The Most Evil Man in History: Dragutin Dimitrijević

Franz Ferdinand heir to the Hapsburg throne was a liberal reformer. He sought to negotiate a peaceful path to limited self-rule for constituent nationalities within the country. Right-Wing Extreme Nationalist Assassin Princip could not have cared less at the consequences of his assassination. 20,000,000 dead during WWI and another 20,000,000 dead Russians in the Russian Civil War which followed. 

The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was over 37 million. There were over 16 million deaths and 20 million wounded ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.



Dragutin Dimitrijević was born in Belgrade in 1876. At sixteen Dimitrijević went to the Belgrade Military Academy. A brilliant student, Dimitrijević was recruited into the General Staff of the Serbian Army immediately after his graduation.
Captain Dimitrijević and a group of junior officers planned the assassination of the autocratic and unpopular king of Serbia. On 11 June 1903, the group stormed the royal palace and killed both King Alexander and his wife Queen Draga. During the attack Dimitrijević was badly wounded, and, although he eventually recovered, the three bullets from the encounter were never removed from his body.
The Serbian parliament described Dimitrijević as "the saviour of the fatherland" and he was appointed Professor of Tactics at the Military Academy. He visited Germany and Russia where he studied the latest military ideas. During the Balkan Wars (1912–13), Dimitrijević's military planning helped the Serbian Army achieve several important victories.

 

Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis (right) and his associates.

Black Hand Terrorist Group of Royal Assassins. 

Dimitrijević's main concern was what he viewed as the liberation of all South Slavs, especially Serbs, from Austria-Hungary. Although Serbia was already an independent country, many Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Vojvodina were still under Austro-Hungarian rule. Dimitrijević, who used the codename Apis, became leader of the secret Black Hand group. In 1911 Dimitrijević organised an attempt to assassinate Emperor Franz Josef. When this failed, Dimitrijević turned his attention to the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Dimitrijević was concerned about Ferdinand's plans to grant concessions to the South Slavs, fearing that, if this happened, a unified Serbian state would be more difficult to achieve.

A Monument to Evil  Dragutin Dimitrijevć "Apis", Tomb in Memorial park of Zeitenlik, Thessaloniki.

When Dimitrijević heard that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was planning to visit Sarajevo in June 1914, he sent three members of the Young Bosnia group, Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Čabrinović, Trifko Grabež and four others from Serbia to assassinate him. At this time, Dimitrijević was Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence.
Unknown to Dimitrijević, major Vojislav Tankosić was informing Nikola Pašić, the prime minister of Serbia about the plot. Although Pašić supported the main objectives of the Black Hand group, he did not want the assassination to take place, as he feared it would lead to a war with Austria-Hungary. He therefore gave instructions for Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Čabrinović and Trifko Grabež to be arrested when they attempted to leave the country. However, his orders were not implemented, and the three men arrived in the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they joined forces with fellow conspirators, Muhamed Mehmedbašić, Danilo Ilić, Vaso Čubrilović, Cvjetko Popović, Miško Jovanović and Veljko Čubrilović.
After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914, several Black Hand members, under interrogation by the Austrian authorities, claimed that three men from Serbia (Dimitrijević, Milan Ciganović, and Major Voja Tankosić) had organised the plot.
On July 23, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian government sent its July Ultimatum to the Serbian government with a lengthy list of ten different demands. In his response on July 25, 1914, Nikola Pašić, the Serbian prime minister, accepted all the points of the ultimatum except point #6, demanding Serbia to allow an Austrian delegation to participate in a criminal investigation against those participants in the conspiracy that were present in Serbia. Three days later the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia.
In 1916, Dimitrijević was promoted to colonel 
Nikola Pašić decided to get rid of the most prominent members of the Black Hand movement, by then officially disbanded. Dimitrijević and several of his military colleagues were arrested and tried on false charges blaming them with attempted assassination of regent Aleksandar I Karadjordjevic. On May 23, 1917, following the so-called Salonika Trial, Dimitrijević was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. A month later, on June 24,1917 he was executed by firing squad.
In 1953, Dimitrijević and his co-defendants were all retried by the Supreme Court of Serbia and found not guilty, because there was no proof for their alleged participation in the assassination plot.

