Black Hand (Serbia)
Unification or Death (Serbian: Ujedinjenje ili smrt, Serbian Cyrillic: Уједињење или смрт), popularly known as the Black Hand (Serbian: Crna ruka, Serbian Cyrillic: Црна рука), was a secret military society formed in 1901 by officers in the Army of the Kingdom of Serbia. It gained a reputation for its alleged involvement in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 and for the earlier assassination of the Serbian royal couple in 1903, under the aegis of Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević (a.k.a. "Apis").[3]
Unification or Death
Black Hand
The society formed to unite all of the territories with a South Slavic majority that were not then ruled by either Serbia or Montenegro. It took inspiration primarily from the unification of Italy in 1859–1870, but also from the unification of Germany in 1871.[4][5] Through its connections to the June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, carried out by the members of the youth movement Young Bosnia, the Black Hand is often viewed as instrumental in starting World War I (1914–1918) by precipitating the July Crisis of 1914, which eventually led to Austria-Hungary's invasion of the Kingdom of Serbia in August 1914.[6]
1911–13[edit]
The organization used the magazine Pijemont (the Serbian name for Piedmont, the kingdom that led the unification of Italy under the House of Savoy) for the dissemination of their ideas.[16] The magazine was founded by Ljuba Čupa in August 1911.[17]
Legacy[edit]
In 1938, Konspiracija, a conspiracy group to overthrow the Yugoslav regency was founded by, among others, members of the Serbian Cultural Club (SKK).[21] The organization was modeled after the Black Hand, including the recruitment process.[22] Two members of the Black Hand, Antonije Antić and Velimir Vemić, were the organization's military advisors.[23]