Gavrilo Princip Gavrilo Princip ( Serbian Cyrillic : Гаврило Принцип , ; 28 April 1918 ) was a Bosnian Serb who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife , Sophie , Duchess of Hohenberg , in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 . Princip and his accomplices were arrested and implicated a number of members of the Serbian military , leading Austria - Hungary to issue a démarche to Serbia known as the July Ultimatum . This was used as pretext for Austria - Hungary ' s invasion on Serbia , which then led to World War I . Princip was a Yugoslav nationalist associated with the movement Mlada Bosna ( Young Bosnia ) which predominantly consisted of Serbs , but also Bosniaks and Croats . During his trial he stated " 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 . " Early life . Gavrilo Princip was born in the remote village of Obljaj near Bosansko Grahovo , at the time " de jure " part of Bosnia Vilayet within the Ottoman Empire , although the province had since 1878 been occupied by Austria - Hungary which governed it as its condominium , a " de facto " part of Austria - Hungary . His parents , Petar , a postman , and Marija ( née Mićić ) had nine children , six of whom died in infancy . His impoverished parents could not provide for him and sent him to live with an older brother in Sarajevo , now the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina . On 6 October 1908 , Bosnia - Herzegovina , against the stipulations of the Berlin Treaty of 1878 , was declared part of the Austro - Hungarian Empire by Emperor Franz Joseph . This created a stir among Serbs and other Slavic people of southern Europe and the Russian Tsar , who opposed the annexation . In February 1912 , Princip took part in protest demonstrations against the colonial behavior of Sarajevo authorities , for which he was expelled from school . Following his expulsion , he moved to Belgrade , the capital of Serbia . When he was in Belgrade in 1912 and 1913 , preparing for his exams at the First Belgrade Gymnasium , Princip ' s sole friend was Momčilo Nastasijević , who grew up to become a prominent poet and dramatist . In 1912 , many Serbs were being mobilized for the First Balkan War . Princip planned to join the " komite " , an irregular Serbian guerrilla forces committee of the secret society Unification or Death ( " Ujedinjenje ili Smrt " ) , also known as Black Hand . Princip , however , was rejected by the " komite " in Belgrade because of his small physical stature . He then went to Prokuplje in Southern Serbia where he sought a personal interview with Serbian major Vojislav Tankosić . Tankosić , however , rejected Princip as being " too small and too weak " . Vladimir Dedijer argued that this rejection was " one of the primary personal motives which pushed him to do something exceptionally brave in order to prove to others that he was their equal " . After Tankosić ' s rejection , Princip returned to Belgrade where he met Živojin Rafajlović . Rafajlović , who was one of the founders of the Četnik movement , sent him ( alongside 15 other Young Bosnia members ) to a so - called " Center for četnik training " in Vranje . There they met with school manager Mihajlo Stevanović - Cupara . He lived in Cupara ' s house which is today located in Gavrilo Princip street in Vranje . Princip practiced pistol , bomb and kama management and after he completed training he returned to Belgrade . Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand . On 28 June 1914 , Gavrilo Princip participated in the assassination in Sarajevo of the Austrian Archduke . General Oskar Potiorek , Governor of the Austrian provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina had invited Franz Ferdinand and Countess Sophie to the opening of a hospital . The Archduke knew that the visit would be dangerous , knowing his uncle , Emperor Franz Josef , had been the subject of an assassination attempt by the Black Hand in 1911 . Just before 10 a . m . on Sunday , the royal couple arrived in Sarajevo by train . The royal couple were then to take an automobile into the city . In the front car was Fehim Čurčić , the Mayor of Sarajevo and Dr . Gerde , the city ' s Commissioner of Police . Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were in the second car with Oskar Potiorek and Lieutenant Colonel Count Franz von Harrach . The car ' s top was rolled back in order to allow the crowds a good view of its occupants . The six conspirators lined the route . They were spaced out along the Appel Quay , each one with instructions to try to kill Franz Ferdinand when the royal car reached his position . The first conspirator on the route to see the royal car was Muhamed Mehmedbašić . Standing by the Austro - Hungarian Bank , Mehmedbašić lost his nerve and allowed the car to pass without taking action . Mehmedbašić later said that a policeman was standing behind him and feared he would be arrested before he had a chance to throw his bomb . At 10 : 15 , when the six - car procession passed the central police station , nineteen - year - old student Nedeljko Čabrinović