It was events that unfolded here, 100 years ago, that were to trigger the devastation of the First World War.
On the morning of 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie left this hotel in Sarajevo to visit the city's mayor.
As their convoy drove along the Miljacka river, it was met by crowds of onlookers -- and a gang of armed men:
SOUNDBITE 1 - Mirsad Avdic, curator of the 1914 assassination exhibition at Sarajevo Museum (man, Bosnian, 22 sec):
"At the moment when Ferdinand's car drew level with this bridge at the end, one of the attackers threw a grenade. It missed Ferdinand's car and it exploded next to the car carrying officers from the Austro-Hungarian army, who were behind."
In spite of this failed attempt on his life, Ferdinand continued to the city hall for his meeting.
But when he left, his luck changed.
The convoy TOOK a wrong turn and WAS forced to turn back -- leaving Ferdinand face to face with 19 year old Gavrilo Princip.
He pulled a gun and shot Ferdinand in the neck. Then, in the subsequent tussle, Sophie was shot. Both died.
SOUNDBITE 2 - Mirsad Avdic, curator of the 1914 assassination exhibition at Sarajevo Museum (man, Bosnian, 15 sec):
"Circumstances meant that the car was literally a metre and a half in front of him, so he was able to carry out the attack easily -- given the proximity."
A century on and debate about Princip and his accomplices endures.
For some he was a terrorist, for others a proud patriot who dreamt of the creation of a Slavic nation state, free from the trappings of religious or ethnic origin.
Soundbite 3 - Draga Mastilovic, Professor of Bosnian Serb history (man, Serbian, 17 sec):
"Their objective was the liberation of all of the lands inhabited by southern Slavs which at the time were occupied by Austria-Hungary -- and the creation of the state for all southern Slavic peoples."
The assassination of Ferdinand and his wife would set the great powers of Europe against each other.
By August 1914, Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Russia, Germany, France and Great Britain were at war.
International commemorations will be held in the Bosnian capital to mark the centenary at the end of June.
But Serbia is refusing to join in, as are the Serbs in Bosnia -- who see Princip as one of their own and a hero -- unlike the majority Muslim population of Sarajevo for whom Princip is a reminder of their Serbian enemy during the bloody conflict of the 1990s.
For many, those shots fired 100 years ago still ring out across the region.
SHOTLIST:
SARAJEVO, FEB-JUNE 2014
(SOURCE: AFPTV)
- VAR Hotel Austria, Sarajevo
- Figures of Ferdinand and his wife at Sarajevo Museum
- Photo of Ferdinand and Sophie in 1914 in their car
- GV sarajevo
SOUNDBITE 1 - Mirsad Avdic, curator of the 1914 assassination exhibition at Sarajevo Museum (man, Bosnian, 22 sec)
- GV Miljcka river
- GV town hall
- Photo showing Ferdinand and Sophie leaving town hall
-Photo of Princip
- Zoom junction where assassination took place
- Photo of couple in their coffins
SOUNDBITE 2 - Mirsad Avdic, curator of the 1914 assassination exhibition at Sarajevo Museum (man, Bosnian, 15 sec)
- Front page of "Bosnische Post" with headline "Attack", at Sarajevo Museum
- Photo of Princip and co-conspirators during trial
- The gun held at teh Museum of Sarajevo
- Historical map of Balkans
Soundbite 3 - Draga Mastilovic, Professor of Bosnian Serb history (man, Serbian, 17 sec)
- VAR cemetary in Sarajevo where Princip and co-conspirators are buried
- VAR Sarajevo Museum
///
-----------------------------------
AFP TEXT STORY:
June 28, 1914: the day that triggered WWI
SARAJEVO, June 20, 2014 (AFP) - Sunny Sarajevo was in festive mood on June 28, 1914 for the visit of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. But it was to be a dark day, and one that changed the world.
By 11 o'clock, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire would be dead, an assassination that plunged Europe into four years of horrific conflict that killed millions.
"There were flags everywhere, the whole city was covered with flags. As children, we had to stand in the front," one witness told Austrian radio in 1994 for the 80th anniversary.
Armed with bombs and guns and blending into the crowd along the archduke's route were half a dozen Bosnian Serb nationalists bent on freedom from Austro-Hungarian rule.
