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").
| Unification or Death | |
|---|---|
| Ujedinjenje ili smrt Уједињење или смрт | |
Unification or Death's logo | |
| Also known as | Black Hand |
| Leader | Dragutin Dimitrijević |
| Foundation | August 1901 (as Black Hand Society) May 1911 (as Unification or Death) |
| Active regions | Balkan Peninsula |
| Ideology | Yugoslavism Greater Serbia Serbian nationalism |
| Notable attacks | Killing of Alexander I Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand |
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. 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.