Gavrilo Princip read the story. He said nothing, for a while. Then he asked Cabrinovic to meet him at the Golden Sturgeon again, in the evening. Cabrinovic did. Again they shared a rusty table. Princip ordered mint tea, which he sipped wordlessly, shifting slowly in his chair. After a few minutes he motioned Cabrinovic to walk with him into the adjacent park. He led his friend to a remote bench in the dark. They sat down. Princip spoke at last. Softly he asked his friend whether he would help him kill the Crown Prince of Austria. Silence. Cabrinovic nodded. Silence. In Princip's blue eyes gleamed the light of a distant lantern. "I will find the weapons," Princip said. Silence. They shook hands. Together they walked back to the Golden Sturgeon Cafe.
This happened on March 27, 1914. Earlier on the same day, some three hundred miles west of that Belgrade park, the Crown Prince of Austria had a difficult encounter.
The setting seemed pleasant enough: a fine spring morning on the wave-slapped jetty of Miramare, a romantic seaside castle just outside Trieste. Franz Ferdinand was watching the giant snow-white German yacht Hohenzollern steam toward him across the bay. It flew the Kaiser's personal ensign with the motto "Gott mit uns!" A flotilla of German cruisers foamed the waters in its wake. As the Hohenzollern came closer, Wilhelm II became discernible, grasping the rail valorously at the prow. "My God," the Archduke burst out at his adjutant. "He's got that damned carving knife on! I forgot mine!"
The "carving knife" was a naval dagger with an anchorshaped hilt that Wilhelm had invented as an accessory to his All-Highest naval uniform; he had gifted Franz Ferdinand with a copy. "Fetch it for me!" Franz Ferdinand said to his adjutant. "He'll expect me to wear it! Get that blasted thingright now!"
The Archduke often let his ill temper fly but hardly ever at the expense of Wilhelm II. If he did now, it was because too many vexations beset him in March of 1914. Some were old and familiar: those little, jeweled, poisoned arrows shot at him by the Vienna court. The very ground on which he stood that moment, the Castle Miramare, had been used against him. As a personal possession of Franz Joseph, Miramare lay under the jurisdiction of Prince Montenuovo, First Lord Chamberlain of the Emperor and foremost enemy of the Crown Prince. Montenuovo could not forbid Franz Ferdinand to use the castle for a spring sojourn or for a setting in which to entertain the German monarch. The Crown Prince's wife, on the other hand, was not the Crown Princess, nor were the couple's children archdukes. According to Montenuovo's malevolently stringent interpretation of Habsburg house rules, Franz Ferdinand's morganatic loved ones did not have the right of residence in one of the dynasty's own manors. After all, their Highnesses were not Imperial but only Serene.
Naturally the First Lord Chamberlain's spite always came sugared in courtier phrasing. His letter to the Crown Prince had expressed "regret to be unable to make Miramare arrangements for their Serene Highnesses without an express All-Highest command which the undersigned [Montenuovo] devoutly hopes your Imperial and Royal Highness [Franz Ferdinand] will obtain."
In other words Franz Ferdinand must do once more what he had been forced to do on previous occasions: go to the hum bling length of appealing personally to his All-Highest Uncle Franz Joseph. Only then could his Sophie, his daughter, and his two sons sleep under the same roof with him in Miramare.
Still, Miramare was a fitting mise-en-scene in which to welcome the most grandiose of all Prussians during this stopover on his Adriatic cruise. The Hohenzollern had docked. A 21-gun salute boomed from the Austrian dreadnought Viribus Unitis. Wilhelm strutted down his gangplank, a naval peacock in white and gold. Braids, froggings, epaulettes, medals, and "carving knife" invoked every variety of overgorgeousness.
And yet: The same witnesses reporting Franz Ferdinand's earlier frown also speak of the cordiality that marked this dockside meeting just as it did most other encounters of the two men. Franz Ferdinand often referred to Wilhelm as "Europas grosster Mordskerl" (Europe's No. 1 devil of a fellow). Never mind lapses of taste or questions of judgment-the sheer spectacle of the German's bravado impressed the Archduke, a bravado unchecked by any authority above the Kaiser's head or by an astute brain inside it. Franz Ferdinand's mind was saddled with both. He was wary of Wilhelm's sovereign excesses. He also envied and admired them.
At any rate it was politic to greet fulsomely this fulsome personage. Franz Ferdinand, being chronically embroiled with the Vienna court, needed support from the Berlin Emperor who was Vienna's preeminent ally. And that morning, in the brilliant sunshine on the jetty (with Franz Ferdinand's "carving knife" fetched just in time), there was something else to be gained from the German: The stature of the Archduke's wife benefited from Wilhelm's vanity. The Kaiser fancied himself as graceful a hand-kisser as any Austrian. He loved to prove it on Austrian territory. As he lowered his All-Highest mustache over Sophie's less-than-archducal fingers, she partook of Imperial cachet: Another skirmish had been won against the Montenuovo camarilla.
But at Miramare loomed other issues of greater relevance to the world at large. The Crown Prince broached them at lunch in the castle's marble dining hall. He was, he confided to Wilhelm, unhappy about all that mbret ado in Albania. His own choice for the Albanian throne, the Duke Wilhelm von Urach, a much more capable candidate, had been turned down by Vienna. This weak, silly mbret worried the Crown Prince because of Serbian repercussions. If the Austrian-backed ruler tottered, the Serbs would try to grab more Albanian territory, even to the point of a confrontation with Austria. And, Ferdinand added, it wasn't just the Albanian situation, it was also the Hungarian attitude that made the Serbs pugnacious. The Hungarians provoked not just Belgrade Serbs but Serbs inside the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia; there a Magyar civil administration imposed Hungarian as a teaching language on many schools with a majority of Serbo-Croat students; in other ways, too, the Hungarian hand lay heavy on the land. And to be frank, the Archduke said, taking a deep breath, it was right here that the Kaiser could be of vital help. After all, Wilhelm wielded great influence with Count Stephan Tisza, the Hungarian Prime Minister. Any move to make the Hungarians see a tiny bit of reason would be of tremendous value. Would His Majesty be kind enough to take it under consideration?
By then guest and host had reached post-prandial liqueurs. The Kaiser savored his brandy. Well, yes, to be sure, he said, those Hungarians could be rascals. And Tisza, whom he had received in audience while coming through Vienna the other day, indeed Tisza was a rascal, too, but an absolutely first class rascal, clever and fast as you had to be in your dealings with all those Balkan bandits, Bulgaria, Serbia, and what not; yes, Tisza was really a true statesman worthy of Franz Ferdinand's trust-in fact, come to think of it, at the German fall maneuvers to which Franz Ferdinand must come as his, the Kaiser's guest, maybe Tisza should be invited, too; the King of Italy had just accepted-what a jolly foursome! It would iron out all sorts of differences. Also show how Germany, AustriaHungary and Italy stood together-England and France better not plan any stupidities against the Central powers. A fall maneuvers foursome-capital idea! Meanwhile, how about enjoying cigars out on the terrace?
On the terrace the two princes lit Cubans and reclined in wicker chairs. They blew smoke rings across the blue-gold Adriatic. The Kaiser had chosen to bypass Franz Ferdinand's request for help against the Hungarians. Franz Ferdinand was not in a position to press his case. His august caller disliked arguments that clouded good scenery or spoiled the pleasures of tobacco. It would not do to risk a crucial friendship.