Mykra near Thessaloniki,
26. June , dawn
"Long live great Serbia", "Long live Yugoslavia", exclaims Serbian Army Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis tied to a stake in a shallow grave. And then the blast of the machine gun rang out. When the gunpowder smoke cleared, the doctor found that Apis was not dead.
They repeated, then shot once more.
The judicial murder called the Thessaloniki process was thus ended. Together with Apis, Major Ljubomir Vulović and volunteer Rade Malobabić were executed. They were not guilty of any count of the indictment – conspiracy for a coup and attempted assassination of regent Aleksandar Karađorđević. Their death is the result of behind-the-scenes and vile struggle for power in one of the darkest and most difficult periods of Serbia: all that was left of the statehood of this occupied country at that moment were about a hundred thousand soldiers on the Thessaloniki front and, also in exile, the deputies of the dissolved Assembly, ministers Resigned governments and shaken dynasties.
A hundred years will pass since then. Apis's twisted moustache, penetrating gaze and stiff posture in the yellowed photographs will be seen by many as a large, blurred contour in the background of the official portraits of Borivoj Mirković, Aleksandar Ranković, Jovica Stanišić and the like; in the shaky footage of that engine with the flag after the coup of March 27, 1941; in the expressionless faces of Udba officers next to the ceremonial stage with Marshal Josip Broz Tito; in a convoy of hammers along the highway during the armed rebellion of the "Red Berets"... But that is just smoke, which everyone gives shape to at will. Apis, indeed, joins all those powerful people from the shadows who came after him in a dark world of permanent conspiracy, intrigue and conspiracy in which there is no difference between good and evil. There all further similarity ends: while the rulers chose them and brought them to serve them, Apis gave and took away power; that one did not follow the pack - he led it.
How did it happen that a man whose words and actions scared kings and princes, generals and ministers ended up in a losing position? And to be sent there by the one who owes him the crown? Why?
It is not a simple and short story.
A FAST MARCH INTO HISTORY
Before midnight on May 28, 1903 according to the Julian calendar, twenty-eight junior officers gathered in the Belgrade Officers' Home. They downed several rounds of drinks and, flushed, demanded the small orchestra to play "Kolo kraljice Draga" repeatedly for them, conspicuously toasting the royal couple Obrenović.
A little later, in the silence of the dark streets near Slavija, the tavern hanging disappeared. These boys - peasant sons for the most part - whisper nervously to each other, move from foot to foot, secretly check their revolvers, look behind their shoulders... Thanks to their officer's uniform and saber, they did not get up and lie down with the sun like their illiterate fathers, lived in a family cooperative and farmed a few acres countries. And now, it was no longer their social status, but their bare life. Words, agreements and oaths are one thing - the road without return is something completely different. Maybe, while the warm wind carries the scent of linden, it's not too late to wait, think again...
"Gentlemen, march forward with a quick step," the voice of the twenty-seven-year-old second-class captain Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis broke in at fifteen to one, and everyone, with him at the head, marched straight into history.
For the next few hours, the lights in the rooms and salons of the Palace are turned on and off, silhouettes play behind the curtains, you hear the crunch of officers' boots breaking on the parquet and marble, loud gunshots echo... The awake and frightened citizens of Belgrade listened behind the locked doors to the screeching of the rail wheels of the cannon carts. on the cobblestones, the clatter of military equipment, sharp commands and shots fired somewhere in the darkness.
Silence reigned in the morning.
Apis did not participate in the murder of the royal couple Aleksandar and Draga Obrenović and the subsequent robbery of the Palace. Also, not in the liquidations - in other places of the same night - of the Queen's brothers Nikodija and Nikola Lunjevic, Prime Minister General Dimitrije Cincar-Marković and Minister of Defense, Colonel Milovan Pavlović. While all this was happening, Apis was bleeding in the semi-darkness of the palace corridor with a revolver in his hand: after breaking into the building, during the exchange of fire with two guards, he wounded one, but he himself was shot in the chest, hip, arm and leg. He will survive only thanks to his physical constitution - it is not without reason that he has been nicknamed after the ancient Egyptian deity in the form of a bull since his school days.
