This is a future article I've written that you might find interesting.
John
Is it possible that the use of a single firearm could change the course of global history and result in millions of lives being tragically lost in the century that followed? It's not only possible, it actually happened! You are looking at a nearly exact twin to the Fabrique Nationale pistol that launched World War I and subsequently set up World War II. Those conflicts resulted in the reorganization of numerous national boundaries and even further regional struggles. The "butterfly effect" is the theory that a single somewhat insignificant happening (such as a butterfly's flapping wings) could result in a chain reaction of weather or other events. That theory was proved true by the assassination of an Austrian official and his wife in the year 1914. Here is the true story of that incident and the pistol that was used.
The pistol itself was yet another invention of master gun designer John Moses Browning. In the year 1900, his somewhat awkward-looking Model 1900 .32 ACP pistol was produced by F.N. in Belgium and became a commonly encountered handgun in Europe. Its less-than-svelte appearance was partly due to the fact that the recoil spring was mounted in a tube above the barrel. It worked well enough, but it was definitely not sleek. The gun Browning developed in 1908 and patented in Belgium in 1909 changed all that. In this design, the recoil spring was placed around the barrel, making for a slender, streamlined appearance. It was a lighter, more concealable and more ergonomic weapon. Browning offered it to both Colt in the U.S. and Fabrique Nationale in Belgium. Colt declined to adopt it, but F.N. decided to manufacture it. It was first offered in Europe in October of 1912. Browning and F.N. initially referred to it as Le Nouveau Modele (the New Model), but sometime after World War I, it was renamed as the Model 1910. It was imported into the U.S. until 1968, and a longer-barreled variation, the Model 1922, was made until 1983 and sold in the U.S. as late as 1985.
The pistol was a blowback striker-fired design, and was chambered in two calibers, the 9x17mm Browning (.380 ACP), and the 7.65x17mm Browning (.32 ACP). It featured a grip safety which blocked the sear until depressed, a manual safety on the left side which locked both the grip safety and the slide, and a magazine safety. The magazine safety made the grip safety impossible to press when the magazine was removed. The slide did not lock back after the last round was fired, although pushing the manual safety up into the slide's forward notch would lock it back for cleaning or inspection. John Browning had specified that the case length of the .380 round be exactly the same as that of the .32. It thus became easy enough to change the caliber of this gun by swapping only the barrels. Although marked and "port holed" differently, the magazines for both calibers were identical dimensionally. The magazine could hold seven rounds of .32, but only six .380 cartridges. The magazine release was at the heel of the frame. The concept of the recoil spring being placed around the barrel started with Savage pistols of that era and lived on with the German Walther PP series, the Mauser HSc, the Soviet-designed Makarovs and quite a few others. The gun measured 6.02 inches in length and weighed 1.3 pounds. Total production quantity has been estimated as 704,247.
Early Model 1910s had checkered animal horn grips with a small image of the Model 1910 at the top of the grips. These grips were used for just a few months. Later ones, still checkered horn but with the F.N. intertwined logo in an oval at the top, were used until the beginning of World War II. From that point on, black plastic was used, and after that war some wood grips were utilized. Guns produced in the first full year of manufacture (1912-1913) had the forward slide scallops extending to terminate back beyond the forward lip of the frame. The pistol illustrated, which is estimated to have been made in early 1913, has this slide configuration. Later slides terminate the scallop ahead of the frame.
Now let's turn to the events of 1914 which are forever linked to the Browning Model 1910. A group of seven students, members of a political group called Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia), crafted a plan to assassinate the acknowledged heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The plan was to kill him during his visit to Sarajevo, the Bosnian capitol. Austria-Hungary had annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, and resentment of that act in Bosnia ran high, particularly among young students. Many wanted a merging of Bosnia with Serbia and Montenegro. The seven ranged in age from 16 to 27, and had attended high school in Sarajevo. They had been recruited by a covert military society called "Unification or Death," which was more commonly called the "Black Hand." They had especially indoctrinated three young men, Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko C'abrinovic and Trifun Grabez. These three had visited Serbia and became familiar there with the Browning Model 1910. They practiced shooting that pistol at a park in Belgrade. They were then given four new pistols, six bombs, some cyanide capsules and money in May, 1914 before returning to Sarajevo.
On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand visited Sarajevo to attend military maneuvers. Although he had been warned by anonymous threats, he disdained protection, and his security was quite light. His motorcade from the train station to city hall included four open convertible automobiles. He and his wife, Duchess Sophie Chotek, were seated in the second car. The seven young conspirators spaced themselves some distances apart along the planned route. The motorcade first reached the position occupied by C'abrinovic. He threw his bomb at the second car, which bounced off and exploded under the third car, injuring its occupants. C'abrinovic ran, but was almost immediately caught and arrested. Franz Ferdinand ordered the convoy to continue in spite of this event. Although the convoy drove past three other conspirators, they could not act in the confusion and chaos generated by the crowd. The procession arrived at city hall, but the stay was shortened. The convoy then continued on, passing in front of Grabez, who somehow failed to shoot. Although the motorcade was officially re-routed, the driver unknowingly followed the old route. When he was informed of his mistake, he stopped and started backing up. This placed the Archduke's car a mere five feet away from Gavrilo Princip. He quickly fired at the Archduke and Duchess. Each was hit; he in the neck and she in the stomach. Both died before reaching the hospital. Princip was immediately caught and arrested.
