The Bullet that Started WWI

So Princip was to blame for World War I. Or… was it the driver Leopold Lojka who took the wrong turn? The passengers who did not tell Lojka of the new route? Perhaps, it was Ferdinand for wanting to console the injured? Or, the policemen for reacting too slow? Count Harrick who lended his uncovered limousine? Danilo ilić who gave the tools and the instructions to the assassins? Or perhaps, those who had been calling for a preventive war against Serbia for years, like the Austrio-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, General Conrad von Hötzendorf, and Berchtold? The Serbian Prime Minister Pašić for not censoring newspapers celebrating the assasination? Kaiser Wilhelm II and the German government for giving their war approval to the Habsburgs? The aggressively long arms race of the European powers since the 1890s? The extraordinary industrial, demographic, cultural, political, imperial, nationalist preconditions of the previous decades? ‘Yes’.

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Credit:
Created by Daniel Turner (B.A. (Hons) in History, University College London)
Script:
Narrator:

Chris Kane

Bibliography:

Armstrong, Hamilton Fish. “Confessions of the Assassin Whose Deed Led To The World War”, Current History (1916-1940), vol. 26, no.5 (1927): pp. 699-707.

Pickering, Paula, and John R. Lampe, Noel R. Malcolm, Heather Campbell, Thinley Kalsang Bhutia, Gloria Lotha, et. al. “Bosnia and Herzegovina Under Austro-Hungarian Rule.” Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Bradshaw, Sidney Fay. “The Black Hand Plot That Led To The World War.” Current History (1916-1940) vol. 23, no.2 (1925): pp 196-207.

Dedijer, Vladimir. Sarajevo: 1914. Belgrade: Prosveta, 1966.

Dedijer, Vladimir. The Road to Sarajevo. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966.

Dijkhuizen, Bryan. “Why Did the Black Hand of Serbia Want to Kill Franz Ferdinand?” Accessed July 28th, 2022. Historyofyesterday.

Foster, Samuel. “Sarajevo Incident (Version 1.1).” Last modified February 14, 2019. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.

MacMillan, Margaret. The War That Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War. London: Profile Books, 2013.

Malmberg, Ilkka. "Tästä alkaa maailmansota". Helsingin Sanomat monthly supplement (June 2014): pp. 60–65.

Mortel, Gordon. The Month that Changed the World: July 1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

R.W.S.W. “The Sarajevo Murder Trial.” The Slavonic Review, vol.4, no.12 (March, 1926): pp. 645-656.

Simpson, John. Unreliable Sources: How the Twentieth Century Was Reported. London: Pan Macmillan, 2010.

TimeMaps. “Europe 1914 CE”. Accessed July 28th, 2022.

Cooper, Howard. “Chance, Fate, Luck: How The History Of The World Turned On The Randomness of A Sunny Morning One Hundred Years Ago.” European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe vol. 48, no.1 (Spring, 2015): pp. 142-146.

Winter, Jay. The Cambridge History of the First World War: Volume I Global War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

[rogerbak]

Fun fact:
The Armistice of WW1 began on 11/11/18.
Franz Ferdinand’s car license plate reads “A11 11 18”

[SJstackinbodys]

Arch duke: *survived assassination attempt*.

Also arch duke: "let’s keep driving through this town of disgruntled people but with more unplanned detours"

[teggy]

It's crazy how his jacket is still in a museum, bullet hole and blood stains still there. Humbling to see the first drops of blood in a war that would spill so much.

[fishingsammystyle]

I found a rusted old FN 1910 in a lake here In France a couple of years ago. It turns out that three out of the four (or four out of the five) pistols were recovered and are accounted for in various museums around the world. . . It makes you wonder.

[theprofessional]

Franz Ferdinand did not necessarily want a unified Austrian Hungarian empire. He wanted it dominated by Austrians . Even though it was the Austrian Hungarian empire he hated that the Hungarians controlled the eastern part or the empire . He also demanded that the Hungarian soldiers speak German. He even insulted his own Hungarian guards for not speaking German. The Austrians were furious about Ferdinand’s death but many Hungarians didn’t care because of his treatment of them . Many Hungarians were also angry the Austrians dragged them into a world war.