"The May Uprising was talked about and retold for a long time," writes Slobodan Jovanović, a contemporary of this event. "In those stories, Apis' name was repeated like a chorus. It became increasingly clear that he was, if not the leader of the conspiracy, but rather the pivot of the younger conspirators."
That's how it was. The coup was indeed led by colonels Aleksandar Mašin and Damnjan Popović, lieutenant colonel Petar Mišić, general Jovan Atanacković, former minister Đorđe Genčić... They succeeded in taking command of the Belgrade garrison, taking several battalions and cannons to the streets, surrounding the Palace, blocking the police and preventing any possible help to King Aleksandar Obrenović. Nevertheless, Apis played a key role in the very creation of the conspiratorial core and the gathering of young officers, immediate executors.
"That man is not only talented, but also something more," writes his friend, then lieutenant Vladimir Tucović, brother of the leader of the Serbian social democratic movement, Dimitrije Tucović, about Apis. "He's kind of a magician." When he is not there, everything is empty - we are not even together. When he comes, everything comes alive. Everyone is around him. They all come uninvited, for no apparent reason, as if that man is attracting them with a magic wand."
Apart from enormous charisma, undeniable energy and courage, Apis also had something else. He was a born conspirator and manipulator.
"Seeing the sure ruin of the fatherland, if the current state of affairs continues even for the shortest time and announcing as the main culprits for everything King Alexander and his benefactor Draga Mašin, we swear and commit with our signatures that we will kill them," reads the oath signed by Apis named his accomplices in the conspiracy.
That paper was a one-way ticket to the Karaburma killing field. All the signatories knew that and, convinced that they had no way out, they would follow Apis to the end - whether they succeeded or failed. Namely, he did not tell anyone that immediately before the attack on the Court, he burned the oath; Apis kept that secret to himself.
YOUNG LIONS
After the May Revolution, the exterminated Obrenović dynasty was replaced by the Karađorđevićs, and Serbia got a government accountable to the parliament and a political life in accordance with the democratic standards of the time. But - and about a hundred officers - conspirators tightly connected in a well-organized clique. They did the unthinkable and never thought of returning to the anonymity of the garrison routine. As self-proclaimed guardians of the "treasures of the national revolution of May 29", the older conspirators seized ministerial and positions at the Court or the General Staff, while the influence of the younger ones extended far beyond formal positions in the units. Apisov - especially. After recovering and passing the general staff exam in 1905, he was appointed to the post of Chief of Staff of the Danube Division in Belgrade.
The main source of political power of the conspirators was the power over the armed forces; although formally answerable to the government and the assembly, the minister of war could only be a man of their choice. The rest of the officer corps felt it through transfers and formation schedules. When a part of the elders in the Nis garrison rebelled against such a situation, Apis and the others were given an opportunity to expel all real or potential rivals from the service, declaring them to be supporters of Obrenović - "contractors".
"Without a doubt, the conspirators had a hangover, but there was also fear," explains Jovanović. "The People's Representative Office expressed its gratitude to them, but did not vote for amnesty." They were still criminally responsible for the acts committed on May 29. As long as they held military power in their hands, they had nothing to fear."
However, freedom of the press was part of the achievements of the coup. That is why the dissatisfaction of a part of the political public with the new regime, and especially with the actions and position of the conspirators, quickly became apparent.
"We see that that handful of people, who killed the king, also kills the government because it illegally holds it in its hands; and the law, because it creeps into it and vibrates with it; and the country, because it exists in it as the supreme power, although it is not provided for by any provision of the Constitution or any other law", writes the newspaper "Opozicija" at the end of 1904.
Apis and other conspiratorial young lions were not exactly "supreme power", but they truly became influential figures whose views were respected from the tavern and salon to the cabinet. The most desirable grooms with a secured career, slim, in well-tailored uniforms, carefully groomed mustaches and polished boots, will protect their status by all means. In addition to other physical attacks, such as the one in March 1905 when a certain officer beat Sava Šibalić, the publisher of Narodni list, with a whip in front of the "Ruski car" tavern. However, most of the young conspirators mostly limited themselves to verbally intimidating journalists and editors. Their favorite method was challenging them to a duel "for insulting the honor of the army". That's how Apis, together with three colleagues, sent secondees to the owner of "Opozija", lawyer Živojin Veličković. He immediately, like all the others in a similar situation, took refuge across the Sava in the Austro-Hungarian Zemun and there waited for the passion to subside.
