Sup HL fam, today marks the 100th anniversary of World War I. 100 years ago today, Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip.
Official World War I Thread: 100th Anniversary
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The archducal couple were on their way to a civic reception in the yellow-and orange-banded city hall, an endowment of the Hapsburg era that borrowed from Moorish Spain, when the violence began, with a conspirator tossing a homemade bomb from a bridge over the Miljacka River. It bounced off the folded canopy of the archduke’s car before exploding.
What ensued stands as a monument to imperial folly and to the role of chance and mischance in history. Shortly before 11 a.m., the couple left the reception, deeply shaken by the bombing but determined to see the day’s formalities through. With the archduke in a military tunic and helmet, and the duchess in a dress of white filigreed lace with a matching hat and parasol, they headed back along the lightly guarded Miljacka embankment — and, 500 yards on, to their fateful encounter with Princip.
Among the largely Catholic Croats and some Bosnian Muslims, many of whom looked to the authorities in Vienna at the time of the assassination for protection against Balkan domination by the mainly Orthodox Serbs, it is more common to condemn Princip as an anarchist or terrorist, as the Sarajevo court did when it sentenced him to 20 years’ imprisonment. He died of tuberculosis, proud and unrepentant, in a Hungarian prison in 1918.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/w...gavrilo-princip-set-off-world-war-i.html?_r=0
What ensued stands as a monument to imperial folly and to the role of chance and mischance in history. Shortly before 11 a.m., the couple left the reception, deeply shaken by the bombing but determined to see the day’s formalities through. With the archduke in a military tunic and helmet, and the duchess in a dress of white filigreed lace with a matching hat and parasol, they headed back along the lightly guarded Miljacka embankment — and, 500 yards on, to their fateful encounter with Princip.
Among the largely Catholic Croats and some Bosnian Muslims, many of whom looked to the authorities in Vienna at the time of the assassination for protection against Balkan domination by the mainly Orthodox Serbs, it is more common to condemn Princip as an anarchist or terrorist, as the Sarajevo court did when it sentenced him to 20 years’ imprisonment. He died of tuberculosis, proud and unrepentant, in a Hungarian prison in 1918.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/w...gavrilo-princip-set-off-world-war-i.html?_r=0
Ferdinand was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and because of a tangle of alliances, Princip’s shots quickly escalated into the The Great War.
Archduke Ferdinand enjoyed traveling to the outposts of the empire, where protocol rules were much more relaxed than in Vienna, where his wife, a Bohemian countess, was deemed unsuitable for the dynasty, according to Habsburg rule. Sophie was aristocratic but not royal, so her marriage came with restrictions—their children had no right to aspire the throne and she could not appear at Ferdinand’s side at most major events.
The archduke visited Sarajevo despite warnings of anti-Austro-Hungarian sentiment among the Serbian population of the city.
"The weekend that the archduke and Sophie visited Sarajevo the movie theaters were showing two films that foreshadowed the horrible events that would follow. The Apollo was showing ‘A Shot at Midnight,’ and the Imperial ‘A World Without Men,” said Dr. James Lyon, Ph.D., author of the upcoming book “Serbia and the Balkan Front, 1914: The Outbreak of the Great War."
On the final day of their state visit, security for the royal couple had thinned, leaving them vulnerable. Sarajevo had a police force of about 200 policemen.
"Approximately 120 of the police force had turned out that day to provide security for the visit of the crown prince of the entire empire," said Lyon. Army units were unavailable because their uniforms were muddy - and not presentable for the royal visit - from field maneuvers the had performed the previous day.
The route of their procession to the civic reception in the town hall was published in local newspapers. Their Gräf & Stift open touring car made Ferdinand an easy mark.
In addition, there were seven assassins to be stationed along the route, each equipped with a pistol, a bomb and a cyanide pill to swallow if captured.
Three main plotters were recruited by a secret “Black Hand” in the cafes in Belgrade. "Black Hand" was dedicated to overthrowing the Austro-Hungarian rule. To them, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a worthy target. Hot-tempered and arrogant, he was an unpopular prince.
Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic learned about the plot and tried to warn Vienna through Dr Leon Von Bilinski, Austria’s finance minister. Von Bilinski was told that if Franz Ferdinand would go to Sarajevo, “Some young Serb might put a live rather than a blank cartridge in his gun and fire it.”
At a bridge where the first two attackers were suppose to strike, nothing happened. When the third assassin threw his bomb at the archduke, seated in a second of six vehicles motorcade, it bounces of his car and exploded under a fourth car, wounding Count Boos-Waldeck,
Princip, a gaunt Bosnian Serb, Slav nationalist, was standing at the next bridge. He heard the bomb blast and assumed that the attack had succeeded. He was caught unprepared when the procession sped past him him to the town hall, with the archduke alive and well.
Princip wandered off to Moritz Schiller’s Delicatessen, located on the corner where Appel Quuay meets the Latin Bridge.
At the town hall, the archduke complained angrily. "Mr. Mayor, I came here on a visit, and I get bombs thrown at me," he declared. "It is outrageous."
But the police assured him that they had everything under control.
“While they were in the city hall following the bomb attack, Lt. Gen. Oskar Potiorek… who was also responsible for the archduke’s security, said that he considered another attack unlikely. Dr. Gerde, the commissioner of police, agreed with him,” said Lyon.
A request for two companies of soldiers to line the streets and evacuate the parade route was rejected because of the dirty uniforms, Lyon said.
The only added security precaution was to change the return route of the imperial procession. But the bungling police forgot to tell the chauffeur of the lead car about the change, so he made a wrong turn at the bridge into a narrow Franz Joseph alley, then had to stop and back out.
“It was a case of dumb luck,” said Lyon.
That maneuver forced the archduke's car to a halt, right where Princip happened to be standing.
"I got hold of my handgun and aimed it at the car without really looking," Princip later testified. "I even looked away when I fired.”
One shot hit the archduke in the jugular vein in the neck, the other struck the archduchess in the abdomen. "For God's sake, what has happened to you?" the archduchess cried out to her stricken husband. He screamed, although gravely wounded, “Sophie, Sophie! Don’t die. Live for my children!"
Princip swallowed his cyanide pill, but it made him vomit, he was not harmed and an angry mob took his pistol from him.
Princip was convicted of murder, but could not execute him because he was a minor. Sentenced to 20 years, he died of tuberculosis in prison in 1918.
"Each and every one of them said at the trial, and later said during their imprisonment, that had they known that such a horrendous war would ensue, they would never have taken part in the activities of June 28," Lyon said.
http://abcnews.go.com/International...rld-war-game-thrones-script/story?id=24346773
Archduke Ferdinand enjoyed traveling to the outposts of the empire, where protocol rules were much more relaxed than in Vienna, where his wife, a Bohemian countess, was deemed unsuitable for the dynasty, according to Habsburg rule. Sophie was aristocratic but not royal, so her marriage came with restrictions—their children had no right to aspire the throne and she could not appear at Ferdinand’s side at most major events.
The archduke visited Sarajevo despite warnings of anti-Austro-Hungarian sentiment among the Serbian population of the city.
"The weekend that the archduke and Sophie visited Sarajevo the movie theaters were showing two films that foreshadowed the horrible events that would follow. The Apollo was showing ‘A Shot at Midnight,’ and the Imperial ‘A World Without Men,” said Dr. James Lyon, Ph.D., author of the upcoming book “Serbia and the Balkan Front, 1914: The Outbreak of the Great War."
On the final day of their state visit, security for the royal couple had thinned, leaving them vulnerable. Sarajevo had a police force of about 200 policemen.
"Approximately 120 of the police force had turned out that day to provide security for the visit of the crown prince of the entire empire," said Lyon. Army units were unavailable because their uniforms were muddy - and not presentable for the royal visit - from field maneuvers the had performed the previous day.
The route of their procession to the civic reception in the town hall was published in local newspapers. Their Gräf & Stift open touring car made Ferdinand an easy mark.
In addition, there were seven assassins to be stationed along the route, each equipped with a pistol, a bomb and a cyanide pill to swallow if captured.
Three main plotters were recruited by a secret “Black Hand” in the cafes in Belgrade. "Black Hand" was dedicated to overthrowing the Austro-Hungarian rule. To them, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a worthy target. Hot-tempered and arrogant, he was an unpopular prince.
Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic learned about the plot and tried to warn Vienna through Dr Leon Von Bilinski, Austria’s finance minister. Von Bilinski was told that if Franz Ferdinand would go to Sarajevo, “Some young Serb might put a live rather than a blank cartridge in his gun and fire it.”
At a bridge where the first two attackers were suppose to strike, nothing happened. When the third assassin threw his bomb at the archduke, seated in a second of six vehicles motorcade, it bounces of his car and exploded under a fourth car, wounding Count Boos-Waldeck,
Princip, a gaunt Bosnian Serb, Slav nationalist, was standing at the next bridge. He heard the bomb blast and assumed that the attack had succeeded. He was caught unprepared when the procession sped past him him to the town hall, with the archduke alive and well.
Princip wandered off to Moritz Schiller’s Delicatessen, located on the corner where Appel Quuay meets the Latin Bridge.
At the town hall, the archduke complained angrily. "Mr. Mayor, I came here on a visit, and I get bombs thrown at me," he declared. "It is outrageous."
But the police assured him that they had everything under control.
“While they were in the city hall following the bomb attack, Lt. Gen. Oskar Potiorek… who was also responsible for the archduke’s security, said that he considered another attack unlikely. Dr. Gerde, the commissioner of police, agreed with him,” said Lyon.
A request for two companies of soldiers to line the streets and evacuate the parade route was rejected because of the dirty uniforms, Lyon said.
The only added security precaution was to change the return route of the imperial procession. But the bungling police forgot to tell the chauffeur of the lead car about the change, so he made a wrong turn at the bridge into a narrow Franz Joseph alley, then had to stop and back out.
“It was a case of dumb luck,” said Lyon.
That maneuver forced the archduke's car to a halt, right where Princip happened to be standing.
"I got hold of my handgun and aimed it at the car without really looking," Princip later testified. "I even looked away when I fired.”
One shot hit the archduke in the jugular vein in the neck, the other struck the archduchess in the abdomen. "For God's sake, what has happened to you?" the archduchess cried out to her stricken husband. He screamed, although gravely wounded, “Sophie, Sophie! Don’t die. Live for my children!"
Princip swallowed his cyanide pill, but it made him vomit, he was not harmed and an angry mob took his pistol from him.
Princip was convicted of murder, but could not execute him because he was a minor. Sentenced to 20 years, he died of tuberculosis in prison in 1918.
"Each and every one of them said at the trial, and later said during their imprisonment, that had they known that such a horrendous war would ensue, they would never have taken part in the activities of June 28," Lyon said.
http://abcnews.go.com/International...rld-war-game-thrones-script/story?id=24346773
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The War to End All Wars actually went on to start countless wars include the biggest one ever.
Dan Carlin has a great podcast on this , its The Blue Print For Armageddon, he has 3 parts up for free on tuneinradio, there each from two and half hours to 3 and half hours long
http://tunein.com/radio/Dan-Carlins-Hardcore-History-p330914/
http://tunein.com/radio/Dan-Carlins-Hardcore-History-p330914/
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
What a waste of lives. However, it did cripple European imperialism so...
Very important moment in history.
NZA
LOL
makes you wonder...was it tasteful for ubi soft to release a ww1 game a few days ago? is it still too soon?
Actually the assassination of Archduke and his wife had nothing to do with starting WW1. That was a myth.
What a waste of lives. However, it did cripple European imperialism so...
I'm not sure this statement has much truth to it.
Please expalin
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
European imperialism was crippled when a generation of potential European colonizers, powerbrokers, politicians and artists were slaughtered in the trenches. Furthermore, it led to World War II which really help facilitate the decolonization process in the rest of the World. So yes, the ability for Europeans to dominate the world was severely crippled when they chose to mass-murder each other from 1914-1918.
So your point is that colonization ended and the Imperialist left? I say you're going on a typical coli militant rant with no real understanding of the 20th century geopolitical scene.
"A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet"....remember that the next time you think European imperialism was "crippled"
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
you're going to educate me on the impact that the First World War had on the power of European imperalist states? Hahaha. Please sir, enlighten me