A Century Ago
A man and his wife were shot to death in Sarajevo and that was used as an excuse by the hereditary morons of Europe to plunge the world into war. It was a family affair as most of those morons were first cousins, grandchildren of Victoria of Britain.
To be clear, no one, with the possible/probable exception of his wife and children liked Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but the rules of succession made him the heir to the Empire of Austria-Hungary. His wife, Sophie, was considered a commoner, and his children were not included in the line of succession nor given any titles. He was disliked by the elites and the people. He spent his time wandering the world killing animals to have stuffed and put in his castle.
He was killed as the result of a series of screw-ups. Had he survived it would have been proclaimed a miracle. The half-dozen members of the Serbian Black Hand tasked with killing him were incompetents.
The ABC has a nice article on the man and his death.
Why should people still care about World War I? It not only led to World War II, it was the proximate cause for the Russian Revolution and all of the problems in the Middle East and the Balkans. We are still dealing with the problems caused by World War I. It wasn’t “the war to end wars”, it was the ‘father of all wars’ since.
