‘Now those faces are in a [Sarajevo] dungeon, and even paler under torture’

Eleven days after Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, Serbs received news about the fate of his alleged killers.

– Daniel McLaughlin

In a Sarajevo Dungeon

After everything that was considered Serbian property had been destroyed or taken away, Sarajevo calmed down. Martial law over the whole land induced a terrifying tranquillity among the people. Spies spread throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina have silenced even the most talkative people. Anxiety and foreboding have seized the whole country more strongly than ever.

In Sarajevo, from the moment of the assassination, all the attention is on four prison buildings. It is in those buildings that the assassins and their alleged collaborators are held.

Gavro Princip, Neðeljko Èabrinoviæ, Mihajlo Pushara and 15 others have been locked in separate cells of the military casemate. In front of their cells, two groups of guards keep watch the entire day and night. A second group of detainees is in Sarajevo's main police prison. A third group is in the county jail and a fourth in a district prison.

As of today, Sunday, as I write, exactly 204 people are being held in prison over the assassination. New detainees are constantly being brought to the prisons. They are bringing them from all the parts of country. Something that was said years ago, an antipathy between neighbours, religious intolerance — all these are motives for bringing in more and more new “collaborators”. One peasant was dragged to Sarajevo from Glamoè just because a Catholic told the police that he had heard him say once during the Balkan war that soon the Austrians would have to leave Bosnia.

Dimitrije Lonèareviæ from Plevlje was arrested as a collaborator, simply because in his local coffee shop before Christmas he had talked about what might happen if Franz Ferdinand died. This was according to two Muslims who overheard him talking. Denouncers and spies are working at full speed.

What Princip and Èabrinoviæ are doing

Neither Princip nor Èabrinoviæ want to say a single word and to all questions they respond only with nods. As well as not talking, Princip and Èabrinoviæ do not want to eat anything. From the moment of their arrest they have been on hunger strike and have been fed by force.

One well known Sarajevo doctor, who has been asked to help with this, told me that one of Princip’s jawbones was smashed by a sabre blow. He says that in his long experience, he has never seen anyone as tough, and with such an iron will, as this young man who until now was completely unknown.

As it happened, the very night before the assassination I encountered both Princip and Èabrinoviæ. Princip was walking with two friends and talking about something. One of the friends was the son of very high ranking officer and he was laughing loudly, then Princip started to laugh too. A little later I saw Èabrinoviæ. He was walking with a girl. He was very serious, wistful and, it seemed to me, unusually pale. Now those faces are in a dungeon, and even paler under torture. But their mouths have said nothing.

Politika (Serbia), July 9th, 1914