In Bosnia, only three hangings took place; ironically, the man who did the shooting, Gavrilo Princip, could not be executed because, at nineteen, he was under age for this punishment.

He definitely started World War One (which is not to say that he caused it)

The ring-leader, Danilo Ilić, was hanged, in February 1915.

This could hardly have been more appropriate – he wanted nothing less – since it was he who had picked up Andreyev’s popular story, translated it, written about it, and then closely followed its details in the real world.

It was Ilić who worked out where the assassins had to stand on the day, and Ilić who had welcomed Princip into his mother’s home for several weeks before the attack.

Seven Hanged had provided the emotional and intellectual stimulus needed to propel him from revolutionary theory into practical action.

Of course, Ilić drew from Andreyev’s tale the opposite conclusion from nearly everyone else’s.

Instead of condemning the young activists for their naïve and immoral conduct, he was won over by their idealism, selfless sincerity and courage.

Thus did Ilić become the mainspring of the whole enterprise, drawing all his inspiration from Russian literature. You can be sure that he would also have (mis)read Dostoyevsky’s Devils (1872).

He definitely started World War One (which is not to say that he caused it).

These curious details are now long-forgotten, buried under the historical dust of a hundred years. This is how it should be. But the fictional story remains.

A riveting narrative, with several characters and scenes indelible from memory, it proves painfully suspenseful despite our foreknowledge of the ending, losing none of its power to move readers as a story in itself while incidentally arguing against capital punishment.

It is a sad comment on human affairs that this case still has to be argued, even after such a long lapse of time.

But, in the last analysis, the quality of Seven Hanged is neither political nor ethical; it is based on sheer narrative interest and human drama.

A final thought. If the bullet sent to kill Horace Briggs a hundred years ago this summer had travelled eight inches to the right, this story would have had to come to you from someone else.