pistol used to assassinate the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, sparking the First World War
on 09/25/2008 at 08:24 AM
Pieper, I’m going to have to step in and correct you on a few things.
While Young Bosnia (Princip’s group),its controlling organization the Black Hand, its gunman Princip, and the entire pyramid’s controller, Dragutin “Colonel Apis” Dimitrivic were scum, you are incorrect on a couple of counts.
“(and needlessly his wife as well)”
BZZZZZTTT! Wrong Answer. By all accounts, Princip claimed he was aiming, not for Sophie, but for the Austrian Governor of Bosnia-Herzogovina, General Oskar Potiorek. While he may have been lying, but there is no proof to the contrary, and I am inclinded to believe him, as Sophie was a non-entity on the Serb Ultranationalist “Hate List” in the 1910’s, whereas both the Archduke and Potiorek ranked very highly on that list, and Potiorek was a vastly more important target than Sophie was, and he was riding in the same car as Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, and with limited time to aim before he was nabbed, he could easily have missed.
Does it excuse anything? Absolutely Not. It just shows that Sophie was, like Princip himself said, an innocent victim near the high-value targets of Potiorek and the Archduke.
“who actually was sympathetic to the killer’s cause. Or his stated cause.”
BZZZZTTT! Wrong again. The cause embraced by everyone in the Black Hand and its tributary Young Bosnia was the creation of a greater Slavic/Serbian state (which one of the two depended on one’s ethnicity and symapthies) in the Balkans. Nothing less.
The Archduke WAS a sympathizer of the Slavs in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (especially given his wife, Sophie Chotik, a Slav who was so below his station that half the diplomats in Europe had to bang Franz Joseph’s door down in order to allow him to both all them to marry and still retain his sucession rights), but his vision of gathering the Slavic lands into an equal partnership in the Empire (as a “Third Crown” of the Dual-Monarchy) was mutually exclusive to the idea of a Greater Balkan Slav state OUTSIDE and OPPOSED to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Very different.
Indeed, it has been suspected that, far from the normal propaganda about how the assasination was a strike against Austrian “Oppression” (a sucessful killing of the Autocratic Potiorek at the same time MIGHT give that meme some credence), it is likely that the Archduke was targeted by the Black Hand in order to PREVENT his Austroslav idea from being impleemented and thus getting the Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs, etc Reconcilled with the Austrian Empire, something that would have been the deathblow for the Yugoslav Nationalists.
Am I excusing the swine? No. I am just saying that you got some of your facts wrong.
Sorry for the rant.
Posted by Turtler
09/27/2008 at 12:24 AM
Pieper,
“My impression was that he was one of those wild eyed fanatics”
This is probably true (see his interrogation records after the capture).
“killing both was a target of opportunity in the time he had to fire”
Yes and No. You see, the Archduke had been a target of Serbian Ultranationalists for quite some time, and when plans were made that he (in his role as Chief Inspector of the Army) was going to inspect a military exercise outside of Sarajevo, with Sophie in tow (it was their anniversary), it did not stay secret for long.
You see, Dragutin Dimitrijević. the leader of the Black Hand (After a symbol they used, the actual name was “Unification or Death") and (conveniently, following his help in a brutal palace coup against a previous Pro-Austrian King and Queen) Serbia’s Head of Intelligence, was listining. Upon hearing their plans, he assembled a plan to try to kill Franz Ferdinand in during his visit to Sarajevo. Unwilling to utilize his own “regular” assassins, he instead turned to Young Bosnia, an Anarchist group with similar Panslavic aims that was also a Black Hand tributary (yes, Natioanlist Anarchists. Only in the Balkans). They provided some volunteers that met his requirements, including that they were all terminally ill with Tuberculosis. Gavrillo Princip was one of these recruits.
Long story short, Dimitrijevic organized their infiltration back into Austrian Bosnia following their training, and they planned to toss bombs into the Archduke’s car. Fortunately for them, serious Austrian screw-ups in security (some even take it as evidence of a plot by the Austrian court to get rid of th Archduke), the area was lightly guarded. After viewing the military demonstration, the Archduke, Sophie, and Potiorek bundled in a car headed for City Hall for a meeting with the mayor. It was then that most of the bomb-throwers (one lost his nerve after seeing Sophie, whom he said reminded him of his mother) tossed their bombs, which did not land in the car, but did injure several Austrian soldiers and officers behind them (VERY IMPORTANT). The bomb-throwers were ID’ed and arrested soon afterwards. With the official plan bombed (pun intended), Princip took the operation to be a scratch and left his post to eat at a Deli across the street.
Anyway, after a very unpleasant meeting with the Mayor, Franz Ferdinand decided to get back in the car and visit those wounded in the blast. They first planned to announce they were going one way, and then go another, but, unfortunately, the driver was confused for some reason, and took a wrong turn.
Thus, he was told to back up, which led him to come to an almost complete stop before he was supposed to get out and continue. The one problem here is that they were backing up right in front of the Deli where Princip was. So, Princip, with the official plan botched but a golden oppertunity to salvage it, made his move. And the rest is history. He certianly was attacking several targets of oppertunity, but, again, the idea that he intentionally shot Sophie seems a bit far-fetched, especially given the minute strategic benefits of offing her to teh Serb Nationalists compared to what they would gain by Offing Franz and Potiorek. Possible? Yes. Likely? I am not so sure.
Long story short: Plan= Not an Oppertunistic cooincidence, Actual Shooting = Oppertunistic cooincidence.
“The Proud Tower, by Barbara Tuchman? Good book and very fast read.
Also, Paris, 1919 by, Margaret MacMillan & Richard Holbrooke. Awesome book. “
I’ll have to check them out. Thank you for the tip.
Posted by Turtler
09/28/2008 at 04:18 PM