Gavrilo Princip (Serbian Cyrillic: Гаврило Принцип, pronounced [ɡǎʋrilo prǐntsip]; 25 July 1894 – 28 April 1918) was a Bosnian Serb student who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, Duchess von Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This assassination triggered the July Crisis, a series of events that culminated in the outbreak of World War I within a month.
Born into a poor Serb family in western Bosnia, Princip moved to Sarajevo at 13 to study at the Merchants’ School, later transferring to the gymnasium, where he became politically engaged. In 1911, he joined Young Bosnia, a secret society aiming to liberate Bosnia from Austrian rule and unite the South Slavs. After participating in anti-Austrian demonstrations in Sarajevo, he was expelled from school and walked to Belgrade, Serbia, to continue his education. During the First Balkan War, Princip attempted to join the Serbian army’s irregular forces but was rejected due to his small stature and frail health.
In 1913, following Serbia’s success in the war against the Ottomans, Austrian military governor Oskar Potiorek declared a state of emergency in Bosnia, dissolving the parliament, imposing martial law, and banning Serbian public, cultural, and educational societies. Inspired by other assassination attempts by Slavic nationalists, Princip convinced two fellow Bosnians to join him in a plot to kill the heir to the Habsburg Empire during his visit to Sarajevo. The Black Hand, a Serbian secret society linked to military intelligence, provided them with weapons and training before helping them re-enter Bosnia.
On 28 June 1914, during the royal couple’s visit to Sarajevo, the teenage Princip fatally shot both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie at close range after their car stopped unexpectedly just 1.5 meters (5 feet) from him. Princip was arrested immediately and tried along with 24 others, all Bosnians and subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At his trial, Princip declared, “I am a Yugoslav nationalist, striving for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form the state takes, as long as it is free from Austria.” Due to his age (19), Princip was spared the death penalty and sentenced to 20 years in prison, which he served at the Terezín fortress. Although the Serbian government did not directly instigate the assassination, Austria-Hungary used the murders as a pretext for a preventive war, leading directly to World War I.
Princip died on 28 April 1918 from tuberculosis, which was exacerbated by harsh prison conditions that had already necessitated the amputation of one of his arms.
