On the morning of June 28th 1914, Gavrilo Princip and six other members of the secret “Black Hand” group were ready to carry out the their orders to kill the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, on his visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia. They were guided by Dragutin Dimitrijevic, alias Apis, a colonel in the Serbian secret services.
The procession moves through crowds of onlookers along the Appel river on the way to the City Hall, when one of the group throws a bomb at the Archduke’s car. It bounces off his wife’s hat, under the second car and exploding under the third, wounding an officer. A discouraged Princip retreats to a public house while the Archduke proceeds to his official business. Wanting to visit the wounded officer at the hospital, the Archduke’s procession then returns by the same route. Turning into the small streets of the old city, the procession is stopped by the police, so as to take a safer route, this right in front of Princip’s chosen public house. He runs out, jumps up on the runner of the car and shoots the Archduke, the Archduchess Sofia and the governor of Bosnia, General Potiorek.
The war starts and Princip doesn’t even see its end, dying April 28th 1918 in the infamous Terezin prison.