Black Hand (Serbia) - Wikipedia

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]

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]

In August 1901, a group of lower officers headed by captain Dragutin Dimitrijević "Apis" established a conspiracy group (called the Black Hand in literature), against the dynasty.[7] The first meeting was held on 6 September 1901. In attendance were captains Radomir Aranđelović, Milan F. Petrović, and Dragutin Dimitrijević, as well as lieutenants Antonije Antić, Dragutin Dulić, Milan Marinković, and Nikodije Popović.[8] They made a plan to kill the royal couple—King Alexander I Obrenović and Queen Draga. On the night of 28/29 May 1903, Captain Apis personally led a group of Army officers who murdered the royal couple at the Old Palace in Belgrade (Old Style). Along with the royal couple, the conspirators killed Prime Minister Dimitrije Cincar-Marković, Minister of the Army Milovan Pavlović, and General-Adjutant Lazar Petrović. This became known as the May Coup.

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