The war formally ended when the Germans signed the Treaty of Versailles, agreeing reluctantly to terms dictated by the Allied forces. By the time an armistice was declared in 1918, a generation had lost its innocence, and writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald were inspired by the malaise of their contemporaries. There were more than 30 million servicemen killed or wounded. What face the world will wear when it is all over no man can predict, but it will be greatly changed, and not geographically alone.ĭuring the four years that followed, millions of young men died as they scrambled between trenches or were killed by disease and chemical weapons like mustard gas. Nation after nation has been drawn into the whirlpool, and more are drawing toward it, and the end is far off. Towns have been bombarbed in the Society Islands and battles have been fought in all the oceans, from the extremity of South America to the Malay Peninsula, from the heart of Africa to the coast of China. Those two shots brought the world to arms, and the war that followed has brought devastation upon three continents and profoundly affected two others, and the tocsin has sounded in the remotest islands of the sea. The Times described the war’s impact in an article one year after Ferdinand was murdered. What became known as the Great War, or later World War I, would prove to be more devastating than any that had come before. Soon Europe, and much of the world, spiraled into war as one country after another, enmeshed in a web of previously established alliances, took sides - either with the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and their allies) or the Allies (France, Britain, Russia and others, including, eventually, the United States).
He gave up his future children’s claim to the Hapsburg throne to marry the countess, who was of lower station and of whom his uncle, the emperor, Franz Joseph, disapproved.Īfter the assassination Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
Such courage, or perhaps obstinacy, was typical for Ferdinand. (Many contemporary accounts say the bomb actually bounced off the car.) He was traveling to visit people injured in that blast when he was killed. Ferdinand was aware of the danger - earlier that day he had deflected a bomb hurled at him by another would-be assassin, The Times reported. Princip, a Serbian nationalist enraged by the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian empire, had assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, presumptive heir to that empire’s throne, and his wife, the duchess of Hohenberg, as they rode in a motorcade.
The previous day had been cool and rainy, but on the morning of 28 June the city was bathed in hot sunshine.On June 28, 1914, an 18-year-old student named Gavrilo Princip fired a pistol in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and changed the world. The minarets of numerous mosques could be seen rising from among the trees and buildings along the river, a reminder of the city’s Ottoman past. Further up were the cemeteries with their glowing dots of white marble, crowned by dark firs and buffs of naked rock. The hillsides were dotted with villas and houses standing in orchards. On either side, steep hills rise to a height of over 5,000 feet. Sarajevo lies in a narrow valley watered by the Miljacka, which gushes from a gorge just above the town. A picturesque view unfolded before the couple as the motorcade swung onto the Appel Quay, driving eastward along the river. On the morning of Sunday 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Countess Sophie Chotek von Chotkowa und Wognin, arrived by train in the city of Sarajevo and joined a motorcade for the ride to the city hall.
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