page_title: Gavrilo Princip
section_title: Arrest and trial
hierarchical_section_title: Gavrilo Princip / Arrest and trial
caption_attribution_description: Sarajevo trial, 1914.
context_page_description: Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb member of Young Bosnia who sought an end to Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the age of 19, he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and the Archduke's wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Princip and his accomplices were arrested and implicated as a nationalist secret society, which initiated the July Crisis and led to the outbreak of World War I.
  At his trial, Princip stated that: "I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be freed from Austria." Princip was sentenced to twenty years in prison, the maximum for his age, and was imprisoned at the Terezín fortress. He died on 28 April 1918 from tuberculosis exacerbated by poor prison conditions which had already caused the loss of his right arm.
context_section_description: Princip attempted to shoot himself, but the pistol was wrestled from his hand before he had a chance to fire another shot. At his trial, he said he regretted the killing of the Duchess and meant to kill Potiorek, but was nonetheless proud of what he had done. He further stated that: "I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be freed from Austria." The Black Hand was implicated in the assassination which led Austria-Hungary to issue a démarche to Serbia known as the July Ultimatum which led up to the outbreak of World War I.
  Princip was nineteen years old at the time and too young to receive the death penalty, as he was twenty-seven days shy of the twenty-year minimum age limit required by Habsburg Law. Instead, he received the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison.
caption: Princip, seated centre of first row, on trial 5 December 1914
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "An undated picture acquired from the historical archives of Sarajevo on June 28, 2014 shows Gavrilo Princip (first row-C) and other members of the \"Mlada Bosna\" (\"Young Bosnia\")  revolutionnary group in court, as they stand trial for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Born a peasant boy in 1894 in the remote mountain village of Obljaj, Princip was a passionate Serb and Slav nationalist whose assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, 100 years ago this June 28, is widely considered to have sparked World War I. AFP PHOTO/HISTORICAL ARCHIVES OF SARAJEVO", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2014:06:28 12:52:12", "Image Artist": "STR", "Image ExifOffset": "768", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "906", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7366", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "900", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "646"}