Still making time each day to reach the finish both of two ebooks borrowed from the library and mentioned previously here, before they simultaneously self-destruct from my laptop on the borrowing expiry date.
Christopher Clark --
The Sleepwalkers: how Europe went to war in 1914
Margaret MacMillan -- T
he war that ended peace: the road to 1914
I'm well into the Clark book, and so I'm focused at the moment on MacMillan's. I’m really having fun reading this book despite its being about making war out of peace. How can I put this book down and get back to my chores?! I may have to add this to my personal collection and read it again whenever I wish. Here's a bit to suggest why that thought is appealing:
In autumn 2014, - a century after the events that set off the First World War - (though, if it hadn't been that trigger, I suspect it would well have been another), I was sent to Bosnia (where I had last observed a number of elections in the mid to late 1990s, just after the Dayton Accords brought most of the Balkan wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia to an end) to observe an election.
I spent some time in Sarajevo immediately after the election, and stood, stupefied, at the spot on the quays where the Heir Presumptive to the throne of the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand had his date with destiny in June 1914.
@LizKat, have you read Ian Beckett's book, "The Great War"? (The second edition is the more recent); this was published in time for the centenary of the war, in 2014, and is well worth a look.
Needless to say, the old town of Sarajevo is very interesting and well worth visiting, a warren of small, cosy, streets, full of atmosphere thick with history. Again, coffee shops are to be found everywhere, along with some bars, restaurants, Europe's oldest mosque, and a place where the cobblestones were worn smooth with the footfall of thousands of feet over hundreds of years.
The tourist board had a hilarious (and very impressive) gable wall, where tours were advertised. If you have such a history, it makes sense to make it work for you.
Anyway, Ancient Sarajevo featured - as did the history of Ottoman Sarajevo, along with Jewish Sarajevo, and Habsburg Sarajevo, all with their own tours. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Heir to the Throne of Austria-Hungary, in June 1914, had its own tour, as did Sarajevo WW1 and ('German Occupied') Sarajevo WW2. Of course, the more recent conflict featured as well, with one particular tour (called The Tunnel Tour) devoted to exploring the tunnels which kept the city supplied during the civil war of the 1990s. Other tours also marked the more recent conflict.
However, by background, training, profession and - for quite a long time - I was a teacher of history and would still regard myself, first, and foremost, as a historian, even though, these days, I do not darken classroom doors. In any case, given the year that it was, and given that I was actually standing there (and had sought it out), one anniversary above all others called to me.
Thus, I walked to the corner - a surprisingly tight corner, on the quays, where a lovely old (rebuilt) bridge crosses the river, and where a tight junction on the other side of the road leading down sharply brings you almost immediately into the Old Town - it is at right angles to the road along the quays itself; this is the spot where the open topped car driving the Heir (Presumptive) to the Throne of the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary, (the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy), Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Countess Sofie Chotek, took a wrong turn on the afternoon of June 28, 1914.
Quite a few years ago, the excellent British historian AJP Taylor wrote a wonderful (short, and exquisitely written and exceptionally well argued) book on the First World War. (I recommend it,
@LizKat).
It opened with a characteristically arresting and thought-provoking sentence which read something as follows: "The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a very unpleasant man, but he had one redeeming quality: He truly loved his wife."
The book proceeds to explain how theirs was a genuine love match, but the antique protocol (dating from the time of the Spanish Habsburgs) which governed relationships within the Imperial & Royal family decreed that one could only marry someone of similar (ducal, or arch-ducal) rank. Thus, when they married (in defiance of the wishes of the Royal family), Franz Ferdinand was obliged to make a morganatic marriage, which meant that his wife could not share his royal rank - or titles, or precedence - at official State functions. As a 'mere' countess, Sophie Chotek, was treated as such, and regularly snubbed, which bitterly rankled with Franz Ferdinand (and although she was subsequently elevated to a higher peerage, it still remained lower than the royal rank held by her spouse).
However, as a military officer, (and he was obsessively interested in matters military) and at military functions, his spouse would be treated as though she held his rank ('Frau General' and so on), and viewed and treated as his social equal, and so, he sought engagements where his wife could accompany him in his capacity as colonel-in-chief, or commander of regiments.
This is the background to the reason why he was in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. He had come to review regiments and garrisons - a ceremonial series of functions with a military flavour, where his wife would be accorded his rank, and treated as his equal.
As is well known, radical Serb nationalists (viewed with horror by most of the actual Serbian political and military elite and establishment, but not by a special section of Serb military intelligence) had long plotted against the Austrian authorities in Bosnia. The country itself had been annexed by the Austrians in 1908, having been ruled and occupied (with international agreement) by them since 1878.
Earlier that morning, one of the conspirators had hurled a bomb at the cavalcade of cars transporting the Archduke and his party; Franz Ferdinand saw the bomb coming, and swiftly deflected it with his arm, (where it then bounced on the bonnet of the following motor-car, and exploded, seriously injuring some of the occupants). The conspirators fled and dispersed, the bomb thrower, meanwhile, easily captured after trying - unsuccessfully - to throw himself into the river, which - after an incredibly warm summer - was rather low.
Franz Ferdinand proceeded to a formal meeting at the City Hall, accompanied by his wife, shocked and incandescent with rage, where he furiously berated the Mayor and assembled local officials for their casual and utterly unprofessional attitude to security related matters. Photographs of the day show him livid with fury striding out of the meeting which was hosted for him by local dignitaries, cramming his shako on his head.
The official tour proceeded, along the quays, and the car containing the Archduke took a wrong turn (what a metaphor, for life, for conflict, collapse) from the quays along the river, where the quays run parallel to the old town, down a somewhat steep, quite short hill, which leads straight into the Old Town. This error was quickly realised - the rest of the entourage still on the quays - and the driver stopped, seeking to put the car into reverse gear, to reverse back out onto the quays, a few short metres (yards) away.
One of the conspirators from the morning's botched assassination by bomb-throwing was sitting, sipping coffee, feeling very sorry for himself, (but as yet unarrested, unlike his other colleagues) when the Archduke's open-topped car ground to a halt in front of him, the driver fumbling for the reverse gear.
Gavrilo Princip, 18 years old, tubercular, (already turned down for formal terrorism activities by Serb military intelligence on the grounds of inexperience, possible incompetence, immaturity, youth, and ill-health) couldn't believe his eyes or his luck. He rose from his seat, leapt onto the running board of the momentarily stationary car, and poured the contents of his revolver into the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the Countess Sophie Chotek who both sat in the wide back seat, side by side, and who gamely tried to protect each other. They both were killed, (Franz Ferdinand crying out 'Sophie - don't die - live for the children').
Within days, the Austrian Government had dispatched an ultimatum to the Government of Serbia; after some thought, the Serbs accepted all sections of the ultimatum, with the exception of one. That was not considered sufficient. Within six weeks, Europe was at war, a war that became known as the First World War.
not sure about that wish but it sounds like the effort to read the pages that exist will be worth it. I might have to take a look at it but tbh I am looking to read some other stuff at this point, been reading about WWI so long I'm ready to read comic books.
