The Black Hand

The Black Hand


It was St. Vitus'  Day June 15th 1389.  The army of Serbian Prince Lazar was battling the Ottoman Turkish Army  of Sultan Murad I to decide the fate of Kosovo and Serbia.  Whether Kosovo and the Serbs would be ruled by Serbs or whether they would be ruled by the Ottomans.



The battle was known to history as the Battle of Kosovo.  It was also called the Battle of Kosovo Field as well as the Battle of Blackbird's  Field.



The bulk of both armies were wiped out in the battle.  Both Prince Lazar and Sultan Murad lost their lives in it.


But the Serbian Army had pretty well suffered the most casualties so that the end result in the following years was that all of the Serbian Principalities would become vassals of the Ottoman Empire.



During the battle after his master was slain, Prince Lazar's right hand man Vuk happened to notice something odd about the right hand of Sultan Murad's right hand man Mehmet after Mehmet had slain Prince Lazar.




Mehmet's right hand was pure white whereas the rest of his body was the darker tanned skin colour of the Ottoman Turks.



Vuk fought Mehmet and slew him.


He then cut off Mehmet's mysterious pure white right hand and left the battlefield.


Far away in a forest, Vuk made camp and lit a fire.


He took Mehmet's pure white right hand, put it on his sword and then held it over the fire to cook.



He was planning to eat it.



Vuk fell asleep while roasting the hand and the hand fell into the fire where it was burned a charcoal black.



Midnight arrived and an owl screeched in the forest.



A raven with blood in its beak flew down by the fire and pecked at the fingers of the charcoal burnt black hand.



The charcoal burnt hand suddenly came to life and crawled away into the forest.




                   .         .          .






It was September 6th 1901.  Certain members of the Serbian Army met to form a new secret society.



The name of the society was Unification or Death.



Its aim was to unite all of the territories of the Balkan Peninsula that had a majority South Slavic population into a single kingdom under the rule of the King of Serbia.



This would of course mean taking control of some territories that were now part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.



The Unification or Death secret society was also known as the Black Hand because its members swore and took their secret oaths by placing their right hands on a severed charcoal burnt hand.






                 .            .           .





It was June 28th 1914 and the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie the Duchess of Hohenberg were visiting the city of Sarajevo the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina.


In the crowd waiting for the imperial couple's carriage to pass by on the streets was one Gavrilo  Princip a Bosnian Serb and a member of Young Bosnia the territory's youth wing of the Black Hand secret society.


As the Imperial  Carriage passed by, Gavrilo Princip raised his hand and fired his gun killing the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie the Duchess of Hohenberg.



That assassination would lead to the July Crisis of 1914 in which the Austro-Hungarian Empire issued an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia and then invaded the country.


Within days of Austro-Hungary's July 28th 1914 invasion of Serbia, other great European powers Germany, Russia, France and then Britain were drawn in.



By August 4th 1914, all of these great European powers were at war with one another.


World War I had begun.


Such was the end result of that fatal moment when the Black Hand's Young Bosnia member Gavrilo Princip had fired those shots at Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.



At his feet as he fired his gun was a severed charcoal burnt black hand.



The hand crawled away in the crowd amidst the ensuing chaos following the Archduke's assassination.




             .         .          .




It was the evening of March 11th 1938.


At 10 minutes to eight in the evening March 11th 1938, Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg took to the radio to address his people on rising tensions with the Nazi government in Berlin.



He concluded his radio address with these words, "God protect Austria."



At 8 PM on March 11th 1938, a charcoal burnt black hand crossed the border from Germany to Austria.


A day later March 12th 1938, German troops would follow and cross the German-Austrian border into Austria.


By March 13th 1938, the Anschluss - the German annexation of Austria would be complete.



On March 15th 1938,  Der Fuhrer Adolf Hitler proudly proclaimed "the entry of my homeland into the German Reich" from the balcony of the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna.



A Japanese Zen Buddhist monk who stood amidst the cheering crowds in the street suddenly looked down and saw a severed charcoal burnt hand at his feet.



He also discovered the answer to that centuries old Zen Buddhist riddle, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?".






                   .            .             .





At midnight September 1st 1939 a severed charcoal burnt black hand crossed the border from Germany into Poland.



Later that same day German troops would follow in crossing the border.





                 .           .            .




On August 6th 1945 a severed charcoal burnt black hand crawled along the streets of Hiroshima as an atomic mushroom cloud lit up the skies.





                 .             .              .




On June 25th 1950, a severed charcoal burnt black hand crossed the 38th parallel- it crossed the border from North Korea to South Korea.



North Korean troops followed and invaded South Korea.



The Korean War had begun.




                 .           .          .




It was May 13th 1981.



Saint Peter's Square in Rome.




A Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca fired 4 shots at Pope John Paul II.


In the chaos that ensued, no one noticed a severed charcoal burnt black hand (that had been at the feet of Mehmet Ali Agca) scurrying away in the crowd.





              .          .           .



September 11th 2001.



New York City.




30 seconds past 8:46 AM that morning ofSeptember 11th a severed charcoal black hand was walking the streets and sidewalks of New York City just below the World Trade Center.



But no one noticed.



For all eyes were on the skies as a jumbo jet American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Face of the North Tower of the World Trade Center between Floors 93 and 99.





                 .              .               .






On March 18th 2014 a severed charcoal burnt black hand crossed the border from Russia into Crimea.



At that exact moment, Russian President Vladimir Putin in a speech to the Russian Parliament formally announced the annexation of Crimea by Russia.





                  .              .              .




On the evening of April 24th 2014 (which was Saint Mark's Eve) in Saint Mark's Cemetery in Sarajevo, a severed black hand placed a black rose on the grave of Gavrilo Princip the Black Hand assassin of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.





              .             .            .



April 25th 2014.



Saint Mark's Day.


10 AM.



A German general was briefing a meeting of deputy Defence ministers of the NATO countries.


The topic was the situation in Ukraine.



The general Wolfgang Vulkan had only one eye.


Every so often Gen. Vulkan would glance in the direction of another German general who would nod for confirmation of what Gen. Vulkan was saying.



Canada's assistant deputy Defence minister, as he glanced at Gen. Vulkan, thought the man resembled drawings he had seen of the Norse god Odin (or as he was called in the old High German tongue Wotan).



He then looked at the fellow German general that Gen. Vulkan kept looking at for confirmation of what he was saying.


He noticed that general's right hand was missing.



He immediately thought of that old Norse god Tyr who had lost his right hand to that demonic Norse wolf Fenrir after Fenrir had bit it off when Tyr had bound the creature.



The assistant Defence minister then recalled some New Age guru in Toronto who had said a few years back that Fenrir's bonds were now lose and Fenrir had broken free and the Battle of Ragnarok (the final Battle of the Norse gods at the end of the world) would happen soon.



For a moment the Canadian Assistant Deputy Defence Minister mused as if all those ancient Norse myths were true,


Whatever did Fenrir do with Tyr's right hand?


And where was that right hand today?




               .           .            .



At 11:59 PM and 36 seconds the evening of April 25th 2014 ( the night of the Feast Day of Saint Mark), a severed charcoal burnt black hand crossed the border from Russia to eastern Ukraine.





To be continued.



-A vampire novel chapter
 written by Christopher
 Friday April 25th
 2014.



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