Every rule has an exception: for the record - the editor-in-chief of "Narodni list" Milan Pavlović did not back down and run away, but accepted the challenge of Court Marshal Boško Čolak-Antić and on the chilly morning of March 16, 1905, looked into the mouth of the gun barrel. They shot at each other somewhere on Banovo Brdo from a distance of twenty paces. According to one version, no one was hurt; according to the second, Čolak-Antic was slightly wounded in the hip.
Journalists had someone to share their pain with the conspirators. The People's Radical Party - the largest and well-rooted party in the electorate - found it increasingly difficult to tolerate the interference of the officers' clique in politics. Especially when it was about courting party people and creating public opinion so important for various appointments and sinecures.
"Seeing in him a powerful factor that gives and takes away ministerial chairs, they adjusted their posture with a view to see if they were smiling or frowning at them," wrote "Videlo" in 1906 about the relationship between conspirators and leading politicians.
The prime minister and leader of the radicals, sixty-one-year-old Nikola Pašić, known as Baja, had by then gone from a young anarchist and associate of Svetozar Marković in spreading socialist ideas, through a peasant tribune and a political death row prisoner, to a conservative renegade, Obrenović's prime minister and ambassador to Russia; The coup d'etat in May was greeted by many years of disfavor with King Alexander. In the pictures, he seems sluggish, artificial, with a long gray beard and watery eyes, a bit caricatured in playing the favorite role of the political patriarch. But, if anyone could deal with the conspirators at that moment, it was Baja Pašić - proverbially ambiguous and devious, prone to corruption and, at the same time, a great master of political settlements, patient, calm and cunning.
"Pašić loved power as much as life itself," writes the Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Serbia Konstantin Dumba.
The opportunity to spread the wings of the older conspirators - Mašin, Popović, Mišić and others - whose influence on King Peter was enormous, appeared to Pašić with the outbreak of the Customs War with Austria-Hungary in 1906. In order to overcome economic isolation, Serbia had to urgently restore diplomatic relations with Great Britain. , interrupted due to the murders of the royal couple Obrenović. Pašić skilfully used London's condition that the leaders of the putsch be prosecuted or at least removed from public life, with a few calls for personal sacrifice for the sake of the country's interests and a lot of different "lubricating" to separate them and force them to retreat. However, he stroked his long beard too soon. From his victory, the younger conspirators, fed up with the personal ambitions of their elders, benefited the most: the officers' clique became more monolithic than ever, and Apis was its undisputed boss.
"I could not find justification for that in his intelligence, which he certainly had, nor in his eloquence, which he used little, nor in his ideas, which could often be objected to, nor in the greatness of his spirit, which he did not show, but still he was the only one among us who with his very presence could make me think like him, and with a few simple words he could make me an obedient executor of his will", remembered Vladimir Tucović.
What kind of reputation Apis had in those years was seen every May 29 during the official receptions on the anniversary of the putsch in the "Kolarac" restaurant, otherwise one of the most important social events in Belgrade.
"For those present, he was a symbol of the May Revolution," writes British historian David McKenzie. "Always a warm host, Apis welcomed all guests who seemed to feel some need to seek him out, often neglecting higher-ranking guests. Those who could not come sent him written apologies."
ELDER BROTHER
King Peter did not hide that he owed the crown to the conspirators. In his seventh decade of life, with a long gray moustache, petite and thin, he was practically a stranger in his own country: having left Belgrade in 1858 as a fourteen-year-old boy, he returned only forty-five years later. In the meantime, he lived in Paris, Cetinje, Geneva and found money in different ways... Burdened by debts from that period, especially with Viennese banks and considerable claims to the throne, he stayed out of politics even more than the Constitution required. In fact, King Peter believed that this way he was consolidating the dynasty, and that its survival solely depended on the support of the army. The withdrawal of the older conspirators and, in general, the dissatisfaction of this clique of officers, deeply worried him. And for a reason.
