Posted on 11/12/2004 4:14:18 AM PST by Jane_N
IT WAS a shot that echoed round the world. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand - heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire - was assassinated in the Balkan city of Sarajevo more than 90 years ago it heralded the beginning of the most brutal conflict the world has ever seen.
Yet during this week of remembrance commemorations which culminates in Remembrance Sunday on November 14, a Hampshire man has made an incredible discovery.
Historian, Brian Presland, from Chandler's Ford visited the Vienna Military Museum where the car which the archduke took his last fatal drive is preserved to this day.
When he got there, he was amazed to find that the car's number plate "A 11 11 18" makes an eerie prediction.
It clearly states the date of the Armistice when the First World War was finally declared over - November 11, 1918. It even has an "A" standing for Armistice at the front of the plate.
Brian even took a picture of the car to prove his extraordinary find - and looked up and black and white photo of the vehicle taken in 1914 - just hours before the archduke and his wife Sophie were assassinated - to prove his discovery was true.
Mr Presland, 68, said: "While researching at the Vienna Military Museum, I was accompanied by one of the directors.
"I mentioned the significance of the registration number. At first he could not believe it.
"We both immediately went to another part of the museum to where the car was on display and confirmed the registration number.
"He informed me that he had worked in the museum for 20 years and was unaware of the connection."
Within months of the archduke's murder by a group of Serbian nationalists - Europe was plunged into the carnage of World War One which by its end had cost millions of lives.
Nobody, least of all the archuke himself, would have been aware of his car predicting the exact date and year the war to end all wars finally finished.
Brian, of Parklands Close, currently collects hospital stamps sent by soldiers fighting for the long dead Austro-Hungarian Empire - one of the countries that disappeared at the end of the First World War.
He is still amazed by his find - and the unbelievable significance of the number plate on the archduke's car.
He added: "I thought that it was generally known. It is incredible isn't it?"
TWO BULLETS THAT STARTED A WAR:
TWO bullets fired on a Sarajevo street on a sunny June morning in 1914 set in motion a series of events that shaped the world in which we live today.
The First and Second World Wars, the Cold War and its conclusion - all can trace their origins to the gunshots that "echoed round the world" that summer.
The victims of the assassination, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, pictured, - heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife Sophie were in the city inspecting the Empire's troops.
But although the Austro-Hungarians claimed Bosnia as their own, there were claims from Serbian neighbours that the principality was Serbian territory.
The Archduke and his wife were killed by Serbian nationalist Princip but Serbia was widely blamed for inciting the murders.
Austria-Hungary decided to declare war on Serbia which called on its ally, Russia for aid. In the meantime, Germany decided to side with the Austro-Hungarians.
France entered into the fray as an ally of Russia and declared war on Germany. Britain too was forced to join the war as an ally of France.
The careful system of alliances between the so-called "Great Powers" of the 19th century came into play and the terrible carnage of the First World War began.
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I thought it was a bomb thrown in the car that killed the Archduke.
I thought the cart was destroyed in a bombing raid during World War Two.
I once had a licence plate that was my initials and my year of birth. Pure concidence.
I saw a license plate that said 28 IF, and there was a dead Beatle in the photo.
Should get a closeup of the plate. Doesn't look like room for five ones unless that's three of them real close together after the A.
A bomb was thrown at his motorcade earlier in the day, but it bounced off his car or otherwise missed and injured a couple of policemen or security people traveling with him.
The only reason that Franz Ferdinand was in the alley where he was shot, was that his driver made a wrong turn and had to stop and turn around to get back on the correct route. Princip just happened to be standing where he could charge forward and fire the two shots that killed Franz Ferdinand and his wife.
I've seen a picture of the police dogpiling on Princip immediately after the shooting...it's very eerily reminiscent of the TV footage from John Hinckley's attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981.
}:-)4
The plate was altered by Karl Rove for an election stealing scheme using the time machine the Bush administration confiscated from the military industrial complex. </sarcasm
Also McKinley's @ the worlds fair in upstate NY.
(A serb killer by the way)
No, they were both shot.
I LOVE that plate - seen it before.
Nostradomas predicted that a man, whose first begins with a "B", would see a license plate number, in a museum, that looked like it foretold the ending of a great trench war. Amazing.
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