Wikipedia

Nicholas II, Czar of Russia, was executed along with his family by the Bolsheviks.  Nicholas was the instigator of the Hague Conventions, precursor of the Geneva Conventions.  Which established and outlawed war crimes, atrocities and crimes against humanity.

Dragutin Dimitrijević was guilty of lighting the fuse which ignited World War I.  A name which live in infamy. For some horrible reason even the assassin who brought this nightmare upon the world has been memorialized:

The house where Gavrilo Princip lived in Sarajevo was destroyed during World War I. After the war, it became a museum in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was conquered by Germany in 1941 and Sarajevo became part of Fascist Croatia. The Croatian Ustaše destroyed the house again. After the establishment of Communist Yugoslavia in 1944, the house of Gavrilo Princip became a museum again and there was another museum dedicated to him within the city of Sarajevo. During the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, the house of Gavrilo Princip was destroyed a third time by the government; no attempts to rebuild it have yet been announced. The Gavrilo Princip museum has been turned into a museum dedicated to Archduke Ferdinand and the Habsburg monarchy. Prior to the 1990s the site on the pavement on which Princip stood to fire the fatal shots was marked by embossed footprints. These were removed as a consequence of the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and the perception of Princip as having been a Serb nationalist. Later, a simple wooden memorial was placed near the site of the assassination with the words "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in Bosnian, Serbian and English. There is a plaque in front of the museum at the spot where Gavrilo Princip stood when he fired the shots.

Dragutin Dimitrijević was pure evil, one of the most evil men who ever lived. He massacred the Serbian Royal Family because he wanted war, King Alexander I was a man of peace who wanted civil and human rights without war. After raiding the palace, torturing, mutilating and murdering 5 members of the Serbian Royal family, Dragutin Dimitrijević personally threw their bodies on the lawn in front of the royal palace. Russian Communist controlled Serbia dishonestly held a 1953 retrial of Dragutin Dimitrijević and voted him not guilty for the massacre of the murderer of the roryal family and the start of World War One which brought the Communists to power in Russia. The blood of 20,000,000 people is on their hands as well. 

After massacring Alexander I, the right-wing terrorists, including Dragutin Dimitrijević, implemented their plan to put war monger and Alexander I cousin, Peter I on throne. Peter I approved Dragutin Dimitrijević's plan to murder the Hapsburgs. 

In 1902 Alexander's right-wing relative Peter Кarađorđević was proclaimed king by followers, and Alexander responded by organizing a military cabinet and suspending the constitution. Radicals began to plot the King's assassination.  

 

The real evidence of the evil of Dragutin Dimitrijević is the 1903 massacre of Serbian Royal Family. King Alexander I was a liberal reformer who was willing to talk to the Austrian/Hapsburg Hapsburg family to protect Serbians/Slavs inside the Hapsburg lands. There is little doubt from 1900 that Dragutin Dimitrijević and his Serbian Military Intelligence/"Blackhand" Terrorist Group was to start a war, eventually leading to the deaths of 20,000,000 men, women, children and babies in World War One. 

One of the most evil acts in the mankind is not something to celebrate, shame on anyone who so chooses.

Klementy Nagorny and The Russian Royal Family, a tale of character and courage.

I have a separate page on the end of Romanov Dynasty and how the English were at least partially responsible for the murder of Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia and 14-year-old Czarevitch Alexei and fully responsible for the murder or Rasputin. The English and Russian Prime Minister Kerensky were also integral to the success of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the murder of patriot Admiral Kolchak. https://briankeithohara.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-man-who-murdered-russian-royal.html

Klementy Nagorny(1889-1918) was a sailor on the Russian Imperial Yacht Standardt.  A good man and reliable, competent sailor, he was also well known among the officers and men aboard ship for being a good father to his children(one source said he had three children) and a good  husband. Nagorny had served aboard the Standardt for about 10 years and had won the respect and friendship of all aboard. He became a special favorite of the Royal Family.  With the coming of the Revolution he chose to share the fate of Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, and their children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei, in their journey from the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, to the Governor's Palace at Tobolsk and then finally to the Bolshevik's "House of Special Purpose"(Ipatiev House) in Yekaterinburg.  Nagorny acted as a companion and protector of the sick Russian Tsarevitch.

