Mano Negra dictatorship of Francisco Franco. "The Black Hand" was also the name of a Serbian nationalist underground/terrorist network before and during the First World War (and which supposedly worked out of Masonic lodges). Their most notable members include Gavrilo Princip and the group of assassins who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, thus triggering the war in 1914. "La Mano Negra" is also a common expression in Spanish to say, ""Aquí hubo mano negra"" ("There was a black hand here") to say that someone with authority, in a particular event, manipulated things illegally for its benefit. The expression is also used sometimes as
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria employed a staff of sixteen. His authority was reinforced in 1907 when he secured the retirement of the Emperor's confidant Friedrich von Beck-Rzikowsky as Chief of the General Staff. Beck's successor, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, was personally selected by Franz Ferdinard. Franz in 1913, as heir-presumptive to the elderly emperor, had been appointed inspector general of all the armed forces of Austria-Hungary ("Generalinspektor der gesamten bewaffneten Macht"), a position superior to that previously held by Archduke Albrecht and including presumed command in wartime. In 1894 Franz Ferdinand met Countess Sophie Chotek, a lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Isabella, wife of Archduke Friedrich,