Arrest of a Suspect in Sarajevo
Originally believed to depict the apprehension of the assassin, Gavrilo Princip, the image gained widespread attention after appearing on the front cover of the Austrian weekly newspaper Wiener Bilder on 5 July 1914.
On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated while visiting Sarajevo, the provincial capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
[3] These violent events resulted in Bosnian Muslims and Croats engaging in violence against Serbs in Sarajevo and other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina,[4] leading to the destruction of schools, houses, and restaurants, as well as looting of shops.
[5] Governor Oskar Potiorek of Bosnia, who had been responsible for the security of the Archduke and his wife, responded by ordering the arrest of all individuals suspected of being involved in the plot.
[7] Among those involved, three individuals, namely Princip, Cabrinović, and Grabez, received twenty years' imprisonment, avoiding the death penalty due to their age.
In the foreground, armed Austro-Hungarian gendarmes are shown restraining a group of Bosnian Muslims, recognisable by their traditional attire, which includes fezzes, short waistcoats, and Turkish trousers, while bystanders across the street observe the scene.
[4] According to Professor of Art History Rebecca Houze, the diversity of dress displayed in the photograph adds to a sense of chaos and agitation in the moment, and "reminds us of the roots of the assassination in ethnic tension and nationalistic conflict".
[10] The image has been widely published in numerous school and history books, continuing to be included in present-day publications; it is often accompanied by headlines such as "The Man Who Began The Great War"[11] and descriptions that label it as "the unique photograph showing the arrest of Princip, the Serbian student, immediately after he had assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife in Sarajevo on June 26, 1914.
On 29 March 1955, an article published in the Yugoslav journal Republika raised doubts about the identity of the man being arrested in the photograph, suggesting that Princip could not be the person depicted in the image.
[14] Subsequently, in 1966, Yugoslav historian Vladimir Dedijer (1914–1990) conducted an investigation for his reference book The Road to Sarajevo, which focused on the assassination of the Archduke by Princip.
his picture later appeared in many newspapers and books, some of them years after the assassination.Modern scholars concur that the photograph does not depict the arrest of Gavrilo Princip, but rather one of his friends who had no involvement in the assassination.
[9] According to the research conducted by Austrian photographic historian Dr. Anton Holzer, Ferdinand Behr (also known as Ferdo Ber), was caught up in the wave of arrests that followed the shooting.
[1] German historian Dr. Christoph Hamann, in his article published in the academic journal of historical photography, Fotogeschichte, wrote that Ferdinand Behr was a school friend of Princip from Sarajevo.
[26] Another version for sale by Getty is captioned : "Picture taken on June 28 1914 of Serb terrorist Gavrilo Princip (2ndR) upon his arrest after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand".
[15] According to Christoph Hamann the photographer of the canonical photo of the arrest of the alleged assassin was known by name since the Österreichs Illustrierte Zeitung credited Walter Tausch in its 5 July 1914 issue.
In 1971 the postcard was presented in issue 3 of the German monthly magazine Foto und Film-Prisma with the following legend: "Philipp Rubel: Capture of Gavrilo Princip after the assassination attempt on Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Sarajevo, June 28, 1914".
[30] Bonartes Photoinstitut found records of a legal case brought by Philipp Rubel against Österreichische Zeitungsdruckerei-AG, a publishing house in Vienna, that printed and distributed postcards without permission.
The identity of the photographer Walter Tausch and the acquisition of the rights by the publisher Rubel as well as the complaint procedure against Österreichische Zeitungsdruckerei-AG have been in public records since 15 January 1915, when the court hearing took place in Vienna.
[14] In 2005 the Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography published the image as "the critical moment that would trigger the war, captured in a photograph on the cover of the 9 July 1914 issue of Die Hanzburger Woche showing the arrest of Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip after he had shot the Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne".
[33] The scene quickly became famous after postcards were made of it, reprinted again in newspapers around the world, and to this day also on book covers, university-level textbooks and in museums with the same caption claiming that the arrested person was the murderer Princip.
Holzer found out that doubts about the subject being Princip had existed from the start, but once the image went into circulation, the story could no longer be stopped and to this day, the person arrested in the photo continues to be depicted as the assassin of Franz Ferdinand.
[1] According to Butcher the image fit so well the narrative of the desperate assassin that countless historians, reporters, broadcasters and film-makers have continue to claim that the subject of the photograph was Princip.
[21] Christopher Clark calls it an "egregious mistake", since there is no photograph of the moment of the attack itself, the arrest photo ultimately had the status of a media substitute.
