garden wall. When in 1948 the Commonwealth War Graves Commission established a war cemetery at Rheinberg, north of Cologne, for the concentration of scattered graves in that part of Germany, Patrick Everitt was exhumed from Weiskirchen and is now buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery.

So with Corporal Priday — who was always thought to be the first soldier to be killed — having been a casualty of friendly fire, Lieutenant Everitt is now not only the first officer but the first soldier to have been killed by enemy fire in the Second World War. He was 23 and was first buried in the cemetery at Weiskirchen, 30 kilometres north-east of Waldwisse, but was moved in June 1948 to Rheinberg War Cemetery (Grave 13, Row E, Plot 3), 85 kilometres north of Cologne. 55