100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo

[lpetrich]

On June 28, 1914, Serbian-nationalist revolutionary terrorist Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg. Some of his fellow conspirators had earlier tried to do so by throwing bombs, but they failed.

Back then, Serbia had become independent, but Austria still ruled Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Sarajevo is.

The Archduke was Heir Apparent to Austria-Hungary's throne, and he advocated greater regional autonomy, like the Slavs having their own king as the Hungarians did. Some of his associates went even further, advocating a  United States of Greater Austria, where most of the nation's major ethnicities would have their own states in it. Gavrilo Princip and his friends wanted to stop such plans as making his fellow southern Slavs too content with Austrian rule.

Austria-Hungary back then had Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ukrainians, Romanians, Italians, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, ...

The New York Times thought Franz Ferdinand's assassination was good for peace - Vox on the ground that he supported an aggressively anti-Serbian foreign policy.


This war marked the end of what may be called the shifted nineteenth century, a century which started at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Three of the victors, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, formed the Holy Alliance to support monarchy and to suppress pro-democratic and ethnic-nationalist tendencies. Britain soon joined, and France joined in 1818. However, they were less than successful.

 

[bilby]

Princip's act was arguably one of the most successful terrorist killings in history; he wanted to defend Serbian independence, which at the time was pretty shaky; by triggering the Great War, he not only succeeded in preventing Austria-Hungary from annexing Serbia, but also sowed the seeds of the destruction of the Double Monarchy itself.

Imagine an IRA assassin killing a minor British prince in 1914, leading to not only an independent Irish state, but also the collapse of the entire British Empire by the 1920s. Quite the result there for the Serbs. Not quite so good for the millions who died, both in the first half (1914-18); and part deux (1939-45) obviously. But a top result for the un-fancied Serbians against higher league opponents, who were not just held to a draw as they were the previous clashes in 1912 and 1913; they were literally annihilated.

 

[steve_bnk]

And sections of Europe and the descendants of the Ottoman Empire are still at each other's throats.

 

[aeebee50]

War is Hell. WWI trained the players for WWII.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Princip's act was arguably one of the most successful terrorist killings in history; he wanted to defend Serbian independence, which at the time was pretty shaky; by triggering the Great War, he not only succeeded in preventing Austria-Hungary from annexing Serbia, but also sowed the seeds of the destruction of the Double Monarchy itself.

One has to wonder that based on the ending results of how the monarchies fell everywhere, whether WWI was an inevitability. Nearly the entire system vanished.

War is Hell. WWI trained the players for WWII.

Where the fuck do you come up with this shit? What "players" of WWII cut their teeth in WWI? And Hell has nothing on WWI. France lost 1.4 million soldiers. Overall 1 in 25 people died as a direct result of the war in France between 1914 and 1918. Trench warfare was about as stupid and as suicidal as war would ever get.

 

[steve_bnk]

WWI was a training ground for WWII military leadership.


Prominent Americans

Eisenhower
George Marshall
Patton
Nimitz
Halsey
MacArthur


And a host of British and German counterparts inluding.


Rommel
Guderian
Montgomery
Churchill

The WWI trench warfare stalement led to the WWII tactics of mobile attack coordinated with air and tank support.

 

[pegasus8]

The 19th century Balkans Wars of independence was the powder keg for WW1 and its resulting continuance of WW2!

Most of the technologies used in WW2 were developed in WW1 especially towards the end.And we all know that most of the players had done duty in WW1 that would figure prominently in WW2.

The battle of Jutland and Coronel strongly influence naval tactics till the advent of carrier warfare.
Submarines influence naval warfare, developed in WW1, that are still used today.
Air warfare and automatice weapons technologies were all developed in WW1 that were used and refined in WW2.
The list goes on and on.

The main thing that blew up in everyones face for WW1 were all these stupid secret treaties. If Serbia was attacked Russia would come to its aid. And if Austro-Hungarian was attacked by Russia then Germany would attack Russia and so on and so forth. After the Franco-Prussia War the French knew who and what this was was going to be all about. IMO if Germany would have stuck to its Scheffield Plan, sp?, in 1914 the war would have ben over in that year. But the French army was no way in hell in seeing the Germans in Paris again in a lifetime! The French fought till its armies started to mutiny! And little Serbia was a favorite of the French. Hence her armies being supplied with French armaments and equipment.

Poor little Serbia. Its people suffered so much and were so brave in fighting the Austro-Hungarians. And the Austro-Hungarians were so conceited and its armies were made up of 20-30 different nationalities that it was a huge house of cards. The Austrians in Vienna ruled with an iron fist and had excellent equipment that it could field huge armies till the end. They fought both Russia and Italy by the millions till the Germans needed to bale them out towards the end. Those brave poor Serbs back then.

Peace

Pegasus

 

[Sarpedon]

I was reading how Franz Ferdinand was planning on turning the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a sort of 'United States of Central Europe,' with multiple geographically and culturally homogenous semi-autonomous regions, united by common institutions and Emperor. Basically, it would extend the same sort of agreement austria had with hungary to the various ethnic groups of the empire. Czechs, Romanians, Croatians, Bosnians, Slovakians, Ruthenians, would all get recognized. Papers to this effect were found in his palace after his death. He worked through several different schemes.