Standardt Sailor Klementy Nagorny

Je dédie ce livre à l'héroïque marin-paysan, Clementi Grigorivitch Nagorny qui, jusqu'au sacrifice de sa vie, défendit le tsarévitch.

It is incredibly insensitive when people confuse Klementy Nagorny and Andrey Eremeyevich Derevenko the other companion for the young Tsarevitch. Both men when confronted by the apocalypse which was the Russian Revolution but chose different paths. Nagorny chose honor and death, "the road less taken" and remained loyal to the Imperial Family, while  Deverenko chose self preservation, an understandable but an un-courageous decision.

Alexei(H), Deverenko(D) and Klementy Nagorny(KH)

From Chapter XV of Memories of the Russian Court, by Anna Vyrubova:

"Shaken though I was with that experience, I had one more agony to bear. When my chair was being wheeled back along the corridor I passed the open door of Alexei's room, and this is what I saw. Lying sprawled in a chair was the sailor Derevenko, for many years the personal attendant of the Tsarevich, and on whom the family had bestowed every kindness, every material benefit. Bitten by the mania of revolution, this man was now displaying his gratitude for all their favors. Insolently he bawled at the boy whom he had formerly loved and cherished, to bring him this or that, to perform any menial service his mean lackey's brain could think of. Dazed and apparently only half conscious of what he was being forced to do, the child moved about trying to obey. It was too much to bear. Hiding my face in my hands, I begged them to take me away from the sickening spectacle."

Anya was Empress Alexandra's best friend and confidant, she was arrested with the fall of the monarchy, but later was able to flee to Finland.

The one great strength of Nagorny was his good cheer, he was able to revive the spirits of his charge, the Tsarevitch, but also of other members of the family as well. All of them genuinely liked and appreciated his good spirit and company. The atmosphere at Tsarskoe Selo was unsettled and dark, at Tobolsk it became ominous, especially after the replacement of regular army soldiers and their commander Colonel Kobylinski with revolutionaries on April 22, 1918. Colonel Kobylinski fought to maintain order and discipline among the troops. Colonel Kobylinski was an honorable man who acted honorably, even in those extraordinary times, when far less might be expected or excused. He tried to maintain military discipline among "his" troops. But as the revolution progressed, his men began to refuse to obey his orders and showed barely disguised contempt for him and open hostility and hatred for the Royal Family. Nicholas made a comment in his diary describing him as "our good commandant".

 Colonel Kobylinski, commanding officer of the guard detachment at Tsarskoe Selo and Tobolsk

One story gives you an idea of the kind of man Colonel Kobylinski was. 12-year-old Alexei had a favorite toy rifle which was made of wood. At one point it was seized by his guards. The Colonel retrieved it, but warned Nicholas and Alexei that it must only be brought out behind closed doors when only the family was present. Colonel Kobylinski was later killed fighting for the White Russians under Admiral Kolchak against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War.
It was during this dark period at Tobolsk, that Alexei took a sled and attempted to slide down the main stairway at the Governor's House. Having hemophilia, the subsequent injury became a catastrophe for the heir. (Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie, 1968)

While in Siberia, he rode a sled down the stairs of the prison house and injured himself in the groin. Because of his hemophilia, he began massive hemorrhaging. The hemorrhage was very bad, and he was so ill that he could not be moved so the Bolsheviks only transferred his parents and older sister Maria to Yekaterinburg in April 1918. Alexei and his three other sisters remained behind in Tobolsk until he was well enough to travel. They  joined the rest of the family weeks later. He was confined to a wheelchair for the remaining weeks of his life.
Wikipedia

 The stairway on which Alexei slid down on his sled.