The four pistols, purchased in Belgrade by the Black Hand, were all chambered for the .380 cartridge. When they were traced, links were indicated between the Serbian government, the Black Hand, and the conspirators. Because a Serbian official was intimately involved, the assassination was then considered an act of war.
The Serbian government was accused of plotting the assassination, and diplomatic relations between Serbia and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire were cut. The Austrian-Hungarian army was mobilized, and war was declared on Serbia exactly one month after the assassination, July 28, 1914. This initiated World War I (then known as "the Great War"), resulting in widespread catastrophic destruction and an estimated 37 million casualties until it ended in November, 1918.
The first trial of the conspirators started in Sarajevo on October 12, 1914, with 26 defendants. Most of those actively involved, including Princip, were minors and thereby escaped the death penalty. Princip died in prison from tuberculosis on April 28, 1918. A second trial, mostly involving members of the Black Hand and other pertinent Serbian suspects, was held in the spring of 1917 in Salonika. Nine received the death penalty and were executed.
Only one pistol was presented as evidence during the first trial. Its serial number was 19075, but it has been reported that Princip's pistol was number 19074. The remaining pistols of the conspirators carried numbers 19120 and 19126. Princip's pistol is now on display in the Heeresgeschichtliches (Military history) Museum in Vienna, Austria. Badly corroded, it was recovered from a Jesuit monastery formerly in Sarajevo, but relocated to Vienna as WWI started. The .380 pistol illustrated here was manufactured in the same time frame as the four pistols involved, making it a very close duplicate of each of them.
Interestingly, in Serbia and Sarajevo, Princip has often been considered a hero. There is an official Gavrilo Princip day, and some patriotic plaques have been placed on site of the assassination. A medal was minted to commemorate Princip's act, and his grave is routinely decorated with flowers. Regardless of opinion, Princip proved that one person (armed with an F.N. Model 1910) could and did alter world events for more than a century. The "butterfly effect" is now conclusively proven by history.
(c) 2018 JLM
John
Is it possible that the use of a single firearm could change the course of global history and result in millions of lives being tragically lost in the century that followed? It's not only possible, it actually happened! You are looking at a nearly exact twin to the Fabrique Nationale pistol that launched World War I and subsequently set up World War II. Those conflicts resulted in the reorganization of numerous national boundaries and even further regional struggles. The "butterfly effect" is the theory that a single somewhat insignificant happening (such as a butterfly's flapping wings) could result in a chain reaction of weather or other events. That theory was proved true by the assassination of an Austrian official and his wife in the year 1914. Here is the true story of that incident and the pistol that was used.
The pistol itself was yet another invention of master gun designer John Moses Browning. In the year 1900, his somewhat awkward-looking Model 1900 .32 ACP pistol was produced by F.N. in Belgium and became a commonly encountered handgun in Europe. Its less-than-svelte appearance was partly due to the fact that the recoil spring was mounted in a tube above the barrel. It worked well enough, but it was definitely not sleek. The gun Browning developed in 1908 and patented in Belgium in 1909 changed all that. In this design, the recoil spring was placed around the barrel, making for a slender, streamlined appearance. It was a lighter, more concealable and more ergonomic weapon. Browning offered it to both Colt in the U.S. and Fabrique Nationale in Belgium. Colt declined to adopt it, but F.N. decided to manufacture it. It was first offered in Europe in October of 1912. Browning and F.N. initially referred to it as Le Nouveau Modele (the New Model), but sometime after World War I, it was renamed as the Model 1910. It was imported into the U.S. until 1968, and a longer-barreled variation, the Model 1922, was made until 1983 and sold in the U.S. as late as 1985.
The pistol was a blowback striker-fired design, and was chambered in two calibers, the 9x17mm Browning (.380 ACP), and the 7.65x17mm Browning (.32 ACP). It featured a grip safety which blocked the sear until depressed, a manual safety on the left side which locked both the grip safety and the slide, and a magazine safety. The magazine safety made the grip safety impossible to press when the magazine was removed. The slide did not lock back after the last round was fired, although pushing the manual safety up into the slide's forward notch would lock it back for cleaning or inspection. John Browning had specified that the case length of the .380 round be exactly the same as that of the .32. It thus became easy enough to change the caliber of this gun by swapping only the barrels. Although marked and "port holed" differently, the magazines for both calibers were identical dimensionally. The magazine could hold seven rounds of .32, but only six .380 cartridges. The magazine release was at the heel of the frame. The concept of the recoil spring being placed around the barrel started with Savage pistols of that era and lived on with the German Walther PP series, the Mauser HSc, the Soviet-designed Makarovs and quite a few others. The gun measured 6.02 inches in length and weighed 1.3 pounds. Total production quantity has been estimated as 704,247.
