This Day In History - World War I June 28, 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated

http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=705 ^

[mainepatsfan]

1914 : Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated

In an event that is widely acknowledged to have sparked the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is shot to death along with his wife by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on this day in 1914.

The great Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck, the man most responsible for the unification of Germany in 1871, was quoted as saying at the end of his life that “One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.” It went as he predicted.

The archduke traveled to Sarajevo in June 1914 to inspect the imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, former Ottoman territories in the turbulent Balkan region that were annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908 to the indignation of Serbian nationalists, who believed they should become part of the newly independent and ambitious Serbian nation. The date scheduled for his visit, June 28, coincided with the anniversary of the First Battle of Kosovo in 1389, in which medieval Serbia was defeated by the Turks. Despite the fact that Serbia did not truly lose its independence until the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448, June 28 was a day of great significance to Serbian nationalists, and one on which they could be expected to take exception to a demonstration of Austrian imperial strength in Bosnia.

[mainepatsfan]

Well at least things are much more peaceful in the Balkans these days. /s

[Moose4]

You think we hold grudges here in the South? We ain’t got NOTHIN’ on the Balkans.

}:-)4

[Red Badger]

There was a second gunman behind the wall over by the grassy knoll.............

[Mikey_1962]

It could be argued that Gavrilo Princip with a few bullets did more to change Western history in the shortest period of time than anyone else before or after.

[GreenLanternCorps]

The Balkans have produced more history than can be consumed locally...

[mainepatsfan]

LOL.

[IndyTiger]

Yep. The world was never the same thereafter. The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman, is an excellent read on this.

[mainepatsfan]

There were plenty of other conspirators...they just didn’t get the job done.

[mainepatsfan]

Yeah I’m not sure it could even be taught in one semester.

[meowmeow]

That is one part of the world where I can almost say that Communism was the best thing to happen to them. At least it kept them out of trouble for a few decades.

[mainepatsfan]

It is. The back and forth between Germany and Russia is maddening to read about.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

It is a good read, even though Tuchman is a lefty. The big problem with WWI was with the Kaiser, and his “blank check” to Austria. No one realized how devastating the war would become. Some wars are fought to defeat tyranny, but WWI was just plain stupid.

[Eternal_Bear]

More like Kaiser Wilhelm II who gave undconditional support for whatever revenge the Austrians wanted and they wanted a lot: basically de facto control of Serbia. It was something the Russians could and would not accept. Everyone began mobilizing; once that began, it could not be stopped as the Schlieffen Plan (Invasion of France) was based on a tight schedule.

[mainepatsfan]

Gave them a blanc check and then he goes frigen cruising on his yacht!!

[mainepatsfan]

Agreed. Once mobilization had started there was no turning back.

[Verginius Rufus]

Instead of Tuchman, I would recommend David Fromkin's Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? (2004, Vintage Books edition 2005)...very readable and more scholarly and accurate than Tuchman.

When I was a student, Tuchman came to give a talk at my campus...but only women were allowed to attend...men were excluded.

[thulldud]

When I was a student, Tuchman came to give a talk at my campus...but only women were allowed to attend...men were excluded.

Say what? How did that come about?

[Southack]

End of WW1 day/time ping.

[Southack]

"The big problem with WWI was with the Kaiser, and his “blank check” to Austria. No one realized how devastating the war would become. Some wars are fought to defeat tyranny, but WWI was just plain stupid."

It was just an extension of the colonial wars that the European powers had fought for centuries, except that it was finally on their own home turf...and that the news media was finally large enough and fast enough and close enough that the follies of how wars were fought by that mindset made it into the public's consciousness.

Repeated charges by unprotected footsoldiers (called "infant"ry because they were supposed to be young and stupid) into fixed defenses of mines, barbed wire, artillery, and machine-gun fire, for instance.

Generals who wasted 100,000 European kids in a single day on charges over mere yards of worthless dirt kept their jobs.

The war ended up being so devastating that whole cultures changed. France lost its warrior class, for example. Colonies in Africa and Asia could no longer be dependably held by the Europeans, either.

They shot away their own global wealth, and would have continued to so do had Blackjack Pershing (and British tanks used en masse) not changed the game circa 1917.

[VOA]

"When I was a student, Tuchman came to give a talk at my campus...
but only women were allowed to attend...men were excluded.

Egad!
If you don't mind, please give us the name of said college/university.

That's a factoid I'll want at hand when my neice goes shopping
for a college/university.