"We threw Aleksandar from the first floor, we will throw Petar from the third," the infantry commander of the Royal Guard, Major Ljubomir Kostić, raged in front of a group of officers after learning that he would be retired.
These and similar arrogant statements represented only the impotent frustration of a few elders. The real problem was the revolt of Apis and his company due to the "softness" of King Peter towards the "lenient" Government and Pašić during the crisis caused by the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908/09. However, no matter how much they were shaken by national fever, the conspirators knew better than anyone that Serbia was unable to wage war against Austria-Hungary. In fact, they wanted to use the opportunity to militarize Serbia on the model of Germany, so the fear that Apis and his team could force King Peter to leave the constitutional framework or even carry out a new coup led the radicals to form a special department within the Ministry of Internal Affairs for their monitoring. It was an easy and simple job. In the smoky taverns, while cigarette smoke swirled, glasses clinked and escajg, the conspirators talked without a moment's hesitation about everything that came to their mind; it could be named.
"The officers-conspirators first held a meeting at 'Kasina', and in the evening at 'Kolarac'", Minister Ljuba Jovanović Patak reported to his colleagues in the government in 1909. "23 and 25 conspirators were present at both meetings." Among them was Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis (...) At those gatherings, they spoke against King Peter because he does not give them the positions they deserve for May 29 and that they want to change the king."
The annexation crisis was still going on, when Apis found himself in an unexpected alliance with the radicals. Both sides - each for their own reasons - wanted to prevent Prince George from inheriting the throne. At that time, the heir to the throne was twenty-two years old, and he spent his days fishing with the mathematician Miko Petrović Alas, car racing, wild galloping on horseback, drinking in pubs... It was as if he was trying to make up for everything he had to do, following the example of Russian aristocrats. to miss while he was a poor cadet of the Imperial Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg. In the portraits of Đorđe from that period, wild defiance and enormous, unrestrained selfishness emerge from under the thick eyebrows. That impression was not deceiving - in addition to his stubbornness, the prince's character traits were also uncontrolled outbursts of anger against anyone who opposed him or did not please him in something. Nevertheless, during the first years of acquaintance, Đorđe maintained very cordial relations with Apis. They also had something in common.
"Apis loved company," Jovanović remembered. "He was not particularly interesting, but he knew how to enliven society and create a cafe atmosphere. It was obvious that he felt the sweetness of life, he loved women and music, but not wine. He drank only water and remained sober even in the most cheerful company."
Those qualities of Apis, and especially the last one, led King Peter to designate him and Captain Pavlović as companions to Prince George during his "study" stay in Switzerland in 1908. It turned out quite differently from what the Serbian monarch expected.
"In the evening, we decided where to go," wrote Prince George later. "I had money, and they had experience - our days flowed comfortably, and my father, who believed that I was visiting museums and galleries, was far away."
The days spent in Switzerland resulted in a major consequence: Apis became convinced firsthand that he and his clique would never be able to influence the self-conscious, stubborn and inflexible heir to the throne like his father. For the same reasons, the radicals feared that Đorđe, when he came to power, would not look at the political and institutional restrictions at all.
"The general opinion is that as a ruler he would be an even worse version of King Aleksandar Obrenović," the Austro-Hungarian ambassador Konstantin Dumba informed his superiors in Vienna.
Basically, Apis launched a campaign of defamation of Djordje without pardon. The unbalanced lifestyle and character of the prince guaranteed success. Since he was not afraid of the conspirators, he himself additionally worked in favor of his own harm by threatening to break their necks with his own hands, physical assaults and similar scandals. On the other hand, Pašić and the radicals advertised Đorđe as unfit to be king, among other things, because of his call for war against Austria-Hungary in early 1909.
"Đorđe Kraljević could have been a good leader of thugs in a barbaric society, but he is completely impossible for the ruler of a constitutional and cultural country," wrote "Dnevni list".