The pain was so horrendous, that Alexei would beg to die and be put out of his misery.  His mother, The Empress Alexandra, was in pure agony, listening to the suffering of her son.  A shy woman, which most people interpreted as arrogance or an imperious nature, without her friend Anya and lady's in waiting from the court, her life had become beyond most people's endurance. Then to be separated by the Bolsheviks...

Olga and Alexei on board the Steamer Rus on the way to Yekaterinburg from Tobolsk. During the trip Alexei and Nagorny were locked in their cabin. One story told afterwards was that Alexei's sisters were heard screaming at night during the trip from Tobolsk, when Nagorny tried to investigate, he was severely beaten by their Bolshevik guards.

Once Colonel Kobylinsky was replaced with the Bolshevik Yurovsky, the situation degenerated quickly. One of Colonel Kobylinski last acts as commander was to apologize to Nicholas Romanov(II) for his inability to do more for his charges. Though a Social Democrat and ambivalent about the Monarchy, he nonetheless chose to be a decent, civilized human being. After his departure things got progressively worse, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia were forced to use to the latrine accompanied by armed guards, who made vulgar and suggestive comments along the way to humiliate the Grand Duchesses. The guards also covered the outhouse in obscene graffiti. They demeaned and insulted the Tsar at every opportunity. At Yekaterinburg things only got worse.

Nagorny and Citizen Nicholas Romanov, working in the Gardens at Tsarskoe Selo.

Nagorny was the target for special mistreatment by the Bolsheviks, being beaten repeatedly, once for attempting to assist Tatiana Romanov who was struggling to carry her luggage from the train station at Yekaterinburg. Prince Lvov tells a story repeated in the movie "Nicholas and Alexandra"(1970):

On May 26, 1918 one of the guards tried to steal a thin gold chain and crucifix from Tsarevitch Alexis. Nagorny tried to stop him, but he in turn was seized by the guards and arrested. Nagorny was thrown in to the Yekaterinburg jail and shot either on May 31 or June 1st. Without Nagorny,  Nicholas and Dr. Botkin had to assume care of the injured Tsarevitch. Including carrying him through the garden of Ipatiev House(The House of Special Purpose).
One of the ironies of history is that the first Romanov Tsar, Michael Romanov, had been proclaimed Tsar of all the Russias at the Ipatiev Monastery at Kostroma, Russia(He was crowned on July 22, 1613) and the last Tsar murdered at Ipatiev House on July 17, 1918. in Yekaterinburg. Only a few years before, The Romanovs celebrated the 300th Anniversary of their rule of Russia.


Things took an ominous turn when the kitchen boy, 14-year-old Sednev, failed to show up for work one day in July 1918, a few days before the family was murdered. Apparently, Yurovsky's men made it clear that they wouldn't kill the boy. He was a poor kid who had done nothing wrong. The Bolsheviks put him on a train to relatives out in the country. With the approaching of the Whites and the Czech fighters, the Bolsheviks murdered the Royal Family July 16, 1918, including the children. Sednev would live until 1925, though one version of events says he lived until 1941. He quietly shared his experiences with Romanovs, whom he had come to love. He is rumored to have written his experiences in a booklet, which is apparently lost to history.

Found among the papers and possessions of the Russian Royal Family at "The House of Special Purpose" in Yekaterinburg by  the White Russian Army which captured the city from the Bolsheviks is this letter from the Tsarevitch Alexei to his best friend Kolya. Oddly, Alexei ended the undelivered letter with "the end" as a closing, not a conventional choice and not one which Alexei had ever used before.  Kolya lived until the 1990's and gave an interview for Russian TV in which he discussed his friendship with Alexei.

 

Transcript of Alexei's last letter:

Ekaterinburg

Dear Kolya,

All of my sisters send greetings to you, your mother and
grandmother. I feel well myself. My head was aching
all day, but now the pain has gone completely. I
embrace you warmly. Greetings to the Botkins from all of
us.

