assassination at sarajevo june 28, 1914 oakmont sunday symposium may 4, 2014 bob kirk, ph.d.,...
TRANSCRIPT
Assassination at SarajevoJune 28, 1914
Oakmont Sunday SymposiumMay 4, 2014
Bob Kirk, Ph.D., Presenter
Topics this morning . . .
• The Archduke and the Hapsburg Dynasty• The assassination• Underlying tensions that led to war• How the war started• Why the war lasted four years• Why the results of the war were worse than
the war itself
Ferdinand and SophieMarried 1900. She was created Duchess of Hohenburg but was forbidden to stand or sit beside her husband in public ceremonies.
House of Habsburg
In 1276 Rudolf, Count of Habsburg, became Duke of Austria.The Habsburgs gained lands through marriage rather than war.
By 1867, Hapsburg rulers were Emperors of Austria and Kings of Hungary.
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The Hofburg, Vienna
Emperor of Austria-Hungary Franz Josef (1848-1916) was age 84 at the time of the assassination.
He was a conscientious monarch, but was extremely conservative.
He had already suffered several family tragedies.
Empress Elizabeth, 1837-1898Born a Bavarian princess, she married Franz Josef at 16.
She was obsessed with her own beauty and had to be sewn into corsets.
“Children are the curse of a woman!”
1898: Geneva
An Italian anarchist assassinated Empress Elizabeth.
She was Austria’s longest-reigning empress –- 44 years, but she was often off traveling.
1867: A firing squad ended the short reign of Franz Josef’s younger brother, Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico
d
1889: Rudolf and his teen lover Maria Vetsera killed themselves at Mayerling
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.He was Emperor Franz Josef’s nephew. When Crown Prince Rudolf died, he was next in line.
Konopiste Castle, Bohemia
Franz Ferdinand recorded an estimated 300,000 game kills, including 5,000 deer. He even went to Australia to shoot kangaroos.100,000 trophies are here at Konopiste Castle.
June 28, 1914
99 years, 10 months, and 10 days ago
Bosnia had been part of the crumbling Ottoman Empire
View of Sarajevo c. 2000
In Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand greets a well wisher. Duchess Sophie smiles.
Serb Black Hand formed in 1911 to unify all South Slavs under Serbia
Director “Apis” of Serbian Secret Service
Serbian Intelligence supplied• 6 hand grenades* 4 Browning automatic pistols and • ammoMoney• Suicide pills (ineffective)• Training
3rd car in a 6-car caravan. The governor was in the front
6 conspirators lined the route. Nedeljko Cabrinovic threw a grenade and wounded two in the fourth car. They were rushed to the hospital.
Cabrinovic swallowed an expired cyanide tablet and merely got sick. He then jumped into the Miljacka River, but it was only four-inches deep.
A scheduled visit to city hall minutes after the bomb explosion
The archduke demanded to go to the hospital to visit the wounded men. But Governor Oskar Potiorek forgot to tell the driver about the change of route.
The driver turned right on Franz Josef Street – - and there was Gavrilo Princip in front of Schiller’s Café.
The assassination took place just across this bridge
Bosnian terrorist Gavrilo Princip shot Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie
19-year old Gavrilo Princip
Who says kids can’t change the world?
The assassin apprehended
June 28, 1914: Three questions the average Santa Rosan may have asked:
•What’s an archduke?•Where the heck is Sarajevo?•Who won the ball game?
Yet, within a little more than a month,
this event would change the world
So what underlying tensions among the great European powers led to this?
1871: The German Empire is born
France lost Alsace-Lorraine in 1871
Germany was the leading member of the Triple Alliance, 1882
Kaiser Wilhelm loved to bully other nations
Wilhelm scared Czar Nicholas by not renewing the Reinsurance Treaty
The Kaiser frightens the British by building dreadnoughts
Triple Alliance v. Triple Entente
A small war or a gigantic war?• Most observers thought Austria-Hungary
would exact some retribution from Serbia and the problem would be contained.
• Diplomacy was highly refined and had prevented several crises in the last decade.
• Almost nobody expected a 4-year world war.
Germany planned to knock out France in six weeks, then turn on Russia
It all happened so fast . . .
• July 23 – Austria-Hungary ultimatum to Serbia• July 28 – Austria-Hungary attacks Serbia• July 29 – Russia mobilizes against A/H & Germany• August 1 – Germany mobilizes in east and west
and invades Luxembourg and Belgium• August 3 – Germany at war with France & Russia• August 3 – Italy declares neutrality• August 4 – Britain declares war on Germany
Four years of trench warfare
Let’s not forget the Armenian massacres
Vladimir Lenin proclaims Bolshevism
Wilson proposed Fourteen Points to end the war. None of the powers accepted them immediately.
April 1917: US enters the war
When U.S. troops arrived, Russia left the war. Back to stalemate . . .
1917 Sedition ActAmericans were tried and jailed for speaking out against the war. Some were still in jail in the 1930’s.
November 11, 1918• The Germans were starving• Revolution broke out in Berlin and
Munich• Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated
• Germany asked for an “armistice” on the basis of Wilson’s Fourteen Points
November 11, 1918
About 10 million died in the war
• But Woodrow Wilson thought if the victors could design a perfect peace, including the League of Nations, it would have been the “war to end all wars.”
• It turned out to be the war to end all peace.
As hard as is to believe, the consequences were far worse than the war
itself . . .
An unintended consequence: 50-100 million died from influenza
Hall of Mirrors: Treaty of Versailles
Germany lost 13% of land, 10% of population. World War II seems inevitable
The Treaty of Versailles did not acknowledge that the Allies had not actually won the war. At least one German wanted another go at it.
30 million were left as minorities
What the Allies promised the Arabs
What the Allies promised each other
Balfour Declaration, 1917: “a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine”
This jihadist wants revenge against the West
Yugoslavia was a nation 1918 to 1991.
In 1991 Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro tried to separate from Serbia. This caused a ruinous civil war.
Want the full story?
‘THE GREAT WAR AND ITS LEGACY’
Osher Life Long Learning-- this fall in Oakmont
Bob Kirk, Instructor
If only June 28, 1914 had been a ‘Spare the Heir’ Day
Thanks for listening
Bob Kirk