It was a scheme of breathtaking boldness. It would certainly be a threat to Serbia, being an alternative to nationalism.

 

[SLD]

The New York Times thought Franz Ferdinand's assassination was good for peace - Vox on the ground that he supported an aggressively anti-Serbian foreign policy.


.

The New York Times then did not understand the Archduke. He was the only one holding back the Austrians from starting a war against Serbia. He knew it would lead to war with Russia and that would be a disaster for both Monarchies. He was actually quite smart and prescient. His assassination did not so much precipitate the war as simply removing the primary obstacle that was reining in the Austrian Army whose chief of staff was chomping at the bit constantly to invade
Serbia.

What is so interesting about this is the total misjudgement by Austrian policy makers. They really thought that with Germany backing them Russia would back down. They totally miscalculated the situation. They also waited too many weeks between the assassination and their ultimatum. Crazy.

 

[credoconsolans]

I was reading how Franz Ferdinand was planning on turning the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a sort of 'United States of Central Europe,' with multiple geographically and culturally homogenous semi-autonomous regions, united by common institutions and Emperor. Basically, it would extend the same sort of agreement austria had with hungary to the various ethnic groups of the empire. Czechs, Romanians, Croatians, Bosnians, Slovakians, Ruthenians, would all get recognized. Papers to this effect were found in his palace after his death. He worked through several different schemes.

It was a scheme of breathtaking boldness. It would certainly be a threat to Serbia, being an alternative to nationalism.

Wonder if the Serbs would have been better off.

Texas is better off as a state, rather than it's own nation. The south of the US is better off as part of the greater nation than on its own. One of the republics of the former Soviet Union threw in the towel on their independence recently. Unable to afford being independent.

 

[lpetrich]

One of the republics of the former Soviet Union threw in the towel on their independence recently. Unable to afford being independent.

Which one? I haven't seen any news that suggests that.

 

[credoconsolans]

One of the republics of the former Soviet Union threw in the towel on their independence recently. Unable to afford being independent.

Which one? I haven't seen any news that suggests that.

This was several months ago. I may be mistaken. I can't recall when exactly or even what country it was.

 

[Sarpedon]

Serbia was already independent at that time. The issue was that they wanted to annex other Serbo-Croatian speaking areas: I.e. Croatia and Bosnia, which were still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Giving them autonomy within the Empire was a threat to Serbia's attempts to get them to rebel and join Serbia.

 

[Turambar]

Wonder if the Serbs would have been better off.

Texas is better off as a state, rather than it's own nation. The south of the US is better off as part of the greater nation than on its own. One of the republics of the former Soviet Union threw in the towel on their independence recently. Unable to afford being independent.

Well, it's been a 100 years since but the decisions made back then still haunt Europe. My opinion may be biased because I am half Austrian, but to me Serbia's decision was for the worst. I mean, here we are a century and two world wars later, and Austria is a functioning model democracy with an advanced living standard while Serbia is no were near close. Makes you wonder whether all the ethnic nationalisms from back then really brought something good for the people or just made tiny local elites richer and more powerful. Even under Tito Serbia was better off, which makes me wonder why nationalisms refuse to die.... Is it something parents pass on to their children? I never understood it because I am of mixed ethnic origin and lived in many countries, never really developing true nationalistic feelings for any land.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

World War One, when Western Civilization put a gun to its head and pulled the trigger.

I look at it as the first act of the Twentieth Century War, 1914-1989.

Serbia (and Serbians) had some reason to act boldly, they were being backed by powerful allies. The major powers were lining up in a major grudge match, starting with the alliance between France and Russia in an attempt to encircle Germany. The 19th Century had seen a series of Franco-Prussian conflicts as a united Germany threatened French continental dominance, and a united Germany also threatened British maritime dominance.

With Russia had reasons to rival the Germans and the Ottomans, and so backed the Serbs. Germany was building alliances with the various non-colonial powers, Austria-Hungary and the declining Ottoman Empire, as well as Italy (but that didn't work out so well for Germany).

World War One could have been the last of the Franco-Prussian wars instead of the start of the Twentieth Century War, but the worst President in US History decided that the US had to get involved. From the start the foreign policy of the US was biased towards the western powers against the central powers, with loans and sales of military equipment, and loans of the money to buy that military equipment, going to Britain and France, while participating in excluding Germany. Small wonder that Germany saw the US as a threat and foolishly sent the Zimmerman telegram to Mexico. Even today the British government won't allow divers to investigate the wreckage of the Lusitania and look at all the munitions in the cargo of that ship, because it was indeed hauling munitions. It's an open secret. And according to the laws of armed conflict, while civilian vessels aren't valid targets any cargo ship carrying war materials IS a valid target. The US deliberately put munitions on a civilian cruise ship in order to put Germany in a dilemma of either allowing munitions to pass or to attack a ship with civilians on it.

When the US finally entered WWI, it was more a final step than a major leap from non-participant to participant.

 

[Bomb#20]

World War One, when Western Civilization put a gun to its head and pulled the trigger.

I look at it as the first act of the Twentieth Century War, 1914-1989.

Second act of 1912-1999.

Serbia (and Serbians) had some reason to act boldly,

It always seems to work out that way...