The Great War

   Welcome to Friday with Joe McDonnell

   On this day in 1914 Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo. Exactly five years and 15 to 19 million deaths later, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending the First World War.
   Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb who got involved with the Black Hand, a Serbian secret military society, that was trying to unite all the south Serbs into a single Yugoslavia. Bosnia had been taken over by the Austrians just five years earlier as its old master, the Ottoman Empire, was falling apart.
   Archduke Ferdinand had said that when he became emperor, he would give parts of his empire such as Bosnia more autonomy. If that happened it would be harder for Serbia to pry Bosnia loose from the Austrian Empire. The Black Hand decided the Archduke had to go. They stationed six potential assassins armed with bombs or pistols along the route the Archduke's motorcade would take on his visit to Bosnia's capital.
   As the motorcade rolled slowly along, the first two assassins lost their nerve and did nothing. The third threw his bomb, but it landed in the street, exploding under one of the following cars. Several people were injured in the explosion. The assassin took a cyanide pill and jumped in the river. The pill was old and only made him sick. Also, the river was only four inched deep at the time and he was quickly captured.
   The motorcade now sped up and raced past the other three assassins. Gavrilo Princip went to lunch. The Archduke went to City Hall to give a speech. He and Sophie decided to visit the people who had been injured by the bomb. No one told the driver about the plan to go to the hospital and he took a wrong turn onto the street where Gavrilo had just had his lunch. When the driver tried to back up, the engine stalled and Gavrilo stepped forward and shot the Archduke and Sophie. They both died within the hour.
   Gavrilo swallowed a cyanide tablet, but it was worthless. He tried to shoot himself, but was wrestled to the ground. He was a small man and not strong. During the investigation, Serbia was implicated in the assassination. Austria demanded that Serbia suppress organizations like the Black Hand. Serbia refused and Austria attacked the Serbian capital. Russia. Serbia's ally, began to mobilize its army to defend Serbia. This upset Austria's ally Germany, which declared war on Russia. France and Britain were dragged in by their alliances with Russia, and soon all Europe was involved in a great slaughter.
   Even without the assassination, war would have broken out at some point. Europe was primed for it. Germany lusted after Belgium's coal and iron deposits. It also wanted to knock Russia down. France wanted a chance to get back the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine it had lost to Germany in 1870. Gavrilo was just the spark that set off the powder keg.
   As for Gavrilo, he was 19 at the time of the assassination, twenty-seven days too young to receive the death penalty. Instead, he was given a 20 year prison sentence. Life in prison was harsh and he soon contracted tuberculosis, which led to the amputation of an arm and to his death in 1918 while the war was still going on.
   Serbs consider Gavrilo a freedom fighter. Bosnians consider him a terrorist. His house in Sarajevo has been torn down and rebuilt three times over the decades, depending on who's in power. It's currently torn down. The Treaty of Versailles that was signed on this day five years after the assassination was slowly altered until it was superseded  by World War II.  It's been seventy-three years since the last of the dead from that war were buried. Sabers are rattling down in the Persian Gulf. Should we be worried?

Assassination weapon, a single match to set the fire going.