The night before the group had been partying in Sarajevo cafes and Gavrilo Princip, the sallow-faced 19-year-old who would shoot the archduke and his wife, even had a date with a young girl called Jelena Jezdimirovic.
"They decided to have an 'ordinary' evening, not to hide, in order not to attract attention," Bosnian historian Slobodan Soja told AFP.
Franz Ferdinand, resplendent in military tunic and plumed hat and in the region for army exercises, was in an open-topped car with reduced police protection on his way to city hall.
The first three militants, paralysed with fear, let the motorcade pass but a fourth, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, was able to lob a bomb -- which bounced off the archduke's car and exploded under the vehicle behind.
Unharmed, the archduke sped on to his destination, angrily saying in his speech: "I came to visit you and they throw bombs on me!"
- A fatal error -
General Oskar Potiorek, military governor of Bosnia, assured the archduke the situation was under control, but if Franz Ferdinand thought his troubles were over, he was wrong.
After the ceremony at city hall, the 50-year-old decided to visit the hospital where people injured in the bomb attack were being treated.
But driving back along the Miljacka river, the convoy took a wrong turn up a small street on the right -- named after the emperor Franz Joseph -- and had to stop and turn round.
"That was a fatal error," writer and Sarajevo chronicler Valerijan Zujo told AFP.
Believing that his group had failed and with Cabrinovic arrested, Princip, rejected two years earlier by the Serbian army as "unfit" to carry a weapon, was still mingling in the crowd.
And now, the archduke's Graef und Stift automobile stopped right next to him.
"The archduke was served up to him on a plate," said Soja.
Stepping up the car, 19-year-old Princip shot both the archduke and his wife Sophie at close range with a revolver, he in the throat and she in the abdomen.
"As the car quickly reversed, a thin stream of blood spurted from His Highness's mouth onto my right check," recalled Lieutenant Colonel Count Franz von Harrach.
"As I was pulling out my handkerchief to wipe the blood away from his mouth, the Duchess cried out to him, 'For God's sake! What has happened to you?'. At that she slid off the seat and lay on the floor of the car."
Franz Ferdinand repeatedly insisted "It is nothing!", but he gradually lost consciousness and he and the archduchess were pronounced dead 15 minutes later after arriving at the royal residence.
On the morning of 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie left this hotel in Sarajevo to visit the city's mayor.
As their convoy drove along the Miljacka river, it was met by crowds of onlookers -- and a gang of armed men:
SOUNDBITE 1 - Mirsad Avdic, curator of the 1914 assassination exhibition at Sarajevo Museum (man, Bosnian, 22 sec):
"At the moment when Ferdinand's car drew level with this bridge at the end, one of the attackers threw a grenade. It missed Ferdinand's car and it exploded next to the car carrying officers from the Austro-Hungarian army, who were behind."
In spite of this failed attempt on his life, Ferdinand continued to the city hall for his meeting.
But when he left, his luck changed.
The convoy TOOK a wrong turn and WAS forced to turn back -- leaving Ferdinand face to face with 19 year old Gavrilo Princip.
He pulled a gun and shot Ferdinand in the neck. Then, in the subsequent tussle, Sophie was shot. Both died.
SOUNDBITE 2 - Mirsad Avdic, curator of the 1914 assassination exhibition at Sarajevo Museum (man, Bosnian, 15 sec):
"Circumstances meant that the car was literally a metre and a half in front of him, so he was able to carry out the attack easily -- given the proximity."
A century on and debate about Princip and his accomplices endures.
For some he was a terrorist, for others a proud patriot who dreamt of the creation of a Slavic nation state, free from the trappings of religious or ethnic origin.
Soundbite 3 - Draga Mastilovic, Professor of Bosnian Serb history (man, Serbian, 17 sec):
"Their objective was the liberation of all of the lands inhabited by southern Slavs which at the time were occupied by Austria-Hungary -- and the creation of the state for all southern Slavic peoples."
The assassination of Ferdinand and his wife would set the great powers of Europe against each other.
By August 1914, Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Russia, Germany, France and Great Britain were at war.
International commemorations will be held in the Bosnian capital to mark the centenary at the end of June.
But Serbia is refusing to join in, as are the Serbs in Bosnia -- who see Princip as one of their own and a hero -- unlike the majority Muslim population of Sarajevo for whom Princip is a reminder of their Serbian enemy during the bloody conflict of the 1990s.