Always yours

Alexei

Konets(The END in Russian)

 

Kolya is to the left in this picture taken in the winter of 1916. Left to right, Kolya, Alexei, Tatiana, Maria, Olga, Anastasia and Nicholas II.

From the Alexander Palace Forum, translation of an interview with Koyla Deverenko in the 1990's. Available on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DsS5EVu0-c


I was a little boy, just 12 years old...I didn't know anything about people's evil.....We lived in Popov house, very close to Ipatiev house. In the middle of summer 1918, I was afraid, and I was preoccupied about Aleksei.I wanted to see him. And, I am sure, he wanted to see me. Until that sad 17th july 1918. My father, Gilliard, Gibbes and other...they knew everything, but I NOTHING....Something terrible was going to happen, but I didn't know what....In the last week of july 1918, I , my father, Gilliard, Gibbes,etc. entered at Ipatiev house.Terrible scene....House was in completelly chaos. Diaries, letters, albums, and others items was all around in house. 'But where is Leskela?'-I asked my father, but I he didn't answe me. Leskela's diary...was taken by one guard,I think his name was Nemetkin,I don't know. But Leonid Sednev....I saw him. He cried. His cried so aloud, so aloud!!!!!
'Papa, where is my Leskela?'-I cried.
'They killed him'-he cried
'Ho...how?'
'they killed tsar, tsarina, and GDs also.All are dead."-said my father.
"I don't understand','where...where are bones'
'We don't know, maybe we'll never discover them'
My world was destroyed.They destroyed Russia, no more illusions...I found Leskela's last letter written to me.Especially one sentence in that letter-'I hug you warmly'-made me cry..I thought 'And I hug you warmly, too, my dear friend, and my tsar...'
I was in shock.In later years, I think just about him. 'Why did they killed you? In USSR wassn't a little space for my Leskela......We'l be forever friends, my dear tsesarevich....I want to see you just ONE more time, and I can die in peace......

From a Russian website, reposted:
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php/topic,9716.msg273644.html#msg273644

Justice

Max Hoffmann was a German Colonel in Military Intelligence in World War I; by all accounts  he was a brilliant intelligence officer and even better strategist. With the outbreak of the war, following the assassination of Austria's Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofie, Max was sent to the Eastern Front in the fight against Russia.

Russian General Samsanov

He developed the strategy to focus the German attack on General Aleksandr Vassilievich Samsonov's Second Army. He remembered during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, fellow commander General Rennenkampf had failed to aid Samsanov during a ferocious attack by the Japanese: Rennenkampf  only worried about the tactical situation and the preservation of his own troops and himself. He lacked the insight and the intelligence to appreciate the strategic situation and that led to disaster and the eventual defeat of Russia in that war.

Colonel Max Hoffmann

Colonel Hoffmann predicted that, when faced with a German counterattack at Allenstein(conveniently and incorrectly called Tannenberg as redemption for the defeat Prussia experienced in a war with Duchy of Lithuania and Bohemia in 1410) which specifically targeted General  Samsanov's Second Army, General Rennekampf would not come to his aid, just as he had 10 years before. And he was right, General Samsanov's army was surrounded and wiped out, never receiving any help from General Rennekampf. With no hope, General Samsanov committed suicide.
Months later, Max Hoffman was promoted to General and given operational command of German Forces on the Eastern Front. He led a spectacular attack on the Russian Army in mid-summer 1917.  Ironically, immediately before the attack, he had sent six divisions of his forces to the stalemated Western Front to reinforce the Kaiser's forces in France, which were under the command of his former commanders Field Marshalls Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Within a few days, forces under his command decimated the enemy causing the fall of Alexander Kerensky and his revolutionary Government.
Possibly the most successful officer in the German Imperial Army, Hoffmann chaffed at superiors taking credit for his tactical and strategic decisions. After the war everyone remembered Hindenburg who went on to be President of Germany, though he had been defeated by Marshall Joffre and the Allies on the Western Front.  No one remembers, Colonel Max Hoffman probably the most brillaint officer in World War I.  That is not right.