Early Model 1910s had checkered animal horn grips with a small image of the Model 1910 at the top of the grips. These grips were used for just a few months. Later ones, still checkered horn but with the F.N. intertwined logo in an oval at the top, were used until the beginning of World War II. From that point on, black plastic was used, and after that war some wood grips were utilized. Guns produced in the first full year of manufacture (1912-1913) had the forward slide scallops extending to terminate back beyond the forward lip of the frame. The pistol illustrated, which is estimated to have been made in early 1913, has this slide configuration. Later slides terminate the scallop ahead of the frame.
Now let's turn to the events of 1914 which are forever linked to the Browning Model 1910. A group of seven students, members of a political group called Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia), crafted a plan to assassinate the acknowledged heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The plan was to kill him during his visit to Sarajevo, the Bosnian capitol. Austria-Hungary had annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, and resentment of that act in Bosnia ran high, particularly among young students. Many wanted a merging of Bosnia with Serbia and Montenegro. The seven ranged in age from 16 to 27, and had attended high school in Sarajevo. They had been recruited by a covert military society called "Unification or Death," which was more commonly called the "Black Hand." They had especially indoctrinated three young men, Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko C'abrinovic and Trifun Grabez. These three had visited Serbia and became familiar there with the Browning Model 1910. They practiced shooting that pistol at a park in Belgrade. They were then given four new pistols, six bombs, some cyanide capsules and money in May, 1914 before returning to Sarajevo.
On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand visited Sarajevo to attend military maneuvers. Although he had been warned by anonymous threats, he disdained protection, and his security was quite light. His motorcade from the train station to city hall included four open convertible automobiles. He and his wife, Duchess Sophie Chotek, were seated in the second car. The seven young conspirators spaced themselves some distances apart along the planned route. The motorcade first reached the position occupied by C'abrinovic. He threw his bomb at the second car, which bounced off and exploded under the third car, injuring its occupants. C'abrinovic ran, but was almost immediately caught and arrested. Franz Ferdinand ordered the convoy to continue in spite of this event. Although the convoy drove past three other conspirators, they could not act in the confusion and chaos generated by the crowd. The procession arrived at city hall, but the stay was shortened. The convoy then continued on, passing in front of Grabez, who somehow failed to shoot. Although the motorcade was officially re-routed, the driver unknowingly followed the old route. When he was informed of his mistake, he stopped and started backing up. This placed the Archduke's car a mere five feet away from Gavrilo Princip. He quickly fired at the Archduke and Duchess. Each was hit; he in the neck and she in the stomach. Both died before reaching the hospital. Princip was immediately caught and arrested.
The four pistols, purchased in Belgrade by the Black Hand, were all chambered for the .380 cartridge. When they were traced, links were indicated between the Serbian government, the Black Hand, and the conspirators. Because a Serbian official was intimately involved, the assassination was then considered an act of war.
The Serbian government was accused of plotting the assassination, and diplomatic relations between Serbia and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire were cut. The Austrian-Hungarian army was mobilized, and war was declared on Serbia exactly one month after the assassination, July 28, 1914. This initiated World War I (then known as "the Great War"), resulting in widespread catastrophic destruction and an estimated 37 million casualties until it ended in November, 1918.
The first trial of the conspirators started in Sarajevo on October 12, 1914, with 26 defendants. Most of those actively involved, including Princip, were minors and thereby escaped the death penalty. Princip died in prison from tuberculosis on April 28, 1918. A second trial, mostly involving members of the Black Hand and other pertinent Serbian suspects, was held in the spring of 1917 in Salonika. Nine received the death penalty and were executed.
Only one pistol was presented as evidence during the first trial. Its serial number was 19075, but it has been reported that Princip's pistol was number 19074. The remaining pistols of the conspirators carried numbers 19120 and 19126. Princip's pistol is now on display in the Heeresgeschichtliches (Military history) Museum in Vienna, Austria. Badly corroded, it was recovered from a Jesuit monastery formerly in Sarajevo, but relocated to Vienna as WWI started. The .380 pistol illustrated here was manufactured in the same time frame as the four pistols involved, making it a very close duplicate of each of them.
Interestingly, in Serbia and Sarajevo, Princip has often been considered a hero. There is an official Gavrilo Princip day, and some patriotic plaques have been placed on site of the assassination. A medal was minted to commemorate Princip's act, and his grave is routinely decorated with flowers. Regardless of opinion, Princip proved that one person (armed with an F.N. Model 1910) could and did alter world events for more than a century. The "butterfly effect" is now conclusively proven by history.
(c) 2018 JLM
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