Happy WWI Centennial

100 years ago today some nobody, named Gavrilo Princip, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the thrones of Austria and Hungary. Princip was an ~anarchist dedicated to “destroy the present system through terrorism”, a poor shot, and a failure at pretty much everything he had previously attempted in life. He was, however, a useful tool for Serbian military intelligence. Despite already being an independent nation in an alliance with Russia, Serbia (or at least many of its military leaders) in its own wider territorial ambitions, sought to antagonize and destabilize Austria-Hungary as a matter of policy.

Ferdinand knew that Austria-Hungary was in a tenuous position: ethnic Austrians and Hungarians were the only people with political power, despite being less than 50% of the population in an empire of around 10 major ethnic groups. The dualist system could not last, and Ferdinand saw the greater distribution of power into a federation of states as the only salvation, which he called the United States of Great Austria. He went far enough as to have a map drawn up, shown below. Interestingly, the map did not include Bosnia, then part of Austria-Hungary, perhaps indicating his willingness to cede land that was more trouble to hold than it was worth to him. I’m really just guessing at that part though.

His feelings towards the potential for war in the Balkans were summed up in a dinner toast he once gave:

“To peace. What would we get out of war with Serbia? We’d lose the lives of young men and we’d spend money better used elsewhere. And what would we gain for Heaven’s sake? A few plum trees, some pastures full of goat droppings, and a bunch of rebellious killers[1].”

But reform within the system was not part of Princip’s world-view. When it became public that Ferdinand would visit Sarajevo, Princip and his co-conspirators were equipped with bombs, guns, and suicide pills from Serbian military intelligence. A bomb was thrown at Ferdinand’s car, and missed. Ferdinand stubbornly carried on with the schedule of his visit. Later in the day, and by complete chance, his car would make a wrong turn onto the street that Princip happened to be on, probably sulking about having failed yet again at something he set out to do. He was close enough to actually hit his target, while also missing a few times and hitting Ferdinand’s wife Sophie.

Ferdinand's last words to his wife were “Sophie, Sophie, don’t die, stay alive for the children.” Neither of them were able to, and tens of millions of others would die as well. WWI led to the Russian Revolution, which led to millions of deaths and suffering in Russia itself under communist rule. The stupid structure of the peace treaty ending WWI led to WWII, which led to the Cold War. And the Cold War did a good job of subjugating a great many peoples’ aspirations for self-rule and freedom.

Now the realities of the time suggest many of these events might have happened anyway. And the events that the assassination led to were made much more devastating by the incompetence of many people. But it’s a useful lesson that one asshole who dreamed of destroying "the system" ended up killing a reformist (relative to the time) proponent of peace, thus turning him into a symbol for war, and leading to well over 10 million deaths in WWI alone. What would we get out of war indeed. What would we get out of dim witted chumps who think "bringing down the system" is a legitimate solution to our problems.





1. I'm just quoting. Yes that is a discriminatory thing to say. But damn, burn on Serbia.