"And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye not be troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows"
Matthew 24:6-8
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
One hundred years ago today, the world ended.
All right not technically, I am still sitting at my desk typing and the sun is still shining in the window so the ball we live on called Earth still exists. But a way of life, of ideals, a set of ethics and morality ended today, Western Civilization began its slow end. An man was murdered, which set off a chain reaction that would result in a war that changed the world forever. A plot device of books, movies, and television today is the apocalypse and the post apocalyptic world. I would posit that an apocalypse has come already. I said an apocalypse, not the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse really will end everything, and will come when Human History has reached its end, and God comes to remake the world. The Great War was however, an apocalypse, as we are still reeling in its effects one hundred years later.
In June of 1914, Austria-Hungary was the weakest of the European powers, and was very sensitive because of this. It's southern neighbor, Serbia, was a backward, aggressive and rather violent Christian kingdom that had just recently won its independence from the Muslim Ottoman Turks. But not all Serbians were Serbs, a good many of them were Austrians, by historical accident. The Serbian Serbs did not appreciate this large minority of Hapsburg Austrians and their big brother to the north, Austria itself. Many among them were, in fact, prepared to kill to get these Austrians out.
Austria and its ever changing collection of satellite nations had been ruled by the Hapsburg Dynasty ever since 1279. The Hapsburg Army's summer maneuvers in 1914 were held in Bosnia, a former Muslim province of Serbia that had been occupied by Austria in 1878 and annexed in 1908 . Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the nephew of the emperor, the heir apparent, and the Inspector General of the army. He arrived in Bosnia on June 25, 1914 to supervise and once the maneuvers were over, he and his wife drove to the capital, Sarajevo, for some official engagements. The Archduke really could not have chosen a worse time to visit Bosnia. June 28th, the next day, was the anniversary of the defeat of Serbia by the Turks in 1389. To the Bosniaks, it must have been like they had thrown off one oppressor only to gain another. His Excellency was warned that his visit was not welcome and could be dangerous, but he proceeded anyway. A murder team lay in wait for him, consisting of five young Serbs and a Bosnian Muslim. On the way to the governor's residence, one of the conspirators threw a bomb at the Archduke's car. It bounced off and exploded under the car, injuring another occupant. Forty-five minutes later, the Archduke and his wife were on the way to the hospital to visit the casualty of the previous attack when the chauffeur took a wrong turn and came to a stop while turning the car around. This brought them in range of another conspirator who stepped forward and fired a pistol at them. The Archduke's wife Sophie (a woman he had all but given up the throne to marry, out of love) died instantly, the Archduke himself expired ten minutes later. The assasin, Gavrilo Princip, was arrested on the spot.
The dying words of Franz Ferdinand were "Sophie, Sophie,don't die! Stay alive for our children. Sophie was an impoverished Czech aristocrat, considered unworthy of her husband by the rest of the powerful Hapsburg family. Archduke Ferdinand knew that his beloved wife would not be allowed burial in the Hapsburg crypt in Vienna, therefore, according to his earlier directions, he was buried beside Sophie at Arsetten Castle in Austria.
This assassination started a chain of events that would result in a shocking war that surprised everyone, but everyone wanted at the same time. I will cover the events of that fateful summer in the days to come. Today is to remember the man and his wife whose deaths ended the world.
All right not technically, I am still sitting at my desk typing and the sun is still shining in the window so the ball we live on called Earth still exists. But a way of life, of ideals, a set of ethics and morality ended today, Western Civilization began its slow end. An man was murdered, which set off a chain reaction that would result in a war that changed the world forever. A plot device of books, movies, and television today is the apocalypse and the post apocalyptic world. I would posit that an apocalypse has come already. I said an apocalypse, not the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse really will end everything, and will come when Human History has reached its end, and God comes to remake the world. The Great War was however, an apocalypse, as we are still reeling in its effects one hundred years later.
In June of 1914, Austria-Hungary was the weakest of the European powers, and was very sensitive because of this. It's southern neighbor, Serbia, was a backward, aggressive and rather violent Christian kingdom that had just recently won its independence from the Muslim Ottoman Turks. But not all Serbians were Serbs, a good many of them were Austrians, by historical accident. The Serbian Serbs did not appreciate this large minority of Hapsburg Austrians and their big brother to the north, Austria itself. Many among them were, in fact, prepared to kill to get these Austrians out.
Austria and its ever changing collection of satellite nations had been ruled by the Hapsburg Dynasty ever since 1279. The Hapsburg Army's summer maneuvers in 1914 were held in Bosnia, a former Muslim province of Serbia that had been occupied by Austria in 1878 and annexed in 1908 . Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the nephew of the emperor, the heir apparent, and the Inspector General of the army. He arrived in Bosnia on June 25, 1914 to supervise and once the maneuvers were over, he and his wife drove to the capital, Sarajevo, for some official engagements. The Archduke really could not have chosen a worse time to visit Bosnia. June 28th, the next day, was the anniversary of the defeat of Serbia by the Turks in 1389. To the Bosniaks, it must have been like they had thrown off one oppressor only to gain another. His Excellency was warned that his visit was not welcome and could be dangerous, but he proceeded anyway. A murder team lay in wait for him, consisting of five young Serbs and a Bosnian Muslim. On the way to the governor's residence, one of the conspirators threw a bomb at the Archduke's car. It bounced off and exploded under the car, injuring another occupant. Forty-five minutes later, the Archduke and his wife were on the way to the hospital to visit the casualty of the previous attack when the chauffeur took a wrong turn and came to a stop while turning the car around. This brought them in range of another conspirator who stepped forward and fired a pistol at them. The Archduke's wife Sophie (a woman he had all but given up the throne to marry, out of love) died instantly, the Archduke himself expired ten minutes later. The assasin, Gavrilo Princip, was arrested on the spot.
The dying words of Franz Ferdinand were "Sophie, Sophie,don't die! Stay alive for our children. Sophie was an impoverished Czech aristocrat, considered unworthy of her husband by the rest of the powerful Hapsburg family. Archduke Ferdinand knew that his beloved wife would not be allowed burial in the Hapsburg crypt in Vienna, therefore, according to his earlier directions, he was buried beside Sophie at Arsetten Castle in Austria.
This assassination started a chain of events that would result in a shocking war that surprised everyone, but everyone wanted at the same time. I will cover the events of that fateful summer in the days to come. Today is to remember the man and his wife whose deaths ended the world.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand's Uniform
