" The Pistol "

liverpool annie · Feb 6, 2009

This is supposedly the pistol that started it all ............. ! Did anybody see it at all when it was on show ?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-World-War-One-goes-display-Britain-time.html

Hill 40 · Feb 6, 2009

If it's got the serial number 19074, then that's the one (however - being such an infamous piece, I wonder just how many 19074's exist today!!!! LOL)

Personally, I always thought that the pistol used was a FN Browning Modele 1900, not the 1910 that is/was on show. Many of the contemporary drawings of the event show Princip with a Mle.1900 and I'm certain (though I can't recall the source)that I've seen a police photograph showing the 1900.

However... as reported on Wikipedia...

Eugen Schauman used an M1900 (serial number unknown) in his 1904 assassination of the Russian Governor-General of Finland at the time, Nikolai Ivanovich Bobrikov. Contrary to many false reports from various sources it was not used to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914; the handgun used by Gavrilo Princip in that notorious incident was instead a FN 1910.
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So , even though it's usually highly advisable to take Wikipedia entries with a large dose of salt, I (and the artists of the time) may be (and probably are) wrong and it may actually be Schauman's piece that I've seen on the photos. I do wonder if that one actually is THE pistol though.

liverpool annie · Feb 6, 2009

Pistol found that killed 8.5 million people

Chicago Sun-Times June 22, 2004 - KATE CONNOLLY

BERLIN -- The Browning pistol that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and sparked the crisis leading to World War I has been discovered gathering dust in a Jesuit community house in Austria.

The weapon is going on display in the Vienna Museum of Military History in time for the 90th anniversary of the assassination of the heir to the Austrian empire and his wife, Sophie. Gavrilo Princip, a student from Belgrade, fired seven shots as they were driven through Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.

The shooting led to World War I, which by one estimate resulted in 8.5 million deaths.

For decades the murder weapon, serial number 19074, was in the possession of a community of Jesuits in Styria, southern Austria. They inherited it from a close friend of the archduke and his wife.

A Jesuit priest, Anton Puntigam, gave the couple the last rites and later made public his intention of opening a museum in memory of the archduke. But the chaos of the war foiled his plans.

On the priest's death in 1926, the objects were offered to the archduke's family, which declined to take them. They remained out of sight until recent publicity about the 90th anniversary
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According to www.gunsworld.com ...... it was a Browning 1910, Belguim made, .32 ACP

There appears to be some uncertainty on whether it was a .32 or a .380, both were being manufactured at the time.

liverpool annie · Feb 6, 2009

Then I read that four Model 1910 pistols were recovered from the conspirators, numbered 19074, 19075, 19120, 19126

Here's the pistol ...

http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/20765493

Heres the car ...

http://flickr.com/photos/sftrajan/484746836/

And heres the blood on the uniform ...

http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/20765859

liverpool annie · Feb 6, 2009

And heres the same - only different !!

ALLAN HALL IN BERLIN

THE gun that killed nine million people, destroyed three empires and changed the history of the world has been found in a friary in Austria after being missing for decades.

The automatic pistol was used by Gavrilo Princip, a Serb nationalist, to assassinate the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzogovina, in 1914, an event which was to trigger the First World War.

The Austro-Hungarian empire, backed by Germany, demanded compensation for the outrage but in reality both monarchies lusted for war. Throughout the summer of 1914 the alliances gathered together after the "pistol shots heard around the world" until the Great War broke out in August.

The Browning pistol - serial number 19047 - was taken by the Sarajevo police and later given to a Jesuit priest, Anton Puntigam, who administered the last rites to the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire and his wife.

Together with the cartridge cases of the bullets which killed them and the bloodied clothes of the emperor-in-waiting, Father Puntigam intended to start a museum dedicated to the assassination and its consequences.

The uniform and bullets were handed over to a museum in Vienna, which later acquired the car the couple were travelling in and many other artefacts of the doomed empire. But the pistol remained with Father Puntigam.

When he died in the 1920s his possessions - including the murder weapon - were kept by his Vienna-based Jesuit order. It was only recently found during an inventory of the monastery and handed over to the Military History Museum in Vienna.

The museum’s director, Manfred Rauchensteiner, said: "It is a great find, and will be displayed alongside the archduke’s uniform and his car in the coming weeks."

Gavrilo Princip was only 19 when he killed the royal couple. He was sentenced to 20 years in jail but died of tuberculosis in March 1918, eight months before the end of the war that killed millions and swept away the royal houses of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia.

Father Puntigam ran a children’s home in Sarajevo that was financed by the archduke and his wife.

Consequently, when they visited the city on that fateful day - 28 June, 1914 - the priest was in the official motorcade. There were seven members of Princip’s Black Hand Gang on the streets that day, either armed with Browning pistols that had come from Belgium, or bombs stolen from the state armoury in Belgrade.

The gang was a collection of restless students and disgruntled intellectuals who saw the Austro-Hungarian empire as repressors.

A Serbia independent of Vienna and Budapest was what they sought - violence was the means with which it was to be achieved.

The weapon will be restored and checked against court records from Princip’s trial, although the museum director said he has no doubts as to its authenticity
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Hill 40 · Feb 7, 2009

Knew I had one knocking around somewhere (doesn't everybody?). If not of the model that started the war, maybe this is the one that finished off Percy Toplis????

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