Posted on 06/22/2004 10:07:58 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
BERLIN -- The Browning pistol that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and sparked the crisis leading to World War I has been discovered gathering dust in a Jesuit community house in Austria.
The weapon is going on display in the Vienna Museum of Military History in time for the 90th anniversary of the assassination of the heir to the Austrian empire and his wife, Sophie. Gavrilo Princip, a student from Belgrade, fired seven shots as they were driven through Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.
The shooting led to World War I, which by one estimate resulted in 8.5 million deaths.
For decades the murder weapon, serial number 19074, was in the possession of a community of Jesuits in Styria, southern Austria. They inherited it from a close friend of the archduke and his wife.
A Jesuit priest, Anton Puntigam, gave the couple the last rites and later made public his intention of opening a museum in memory of the archduke. But the chaos of the war foiled his plans.
On the priest's death in 1926, the objects were offered to the archduke's family, which declined to take them. They remained out of sight until recent publicity about the 90th anniversary.
Daily Telegraph
Dunno if I buy into that.
Yes, it would be a very differen world. But the ideology encompassed by the different -isms had been gaining speed for a while. And sooner or later the "powder-keg" that was Europe would have started shooting about something. Perhaps the alternate possibility might have been a Europe where Fascism triumphs.
You forgot the most important reason, it was all GW Bush's fault.
I doubt it. The national and imperial rivalries in Europe still existed regardless of whether the Archduke was murdered. It was just a matter of time before something sparked a war.
Pretty creepy. Government tyranny killed tens of millions, and the title blames it on a gun. The gun-grabbers would be proud!
I've always held that June 28, 1914 was THE big turning point in history. Folks nowadays like to focus on WWII, with scant attention paid to the Great War -- but without the latter there would have been no WWII, no Soviet Union, no Adolph Hitler, no Cold War, no state of Israel, no partitioning of the Mideast, ad infinitum...
You've always struck me as a history buff (maybe it's that book you wrote). Mayhaps you'll enjoy this.
An interesting observation but I believe that if the Archduke hadn't been assassinated some other incident would have set of the powder keg in Europe.
Why would a Catholic want THAT gun?
Gives me the creeps.
That gun needs to be destroyed. It's been used for evil and not something to be venerated. Then again, some are awed by evil and wish to preserve it.
Why would a Catholic want THAT gun?
Gives me the creeps.
That gun needs to be destroyed. It's been used for evil and not something to be venerated. Then again, some are awed by evil and wish to preserve it.
Why would a Catholic want THAT gun?
Gives me the creeps.
That gun needs to be destroyed. It's been used for evil and not something to be venerated. Then again, some are awed by evil and wish to preserve it.
Why would a Catholic want THAT gun?
Gives me the creeps.
That gun needs to be destroyed. It's been used for evil and not something to be venerated. Then again, some are awed by evil and wish to preserve it.
Sorry about the triple posting.
Just surprised that a Catholic priest would want that.
I'd wondered about this pistol for some time. Archy was kind enough to answer FReepmail and provide info awhile back.
>>Musta been one helluva magic bullet!<<
Well, you just get everybody to stand in a really straight line...
I'd love to know the progression of that dynamic.
Anyone have a pic of hitlers pistol that saved billions of people buy helping him remove hisself from the gene pool ?
Shame he didn't have a cleaning accident in 1933.
You can stand in Gavrilo Princip's footsteps where he fire the fatal shot on a sidewalk in Sarajevo. Or you used to be able to - I guess it's still there.
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