June 28th, 1914. Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian Empire, made an unwise visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia. There was a growing Bosnian separatist movement, calling for Bosnian autonomy from the Empire and there had been numerous threats and rumors of violence directed at the Arch-Duke.
Ferdinand, intending to demonstrate that the Empire still had firm control of the region, kept his plan for an automobile parade through the Sarajevo streets.
Almost immediately, a hand grenade was thrown at Ferdinand's motorcade, killing an Austrian soldier in another car. Ferdinand's convoy changed course, but took an unfortunate turn and became lost- soon, his car was stopped by a man named Gavrilo Princip- according to some accounts, Princip was the same man who had thrown the grenade earlier. In any case, he took advantage of the chance encounter; Princip shot Ferdinand and his wife, killing them both.
And World War 1 began.
Austria accused Serbia of aiding the Bosnian rebels, specifically that they had sponsored the Black Hand Gang, a slavic nationalist society that had carried out the assassination.
Austria warned Serbia that it had had better get it's act together. The Austrian army began mobilizing in anticipation of an invasion of Serbia. Diplomacy failed when a 10-point treaty fell through over the issue of Serbian sovereignty. War between Austria and Serbia seemed inevitable.
Serbia, lacking the might to confront Austria-Hungary alone, asked it's long-time ally Russia for help. Russia obligingly agreed and began to mobilize it's own forces.
Austria, not wanting to engage the Russians alone, called on it's ally Germany for help. Germany agreed.
This alarmed the French, who called up their army.
Germany had been secretly working on the Schlieffen Plan, which detailed a two-front war against France and Russia in the event that Russia were to begin marshaling it's army- which it had just done. The German command believed that it had a six-week window of opportunity to conquer France (which was supposed to a cakewalk) before it would have to face the Russians.
On Aug. 14th, the Germans invaded France via Belgium;Belgium had a defense treaty with Great Britain and the 1839 pact was invoked- Britain began preparing for full-scale war. The rest is, as they say, history.
Clearly, the framework for this war was in place for years before the assassination of the Arch-Duke provided the catalyst, but one has to wonder what might have happened had Princip and his Black Hand Gang failed in their murderous plan.
It was WW1 that ended the reign of the German Kaiser, which led to a tumultuous period in German politics, a period from which Hitler's conservative National Socialist Party emerged triumphant, which of course led to World War Two- the second "War to End All Wars" waged during the first four decades of the 20th century.
An ill-advised visit. An errant grenade. A bad turn down the wrong street. A chance encounter between an assassin and his target. Two shots.
A series of accidents, violence and blunders that irrevocably changed the course of human history.
In that context, the fate of this man seems crucial to the current global crisis of violence:
Pakistani dictator General President Pervez Musharraf is no stranger to assassination attempts- his outwardly pro-USA stance has caused him to be quite unpopular with a significant portion of his own population...unpopular enough that Pakistan is currently under a state of military lockdown as Pervez struggles to remain alive and in power.Should Musharraf fall, a number of things could happen. The possible outcomes run the gamut from 'so bad that I am afraid to write about them' to 'so bad that I am afraid to think about them'. What will the USA do when two or more of it's allies go to war with each other? Which side, if any, will the US support publicly? Will it be the same people that we support privately? It's very hard for us, as citizens, to know. This problem is compounded by the fact that we Americans, as a society, don't really care, despite 5,000 years of history that provide clear examples of what happens when the citizens of a powerful, overreaching empire become complacent towards their leadership- which they always do. Always.
Empires fall. Egypt, Greece, Persia, Rome, Ottoman,France, Russia, England, dozens more...all had one or more empires, all have fallen. I'm trying to console myself by thinking that America is not an Empire - but that's a lie and I know it.
These are interesting times.
