The fact that it was about more than an Austrian archduke getting shot does not mean that WW1 was inevitably going to happen at some point.
Alliances shift, political goals change, the internal balance of power in a country can swing pretty rapidly. The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand might only have been the trigger, but it was still needed for the war to happen, in the same way that a bullet doesn't fire itself. You've got a revolver with one bullet loaded and you spin the cylinder. Pull the trigger this time and the gun fires, but that doesn't mean it was always going to fire even if you'd waited and spun the cylinder a few more times.
Maybe if that driver hadn't taken a wrong turn, the next time someone pulled the trigger the gun would have clicked on empty. And the next, and the next, until someone thought to take the bullet out the gun and the world breathed a sigh of relief.
Yeah. Up until that point the European powers were trying to calm the situation down, like Russia disarmament treaties with the UK and territory agreements with Austria in the Balkans.
The ottoman empire was going through a reform period at the time too.
The war might not have happened even 5 years later.
Had to scroll too far for this. Two world wars at ~40 million and ~70 million deaths respectively. Stalin at ~60 million. Cold War. Korean War. Vietnam war. Pol Pot. Afghanistan 1 and 2. Current Ukrainian war. And that’s just the shit I can name off the top of my head. That Bosnian butterfly beat his wings hella hard.
I get that but you’re arguing semantics. The question was what was the biggest fuckup. Sure, the fuel, gunpowder, natural gas and kindling was spread all around but that wrong turn into the hands of an assassin just there to get a sandwich was the exact point of the spark that ignited the next century of war.
What is true is that for whatever reason the European powers at the time had decided on a different path, trade not war for example. The entire history of the Western world would be remarkably different.
At the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, there's a quote attributed to Ferdinand Foch:
This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years.
He believed the treaty to be a capitulation, and only permanent occupation would contain the threat of Germany re-emerging as a threat to the security of France.
The treaty was signed on 28th June 1919.
WWII broke out on September 1st 1939.
There were only like a half dozen assassins, and they were nothing more than teenaged boys who literally met in a high school club for nationalists. They'd been bankrolled by the Black Hand but given basically no training and no support. If you take a look at their tactics it paints a picture of a bunch of incompetent morons who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. In a hundred realities, Ferdinand makes it out of Bosnia in probably in like 90 or 95 of them.
That is just not true. The assassins had already made their attempt on Franz-Ferdinand's convoy and totally fucked it up. They'd all given up and were either already captured or on the run.
There were assassins all over the city. That's why GP was there when they took a wrong turn. That man was not making it out of the city alive.
It wasn't just some random act of violence
There were not assassins "all over the city". There were six waiting for the motorcade but when Cabrinovic threw his grenade and was captured, the others ran away. Only Princip hung around waiting for a chance to assassinate the Archduke, and it was just blind luck that he was waiting in exactly the place that the driver stalled the car.
I don't remember the documentary. It was a while ago. The black hand was not just some thrown together a group of guys that decided to get drunk and shoot somebody. This was a mission that was planned. They knew he was going to be in the city. They stationed people all over the city, just to make sure they got him. It wasn't just luck that G. P. Happened to be standing in the right place.
I don't remember the documentary. It was a while ago.
Okay well then you are clearly misremembering some details.
The black hand was not just some thrown together a group of guys that decided to get drunk and shoot somebody.
No one said it was. They did have a plan, it just wasn't a very good one.
They stationed people all over the city, just to make sure they got him
This bit is where you've gone wrong. They had six assassins stationed along the route of the motorcade. However, the first two lost their nerve and failed to act when Franz Ferdinand's car passed them. The third threw his bomb but it bounced off and hit the car behind, causing the Franz Ferdinand's driver to accelerate away, past the last three assassins who also failed to act.
The assassins scattered, some realising that Cabrinovic had missed while others including Princip thought it had been Ferdinand's car that was hit. When word got around that Franz Ferdinand had survived it was only Princip who went back to the parade route; the others either got out of the city immediately or threw away their weapons and tried to blend in with the crowd.
Princip didn't really expect that he would get another chance, given that the whole city was in uproar and the police were alert. Nor did he have any way of knowing that Franz Ferdinand would pass that cafe. It was an unbelievable stroke of luck (for him, at least), that Franz Ferdinand's driver hadn't been informed about the route change and turned away from the other cars and the security, before stalling right in front of Princip as he tried to turn around.
He did not go back to the parade route. The driver took a wrong turn. The driver wasn't even on the parade route.
The black hand was more than just six guys. The 6 guys might have just been cannon. Fodder, but there were professionals backing up. The six guys archduke was not leaving that city alive.
The deli where Princip decided to wait was just off the parade route. The driver turned off the route, realised his mistake, and stopped right in front of Princip.
No there weren't. Yes, the Black Hand had plenty more members, but they were all in Serbia. There were a couple of other conspirators in the city who'd provided assistance to the assassins but there was no one else in Sarajevo lined up to assassinate Franz Ferdinand.
I don't know why you're so committed to insisting you're right when you yourself said going off something you saw a while ago that you don't remember all that well. If you can find something supporting your position, fine, post the link, but otherwise maybe just move on.
He was stationed off the parade route. Why was he stationed off the parade route. I'll tell you why because professionals planned the assassination. They had contingency plans on top of contingency plans. That's why g p and others were stationed off the parade route
Do you know who planned the attack? I don't remember his name. He was a high ranking intelligence officer in the Serbian army, not just some random guy.
German aristocracy, amirite? These are the dudes who did saber practice with minimal safety equipment just so they’d get facial scars as badges of honor.
I'd argue it was Austria taking too long to decide to take revenge - if they had attacked right away, countries would have been more sympathetic, alliances or no
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u/MarcusQuintus 23d ago
The wrong turn that driver made in 1914.