Increasingly tense and paranoid under those circumstances, Đorđe, in a fit of rage, kicked his bully Stevan Kolaković in the stomach on March 12, 1909, causing his death a few days later. That was the final straw: without the strength to deal with the condemnation of public opinion, the prince abdicated on March 27, 1909, in favor of his younger brother Alexander.
YOUNGER BROTHER
"Đorđe is my blood, and Alexander is the blood of his grandfather (King of Montenegro Nikola Petrović)," said King Petar to his adjutant.
Social Democratic MP Triša Kaclerović summed up what the Serbian sovereign was thinking: "Sly, devious, selfish and vengeful."
Kaclerović said this to Apis during his lobbying for Alexander in the "Slavija" tavern. Namely, long before the elder prince's abdication, the younger one - desperate for the crown - connected with the powerful kingmaker from the army. Rumors that Apis was planning to poison Đorđe confirmed that an agreement was easily reached based on mutual interests.
"A smaller group, led by Apis, is openly working to remove me from the throne," Prince George writes in his memoirs. "It seems that this group does not shy away from crime either: father received word these days that a few junior officers, together with Apis, were talking at some secret meeting to carry out an assassination at a favorable opportunity and settle the issue in Alexander's favor."
The aforementioned was never confirmed, and it was unnecessary anyway: without the support of the powerful officers' clique and the army, the throne was and remained unattainable for George. In that context, the accusations of a plan to poison the heir to the throne persisted because of something else. It is about the perception of Apis by contemporaries and later, as a supra-institutional actor who does not choose means for his goals and, like a puppeteer with a string in his hands behind the scenes, moves and brings down actors on the political scene. In any case, the king and his younger son—each separately—owed their crowns directly to him.
After becoming the heir to the throne, Alexander, although already cynical and calculated, showed incomparably more tact and self-control compared to his one year older brother. He showed passion exclusively for the authorities. Photos from that and later periods show that he felt good in his uniform, but also the coldness and closed-mindedness characteristic of egocentrics. Alexander did not build sincere and lasting friendships, nor did he need them. Nevertheless, at that moment he was only a twenty-one-year-old boy, without life and political experience, completely dependent on his environment. Apis and the other conspirators beamed with pleasure. Đorđe, however, knew his brother much better.
"Alexander seemed more lenient and more prone to influence, and that was their great delusion, a delusion they soon felt on their own skin," he writes.
It was not yet suspected that such a thing could happen. Learning that the conspirators were seriously considering replacing Karađorđević with a foreign dynasty and expecting a humble declaration of loyalty, Alexander naively asked Apis if this was true. The answer showed him where his true place was: "Yes! And what do you think that we put our heads in a bag so that you two brothers are fighting and snatching the throne like some kind of toy. You are mistaken because we are able to put heads in bags for the second time."
Aleksandar will never forget those words. Humiliated and afraid for his position, he tried to suppress or at least limit Apis's power by creating a personal military clique under the great influence of the ambitious Major Petar Živković. He was also a conspirator: during the attack on the royal couple, Obrenović opened the palace gate, but then he could not come to terms with life in the shadow of Apis. Although a colorless and quite average officer, Živković possessed a considerable gift for scheming. But it soon became clear how much he and Aleksandar underestimated Apis: as officers' circles claimed that Živković barely concealed his homosexuality, the Belgrade bazaar began to whisper that this was the basis of his close relationship with the heir to the throne.
Apis and his gang were behind this rumor - secretly. And they didn't mince their words publicly in accusing the competing clique of careerism, mediocrity, cowardice, immorality... Claiming that Živković and a few other officers were deceiving Alexander with false reports that Apis and company were working on his head, they managed to arrange their transfer to the interior. In an attempt to prevent this, the heir to the throne received a new slap - all his interventions were flatly rejected by the Minister of Defense, General Stepa Stepanović, and the Chief of the General Staff, General Radomir Putnik. Although they were not conspirators, neither of them thought of putting their close and beneficial ties with Apis in question for the sake of a young and weak prince.
"What are you going to do, my children are gullible and believe everything they are told," said the king to the military commander of Belgrade, Colonel Miloš Božanović, in an attempt to downplay his son's humiliation. "I spoke - Alexander, don't believe everything you are told..."