For many, those shots fired 100 years ago still ring out across the region.
SHOTLIST:
SARAJEVO, FEB-JUNE 2014
(SOURCE: AFPTV)
- VAR Hotel Austria, Sarajevo
- Figures of Ferdinand and his wife at Sarajevo Museum
- Photo of Ferdinand and Sophie in 1914 in their car
- GV sarajevo
SOUNDBITE 1 - Mirsad Avdic, curator of the 1914 assassination exhibition at Sarajevo Museum (man, Bosnian, 22 sec)
- GV Miljcka river
- GV town hall
- Photo showing Ferdinand and Sophie leaving town hall
-Photo of Princip
- Zoom junction where assassination took place
- Photo of couple in their coffins
SOUNDBITE 2 - Mirsad Avdic, curator of the 1914 assassination exhibition at Sarajevo Museum (man, Bosnian, 15 sec)
- Front page of "Bosnische Post" with headline "Attack", at Sarajevo Museum
- Photo of Princip and co-conspirators during trial
- The gun held at teh Museum of Sarajevo
- Historical map of Balkans
Soundbite 3 - Draga Mastilovic, Professor of Bosnian Serb history (man, Serbian, 17 sec)
- VAR cemetary in Sarajevo where Princip and co-conspirators are buried
- VAR Sarajevo Museum
///
-----------------------------------
AFP TEXT STORY:
June 28, 1914: the day that triggered WWI
SARAJEVO, June 20, 2014 (AFP) - Sunny Sarajevo was in festive mood on June 28, 1914 for the visit of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. But it was to be a dark day, and one that changed the world.
By 11 o'clock, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire would be dead, an assassination that plunged Europe into four years of horrific conflict that killed millions.
"There were flags everywhere, the whole city was covered with flags. As children, we had to stand in the front," one witness told Austrian radio in 1994 for the 80th anniversary.
Armed with bombs and guns and blending into the crowd along the archduke's route were half a dozen Bosnian Serb nationalists bent on freedom from Austro-Hungarian rule.
The night before the group had been partying in Sarajevo cafes and Gavrilo Princip, the sallow-faced 19-year-old who would shoot the archduke and his wife, even had a date with a young girl called Jelena Jezdimirovic.
"They decided to have an 'ordinary' evening, not to hide, in order not to attract attention," Bosnian historian Slobodan Soja told AFP.
Franz Ferdinand, resplendent in military tunic and plumed hat and in the region for army exercises, was in an open-topped car with reduced police protection on his way to city hall.
The first three militants, paralysed with fear, let the motorcade pass but a fourth, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, was able to lob a bomb -- which bounced off the archduke's car and exploded under the vehicle behind.
Unharmed, the archduke sped on to his destination, angrily saying in his speech: "I came to visit you and they throw bombs on me!"
- A fatal error -
General Oskar Potiorek, military governor of Bosnia, assured the archduke the situation was under control, but if Franz Ferdinand thought his troubles were over, he was wrong.
After the ceremony at city hall, the 50-year-old decided to visit the hospital where people injured in the bomb attack were being treated.
But driving back along the Miljacka river, the convoy took a wrong turn up a small street on the right -- named after the emperor Franz Joseph -- and had to stop and turn round.
"That was a fatal error," writer and Sarajevo chronicler Valerijan Zujo told AFP.
Believing that his group had failed and with Cabrinovic arrested, Princip, rejected two years earlier by the Serbian army as "unfit" to carry a weapon, was still mingling in the crowd.
And now, the archduke's Graef und Stift automobile stopped right next to him.
"The archduke was served up to him on a plate," said Soja.
Stepping up the car, 19-year-old Princip shot both the archduke and his wife Sophie at close range with a revolver, he in the throat and she in the abdomen.
"As the car quickly reversed, a thin stream of blood spurted from His Highness's mouth onto my right check," recalled Lieutenant Colonel Count Franz von Harrach.
"As I was pulling out my handkerchief to wipe the blood away from his mouth, the Duchess cried out to him, 'For God's sake! What has happened to you?'. At that she slid off the seat and lay on the floor of the car."
Franz Ferdinand repeatedly insisted "It is nothing!", but he gradually lost consciousness and he and the archduchess were pronounced dead 15 minutes later after arriving at the royal residence.
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