[micman]

"From a shot that would change the world, tensions rise and a war is unfurled!"

[Sins_ter]

What's hilarious is I visited the Latin bridge in Sarajevo, Bosnia today few hours ago which is the location of where the assassination took place, there were few memorials and paragraphs about the assassination.

There was also a footprint cemented on a slab showcasing where the assassin stood. I took a photo next to it :)

[xxGravyBabyxx]

What some people forget is that Europe was on a breaking point of world war. With the rise of mobilization and colonization, Most of the major powers were afraid that they would lose the upper hand. Britain was a global super power, Germany had influence in Africa, Russia was modernizing, and France had interest in South East Asia. Even if The assassination did not happen, The Great War would of most likely happened in the 1900s. The assassination only rapidly progressed the pointless means of the first global war.

[The_Insanitist]

“How quickly they forget, that all it takes to change the course of history, is the will of a single man.” - Captain Price

[THE_GUY_ONE]

I once read an interesting theory that highest echelons of austrian government and military were aware of planned assasination and intentionally let it happen, because they detested Ferdinand's liberal plans for Bosnia and they could use it as a pretext to declare war on Serbia. One of the arguments for this is the fact that security during Archduke's visit was suspiciously poor.

[Josh_Morales]

Imagine how different the world would be if the Archduke’s car made a turn at a different intersection.

[oliversherman]

WW1: this'll be the war to end all wars
1939: WW2 starts
WW1 veterans: *visible confusion*

[owenhammond]

It's quite ironic and a bit funny in a dark way that it's the small things that change the course of history. Like if that one guy in the Soviet sub during the Cuban missile crisis authorized the launching of their nuclear torpedoes.

[nathanseper]

I find it insane how a lone gunman in a relatively average town triggered a war that shifted the course of history.

[zachlang]

If you think about it, this is the bullet that altered the course of the 20th Century and led to where we are today in 2022.

-The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand sparked Serbia and Austria-Hungary to go to war, which caused all of Europe to erupt in conflict.

-The defeat of Germany and the Versailles treaty provided a catalyst for the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich.

-Hitler starts WWII.

-WWII ends with the defeat of Germany but with the division of Europe between the free West and communist eastern bloc. It also solidifies the United States as the most powerful country on Earth, and the Soviet Union as the second most powerful country on Earth, with the majority of the civilized world split in two between democracy and communism. WWII leads to the nuclear age and the Cold War.

-Israel is created in 1948 as a haven for Jews who survived the Holocaust.

-The Cold War ends in 1989-1991 with the dissolution of the USSR.

-Israel’s existence and the European decolonization after WWII
causes tensions in the Middle East, which sparks wars between the regional powers, (Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, etc)

-Desert Storm occurs in 1991, with the United States and allies establishing long-term bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

-U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia causes anti-Westernism in the Middle East and leads to the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda.

-Global War on Terror begins.

-Internal hardships of the USSR leads to the rise of Putin in Russia, which eventually leads to where we are today with the war in Ukraine.

-Tensions in the Middle East continue.


We are where we are today all because of Gavrilo Princep and his bullet. This is the Butterfly Effect.

[rexcolt]

Absurd the Archiduke didnt had to die that day:
- He was saved from the first attemp
- He was going to take a different route
- His car didnt have to stop right in front of Gavrillo

Too much of a coincidence.

Then millions died because of a contest of distances between family memebers.

[liamtaylor]

Gavrilo Princip could of fired a 3rd shot but was tackled and his Fn M1910 pistol was taken from him he did manage to take cyanide but it failed to kill Him. At his trial he regretted killing Sophie Duchess but was proud of his actions.

[theuralictribes]

Fun Fact:
The Hungarians aka the Hungarian part of the Empire didn't want to start a war and were against it even over the death of the Heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

[Rambo-Logan]

Love this video. Another thing is how better these videos have gotten over the years of the channel. Keep up the good work my friend doing great

[stuffedmannequin]

I remember when your channel first started, this was one of your first videos. It’s humbling to see how far you’ve come