In this first showdown with Apis, the heir to the throne lost. Driven into a corner, he went to the feet of a group of conspirators - the "May 29 people" - and as a sign of reconciliation and a new beginning, he accepted the dictates of their leader formulated in six points. In short: the Minister of War must remain their "proven friend", all "intriguers" removed from Alexander's environment, mutual trust and cooperation established...
Two items contained unvarnished threats. "After King Peter, the heir to the throne Alexander receives the inheritance; every other and possible thought of succession to the throne must be vigorously suppressed. It is the army that can do it and no one else," said the number three. So, to the knowledge and respect of the heir to the throne who holds the crown on his head. That it does not have to remain like that in the future, any confusion is removed by the last, sixth point: "Whoever deviates from these ideas completely frees the other side for self-determination."
However, the heir to the throne did not give in: seething with impotence, he silently returned the members of his clique to Belgrade. He was preparing, waiting and lurking.
SOLDIERS AND PARASOLDIERS
Apis's power had another dimension. They were Chetniks or committees, that is, paramilitary groups formed on a private initiative after the May Coup in order to operate in Kosovo and, above all, in Macedonia. Their task was to support the resistance of the Slavic population to the Turkish authorities and deal with competing units from Bulgaria.
"Every Serbian head that falls in Macedonia represents a new bloody deed that proves Serbia's right to the South," said Ljuba Davidović, one of the leaders of the Independent Radical Party, about the Komite actions.
Recognizing the great political potential, Apis immediately got involved in organizing these paramilitary groups. He managed, together with others, to have their financing and equipment secretly taken over by the General Staff and the Government. All together, it enabled the members of his clique to acquire a dominant role in the Komite movement: captains Vojin Tankosić Šilja and, especially - Vojin Popović/Vojvoda Vuk - became the most influential and famous paramilitary commanders.
Among the committees you could find anything and everything - idealists and sincere patriots, but also adventurers, redundant and lost people, criminals... National-romantic propaganda was one thing, reality something completely different. Chatting consisted of a grueling hike along goat tracks, freezing, sometimes starving. There was no time for relaxation and rest: where they fainted, they might not wake up, every flock was a possible traitor, yesterday safe rich people and villages - today deadly traps. Committees killed and died in ambushes, when in a few minutes the shots stopped, explosions of hand grenades, shouts and moans with dry throats and narrowed, blurry image in front of the eyes. Dirty and wet to the bare skin, they ran away from the pursuers and ended up wounded in ditches and collapsed katuns. Bearded, with crossed lines, girded with bombs and daggers, they were tightly bound together by the psychosis of war and all that it entails, including insidious murders and eyeless robberies. Apis could completely rely on these men for everything he needed and only he knew that.
"Comites are a leprosy that must be eradicated by all means," wrote "Radničke novine".
The Social Democratic newspaper, in fact, fiercely attacked the government's expansionist policy and advocated a Balkan federation, but without much resonance. The reputation of the Komite groups was much more damaged by the arrogance and violent behavior of its members in Serbia, and the cover-up of accusations of robberies in Macedonia and the embezzlement of money collected for the purchase of weapons. Something deeply disturbing emanated from the photographs of these paramilitaries as they - lined up and laden with weapons - stared into the lens.
THE BLACK HAND
Suspended due to the annexation crisis and then renewed, the comitis actions in Macedonia reached their peak in 1911. Apis prestige - too.
"I never saw him alone on the street or in a cafe, but always in the company of a larger or smaller number of officers who looked like his entourage," writes Slobodan Jovanović. "Seen like that among his people, he gave the impression of a ringleader, not only with his physical appearance, but with his entire demeanor."
As an inexorable consequence of the spirit of the times, the actions of the comita and the power of Apis, the secret organization Unification or Death crystallized. Its goal was to gather the South Slavs into one state with Serbia as the pivot and by all means – including terrorist ones. The original creator of this national-revolutionary association was Bogdan Radenković, the main organizer of the Serbian Chetnik action in Skopje. When he addressed them, he was supported by conspirators-officers Ilija Radivojević Čiča, Vojislav Tankosić, Velimir Vemić, comita and journalist Ljubomir Jovanović Čupa, and others. But it was only the joining of Apis that breathed life into the organization: he immediately became the main driving force and undisputed leader.