hurled a hand grenade at the Archduke ' s car . The driver accelerated when he saw the object flying towards him , but the bomb had a 10 second delay and exploded under the wheel of the fourth car . Two of the occupants , Eric von Merizzi and Count Alexander von Boos - Waldeck were seriously wounded . About a dozen spectators were also hit by bomb shrapnel . After Čabrinović ' s bomb missed the Archduke ' s car , four other conspirators , including Princip , lost an opportunity to attack because of the heavy crowds and the high speed of the Archduke ' s car . To avoid capture , Čabrinović swallowed a cyanide capsule and jumped into the River Miljacka to make sure he died . The cyanide pill was expired and made him sick , but failed to kill him and the River Miljacka was only deep . A few seconds later he was hauled out and detained by police . Franz Ferdinand later decided to go to the hospital and visit the victims of Čabrinović ' s failed bombing attempt . In order to avoid the city centre , General Oskar Potiorek decided that the royal car should travel straight along the Appel Quay to the Sarajevo Hospital . However , Potiorek forgot to inform the driver , Leopold Loyka , about this decision . On the way to the hospital , Loyka took a right turn into Franz Josef Street . Princip was standing near Moritz Schiller ' s cafe , when he spotted Franz Ferdinand ' s car as it drove past , having taken the wrong turn . After realizing the mistake , the driver put his foot on the brake , and began to reverse the car . In doing so the engine of the car stalled and the gears locked , giving Princip his opportunity . Princip stepped forward , drew his pistol ( a . 380 caliber FN Model 1910 ) , pistol - whipped a nearby pedestrian , and at a distance of about 1 . 5 m ( five feet ) , fired twice into the car . Franz Ferdinand was hit in the neck and Sophie ( who instinctively covered Franz ' s body with her own after the first shot ) in the abdomen . They both died before 11 : 00 . Capture , imprisonment and death . Princip attempted suicide first with cyanide , then with his pistol , but he vomited the past - date poison ( as did Čabrinović , leading the police to believe the group had been deceived and bought a much weaker poison ) . The pistol was wrestled from his hand before he had a chance to fire another shot . Princip was too young to receive the death penalty , being only twenty - seven days short of the 20 - year age limit required by Habsburg law for the death sentence . Instead , he received the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison . He was held in harsh conditions which were worsened by the war . He contracted tuberculosis . He died on 28 April 1918 at Terezín 3 years and 10 months after he assassinated the Archduke and Duchess . At the time of his death , Princip weighed around , weakened by malnutrition and disease . His body had become racked by skeletal tuberculosis that ate away his bones so badly that his right arm had had to be amputated . Fearing his bones might become relics for Slav nationalists , Princip ’ s jailers took the body in secret to an unmarked grave , but a Czech soldier assigned to the burial remembered the location , and in 1920 Princip and the other “ Heroes of Vidovdan ” were disinterred and brought to Sarajevo , where they were buried together beneath a chapel “ built to commemorate for eternity our Serb Heroes ” at St . Mark ’ s Cemetery . Sites of interest . The house where Gavrilo Princip lived in Sarajevo was destroyed during World War I . After the war , it was rebuilt as a museum in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . Yugoslavia was conquered by Germany in 1941 and Sarajevo became part of Independent State of Croatia . The Croatian Ustaše destroyed the house again . After the establishment of Communist Yugoslavia in 1944 , the house of Gavrilo Princip became a museum again and there was another museum dedicated to him within the city of Sarajevo . During the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s , the house of Gavrilo Princip was destroyed a third time ; no attempts to rebuild it have yet been announced . Prior to 1992 the site on the pavement on which Princip stood to fire the fatal shots was marked by embossed footprints . These were destroyed as a consequence of the 1992 – 95 war in Bosnia . There is still a plaque in front of the museum at the spot where Gavrilo Princip stood when he fired the shots . Bosansko Grahovo municipality has announced a plan to reconstruct Princip ' s birth house in Obljaj before the centenary of the assassination in Sarajevo . Weapon . Princip ' s pistol was confiscated by the authorities , and eventually given , along with the Archduke ' s bloody undershirt , to , a Jesuit priest who was a close friend of the Archduke and had given the Archduke and his wife the last rites . The pistol and shirt remained in the possession of the Austrian Jesuits until they were offered on long - term loan to the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna in 2004 . The pistol is now part of the permanent exhibition there .