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.

.

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