Nedeljko Cabrinovic... threw a bomb and missed, wounding an official in the motorcade behind the archduke. Franz Ferdinand ordered the driver to stop. He got out and walked back to inspect the damage and the wounded people....
[After giving a speech at City Hall — "What kind of welcome is this? I'm being met by bombs!"—], the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne got back into his motorcade with his wife, Sophie. They had decided to visit the hospital to see the people who were wounded in the bomb attack.
But no one told the driver. At that fateful intersection, the car was supposed to go straight — but it turned right. A general in the motorcade shouted, "You're going the wrong way!"
And the driver stopped the car... right in front of assassin number seven. Gavrilo Princip, who had missed his chance the first time, was standing on the sidewalk 4 feet away from the car — at the only place on the route where the car stopped.
As they lay dying in the car, Franz Ferdinand pleaded with his wife, "Stay alive, Sophie, for the sake of the children."
June 28, 2014
"Today, if something like that happened, the vehicles would race away from the scene as fast as they could... But not in 1914."
"This was European nobility at the turn of the century."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
22 comments:
Bomb throwers. Anarchists. The Austrian Empire spent 300 years asking for it.
What was noble about them anyway except in their own minds?
Archduke was just under eagle scout in rank.
Whenever your GPS shows "Schoolbook Depository" take an alternate route.
In the comments section of the story...
"Believe it or not "pompatus" is Latin and as such is frequently used as if it were English in educated circles. Most Americans are unaware that "the official language remained Latin until 1844" in the Hungarian diet.
So pompatus is the perfect passive participle of pompare, to be pompus, it had been pompoused. "
If the band 'Franz Ferdinand' had named themselves 'Nedeljko Cabrinovic' would their music be different? Would their balalaikas be ringing out? Would they keep their comrade warm?
Count me Out (In).
Obvious question: Who's more out of touch: a 19th century emperor or a 21st century American President (or wife of a former President)?
‘But I thought you would be looking for me in Damascus’, said the man.
‘Not at all’, said Death ‘that is why I was surprised to see you yesterday. I knew that today I was to find you in Aleppo’
Stupid driver never knew how much he affected history. Getting lost.
Still, without Wilhelm II, it would not have set the fire it did.
Another oddity was the treatment of Princip. From Wikipedia.
"Princip was too young to receive the death penalty, being only twenty-seven days short of the 20-year age limit required by Habsburg law for the death sentence. Instead, he received the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison."
Oliver Stone should make a movie. Franz Ferdinand wasn't popular, no doubt some right wing Habsburgs conspired with the Black Hand to pull off the assassination. Does anyone believe that the car stopping in just the right place was an accident?
Never underestimate incompetence as a significant force in history.
I do think that you do have to wonder sometimes, why a chain of apparently random events leads to a certain outcome. Was it the Duke's fate to die that day? If the car had gone straight, would another bomber have stepped up just as coincidentally so the thread of history was the same?
Does Fate exist as a force of nature? I know I have had a few narrow escapes over the years, once when plinking with some friends along a creek (when young and stupid) some bullets ricocheted off the water and one came back so close to the left side of my head I could hear the bullet sigh as it passed by and feel the wind of it on my face. Why was I not killed? philosophically speaking, I suppose it was just not my day to die.
My creditors were of course, overjoyed.
traditionalguy said...
The Austrian Empire spent 300 years asking for it.
As royalty goes, the Hapsburgs were generally enlightened and well-loved.
Archduke was just under eagle scout in rank.
Yes, indeed, there is an art to determine an aiming just off-kilter enough to really spark an amazing thing with lasting effects.
If ever there was a truly in-fracture political group of people, it was the anarchists, for sure, and is.
---
I wonder, rhhardin, if you think that, for example, Czolgosz was a better breed of anarchist, on account of his murdering McKinley, who, after all, was a sitting president of the U.S., however weaker that office might-may have been or not.
I'm inclined to think that you don't.
It's possible that I am wrong.
"Still, without Wilhelm II, it would not have set the fire it did."
Yes it would have. Germany's position was untenable, and the general state of politics and the military balance in Europe was one that kept most countries on edge, but especially Germany, with France on one end and Russia on the other.
Military preparations take so much detail and so much time to execute, and Germany knew beforehand that if a war were to ever break out, if they acted after anyone else, they were done for, sandwiched. Speed was the only military solution that looked viable to them as a result, and once any one country took any step towards mobilization, so would the others, especially Germany. It was a set of dominoes waiting to fall.
As royalty goes, the Hapsburgs were generally enlightened and well-loved.
Well, except for their Italian, Serbian, Hungarian and Czech subjects, yes.
It's the difference between military and civilian leadership style. But let's not give it over to European nobility. Our own Teddy Roosevelt got shot at a campaign rally in 1912 and went on to give his speech before getting his wound treated.
"Today, if something like that happened, the vehicles would race away from the scene as fast as they could"
In 1979, the Baader gang tried to Assassinate Gen. Haig (who was just finishing his stint as the commander of NATO.) The IED went off too late, and destroyed a vehicle behind him.
Gen. Haig ordered his German driver to stop, but a Lieutenant Colonel sitting next to Haig reasoned that this might be just what the terrorists were expecting Haig to do. So he wrestled the General to the floor of the car and ordered the driver to drive away.
@Tyronne...As to the dynasty that liked calling itself The Holy Roman Empire being enlightened and well loved, that was their PR and relative to more horrible petty tyrants in the area, such as Vlad The Impaler.
The trouble with the Holy Roman Empire was that it wasn't holy, wasn't Roman, and wasn't an empire.
The NY Times had a well reasoned op-ed on great value the ArchDuke could have had for the empire yesterday. And of course we might not hive faced the loss through war of so many millions and the genocide of the 20th century.
Beyond that I think we see something of the dichotomy of identity a leader should be aware of. The ArchDuke was personally a man inclined to consider democratic change and devolution from central authority but to many Serbians he represented the Empire and suppression. I'm not sure Kennedy is a good similar example but to me he was a man doing what he considered necessary pandering to the right wing and perhaps truly interested in good economics and women, the perks of office. To Oswald he was the arch Anticommunist.
Fascinating as the possibilities of the Archduke surviving might be, it's pretty clear that Vienna was looking for an excuse to crush Serbia and even if the assassination hadn't taken place they would have found another cassus belli. The power plays resulting from the first two Balkan wars and the motivations of Russia made a third war inevitable, and the chain to Germany and France made the spread into Western Europe just as inevitable.
Part of the problem was that the big power players at that time understandably could not fathom that war would be as destructive as it turned out to be, and would bring so many countries and fronts into it. The experience of brief, limited wars for the previous half century made many political and military leaders believe that it was better to take the initiative and go to war quickly before their enemies got too powerful. Germany was hoping for a repeat of the Franco-Prussian war, France was hoping that having Russia on their side would discourage Germany from going to war and Britain thought their guarantee of Belgium's neutrality would keep Germany in check. None of these were unreasonable assumptions at the time, but the result was when the assumptions proved false, everything would go to hell.
Of all the players that got involved, Italy probably has the least excuse for doing so. They had no treaty obligation requiring them to go to war, and during their brief neutrality they were able to see the western front stabilize with awful losses and little easy glory. To jump in poorly prepared in 1915 when there was no threat to their territory and only the vague promise of getting the Tyrol region and the Dalmatian Islands from Austria seems an unfathomably stupid decision--only compounded by their equally unnecessary entry into the Second World War.
Post a Comment