According to article one of its Constitution, "every Serb, regardless of gender, religion, place of birth" could join the unification or death; the founders wanted to emphasize that they consider all South Slavs to be the same people. Entering the organization itself was not very simple.
"It is the duty of every member to recruit new members, whereby he guarantees with his life for those he introduces," states Article 24 of the Constitution.
Those new members were sought in the circles of friends and acquaintances who were most likely to share the founder's ideas. After becoming familiar with the existence of Unification or death in principle, they would also learn what accession entails.
"Each member should know that by joining the organization, he loses his personality: he cannot expect any fame, any personal benefits - either material or moral." Therefore, any member who tries to use the organization for his personal, class or party interests will be punished. If it results in damage to the organization, it will be punished by death", Article 30 of the Constitution is explicit.
If the candidate accepts this, and the admission is approved by the ten-member Supreme Central Administration, the bizarre paragraph three, article three, of the Rules of Procedure was applied: "The room where the oath is taken is in the dark." In the middle of the room is a table covered with a black cloth. On the table are a cross, a knife and a revolver. The room is lit by only one small wax candle."
In the same way as he was recruited, the newly admitted member had to find five new ones and, after completing the admission procedure, form a cell from them. In the records, everyone is kept exclusively by numbers instead of names, since in theory they were not supposed to know the identity of the members of the organization outside their group. The cells kept in touch with the Supreme Central Administration through their founders, and the written materials were burned immediately after reading them.
"I swear by God, honor and life that I will take all the secrets of this organization with me to the grave." May God and my comrades in the organization judge me if I intentionally or unintentionally do not fulfill or violate this oath", are the last two sentences of the oath of the members of the Unification or death.
The true meaning of these threatening provisions on strict conspiracy was to encourage a sense of importance and mutual connection among the members of the association. Because, immediately after its formation - most likely on March 9, 1911 - he personally informed Prince Alexander, Minister of Foreign Affairs Milovan Milovanović and some other individuals from the government about the existence of the Apis organization. He had a strong reason to draw their attention.
"According to the character of its being, Unification or death, affects all official factors in Serbia as Piedmont and all social strata and the entire social life in it," is written in paragraph one, point four of its Constitution.
The press soon found out about the mysterious organization connected to Apis. The few crumbs about its organization and activities, the newspapers inflated and, based on popular feuilletons about the Italian mafia and similar groups, gave it the name Black Hand: no one is different and will not call Unification or death, including its members.
Until the Balkan Wars, there were a total of two hundred black-armed men - mostly officers, including twenty-six conspirators from May 29, 1903. Compared to 2038 colleagues in the Serbian army - from ensigns to generals - that is not a very impressive number. But as it was the old Apis clique, now expanded and organizationally consolidated, with countless criss-crossed long-term connections with all and sundry, its dominance over the armed forces was maximally strengthened; like the Bolsheviks and the Black Hands were a kind of "professional revolutionaries" not at all like the characters from the fictional troupes. A good number of high-ranking elders, including Generals Putnik and Stepanović, supported them out of conviction, and the rest out of careerism or because they had no choice.
The heir to the throne also belonged to the latter. Eager for popularity in the army and its support before the war with Turkey, he gave Apis 26.000 dinars to start "Piedmont", a front page of the Black Hand. In the same context, he carried the thought of binding this clique to himself at any cost. But Alexander and Apis simply could not be together.
"Aleksandar is a Karađorđević, and the Karađorđevićs don't know how to make friends." He does not value anyone's friendship," Jovanovic writes that Apis told him. "He does not ask for loyalty from people, but courtship, and I am not a courtier." I have given the dynasty enough proof of my loyalty. If I am asked to take off the crown prince's boots as well - that's nice, I won't and I can't! Here's to him for that!"
That these were not just empty words will be seen when the time of wars comes.
continued in the next issue
