Black Hand (Serbia) Balkan Wars. By this point, disagreeing with the Black Hand was dangerous, as political murder was one of their tools. It was also in 1914 that Apis allegedly decided that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir-apparent of Austria, should be assassinated, as he was trying to pacify the Serbians, and if this happened then a revolution would never occur. Towards that end it is claimed that three young Bosnian Serbs were recruited to kill the Archduke. They were definitely trained in bomb throwing and marksmanship by current and former members of the Serbian military. Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Čabrinović and Trifko Grabež
July Crisis Emperor Franz Joseph signed the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Russia. July Crisis The July Crisis was a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914 that was the penultimate cause of World War I. The crisis began on June 28, 1914, when Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. A complex web of alliances, coupled with miscalculations by many leaders that war was in their best interests or that a general war would not occur, resulted in a general outbreak of