Assassination as Policy and Why it is Folly

On this date in 1914, 95 years ago, the key triggering event for World War One happened.

On 28 June 1914, at approximately 1:15 pm, Franz Ferdinand and his wife were killed in Sarajevo, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Gavrilo Princip, 19 at the time, a member of Young Bosnia and one of a group of assassins organized by The Black Hand.

The Prince and his wife are shown to the right, thanks to Wikipedia. Here is the Wikipedia article on the assassination.

In the next 37 days there were a lot of opportunities for Government leaders in Europe to step back from the brink. There were also opportunities for the People to step back. The Government leaders across Europe fumbled away their chances, or ignored them, and the People thought it would be a jolly good war. People thought that it would be quickly over and that the soldiers mobilized would be home for Christmas. It was not to be.

The way to think about it is that war is like child birth. The outcome is always uncertain.

To the right is a picture (courtesy of Wikipedia) of the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Gray, who characterized the situation in Europe in the Summer of 1914 as:  "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."  This comes down to us as "The lights are going out all over Europe."  If you think of World War II as just a continuation of World War I, sir Edward was quite prescient. If you think that "The Great War" didn't end until 1991, then you can view him as brilliant in his insight.

Dr Hedley P Willmott characterizes the time of World War I as the time, "when men lost faith in reason."  It may be fair to say that liberal Europe (in the older sense of liberal) died in the trenches of the Western Front sometime between 1915 and 1918.

Regards  —  Cliff