Michael Henrik Wynn reads John Buchan's classic description of the shots in Sarajevo in 1914 that set the First World War in motion for Historyradio.org.
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00:00Now, on historyradio.org, we take you to Sarajevo, in June 1914, and the fatal shots that set the First World War in motion. The text is taken from John Buchan's History of the Great War. The voice is that of a modern reader.
01:30On the morning of Sunday, the 28th of June, in the year 1914, the Bosnian city of Sarajevo was disturbed with the expectation of a royal visit.
01:40The Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburg throne and a nephew of the Emperor, had been for the fast days attending the maneuvers of the 15th and 16th Army Corps, and had suddenly announced his intention of inspecting the troops in the capital.
01:56He had embarked at Trieste on the Wednesday in the new battleship Viribus Unitis, and had been joined at Elysium by his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, whose position was a source of perpetual strife between himself and his uncle's court.
02:12It was a military occasion. The civic authorities were given short notice, and had little time to organize a reception, and the royal party were met at the station only by Count Potjorek, the governor of Bosnia, and his staff.
02:27The visitors drove in motor cars through the uneven streets of the little city, which, with its circle of barren hills and its mosques and minarets, reminded the traveller of Asia rather than Europe.
02:39There was a great crowd in the streets, Catholic Croats, with whom the Archduke was not unpopular, Orthodox and Muslim Serbs, who looked askance at all things Austrian, and those strange, wildly-clad gypsies that thronged every Balkan town.
02:57But the crowd was not there to greet the Emperor's nephew. It was the day of Kosovo, the anniversary of that fateful fight, when Sultan Murad I destroyed the old Serbian kingdom.
03:08For five centuries, it had been kept as a day of mourning, but this year, for the first time, it was celebrated in Serbia as a national fete, since the Balkan war had restored the losses of the field of blackbirds.
03:23Belgrade kept high holiday, and the people of the Bosnian capital followed the example of their kinsmen beyond the Seyf and Adrena.
03:31The southern Slav provinces of Austria and Hungary had been the centre of disquiet and of misgovernment ever since the year 1867, when the dualist system was adopted.
03:43In that year, the region was divided, part going to Austria, part going to Hungary, and in 1878, a third Slav group was added,
03:52when the Habsburg acquired the military and administrative control of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
03:59Slowly, a common nationalism was developed among the three groups, and when Serbia passed under the rule of the popular Karagovic dynasty,
04:08that little kingdom became to the malcontent Slavs of Austria-Hungary what Piedmont of Cavour had been to Italy.
04:14The peasant and the educated classes, everywhere in the land of the southern Slavs, began to cherish dreams of national unity and independence.
04:27The annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 by the Habsburgs increased the discontent,
04:33and the government at Budapest entered upon a policy of repression, in which, as in the infamous Egram trials, forgery and perjury were not infrequent.
04:42The result was many crimes of violence against alien officials, and a drawing closer to the bonds between the southern Slavs of Austria-Hungary and their kinsmen of Serbia.
04:54A vigorous propaganda began through the public and secret channels, and the achievement of Serbia in the Balkan War turned the eyes of the oppressed toward her as their future deliverer.
05:05The common celebration of the Kosovo Day was a pledge of an hour of deliverance to come.
05:11It was an inopportune occasion for the Habsburg heir to visit Sarajevo.
05:18The Archduke Francis Ferdinand was a man in middle life, a lonely and saddened figure oppressed by the imminence of a fatal disease.
05:26In most respect, he was a typical Austrian conservative, but as compared with the majority of his countrymen, he had something of the larger vision in statesmanship.
05:36He saw that Austria-Hungary was succeeding ill in the government of her strangely varied ethnic groups, more especially the six and a half million southern Slavs.
05:47He had watched with anxiety the rise of Serbia, and the position he was assuming in the eyes of his own Croates and Serbs and Slovenes as their future emancipator.
05:56As a member of the House of Habsburg, he sought to counter the greater Serbian ideal with that of greater Austria.
06:03He dreamed of a Balkan federation, which should include Romania, under Austro-German auspices, and in early June he had discussed the matter with the German emperor among the rose gardens of Konopic, and obtained his assent.
06:16In his own country, his policy was the destruction of the dualist system and the establishments in his plates of a trialism, under which the Slav element should be equally in power to the Austrian and the Hungarian,
06:31and the different ethnic groups should have real local autonomy and a fine union in a federal parliament.
06:38For this reason, and also for the sake of his wife, who was of Slavonic blood, he was not disliked in the southern provinces.
06:44In Austria, he was little loved. His cold manner repelled the ordinary citizen, and the military party at Vienna has set their faces like flint against his triune policy,
06:57though they worked harmoniously with him in reorganizing the army and the fleet.
07:02In Hungary, the Magyar oligarchy, led by Count Stephen Titsa, were his avowed enemies, for their power depended upon the suppression of the subject ethnic groups.
07:12In their eyes, the existing regime must be preserved at any cost, and they had long frankly avowed that their attitude meant war.
07:21Sooner or later, better soon than late, Serbia must be crushed, and with her the pan-Serbian dream.
07:29The archduke was therefore a voice in the wilderness, and his deadliest foes were those of his own household.
07:34His ideals provided at least a chance of peace, while those of his opponents contemplated at some early day the abandonment of the arts of statesmanship for the sword.
07:46The royal party proceeded slowly towards the town hall,
08:14Motoring in Sarajeva is a leisurely business, and there was a great crowd among the apple creed.
08:21Just before they reached the Chumurya bridge over the Miljatska, a black package fell on the open hood of the archduke's car.
08:28It pushed it off, and it exploded in front of the second car, slightly wounding two of his suit and six or seven spectators.
08:34The would-be assassin was arrested.
08:38He was a compositor called Gabrinovich from Trebigny in Herzegovina, who had lived some time in Belgrade.
08:45The fellow would get the cross of Marys for this was the reported remark of the archduke.
08:50He knew his real enemies, and was aware that two powerful circles in Vienna and Budapest, the news of his death, would not be unwelcome.
08:57Arrived at the town hall, the archduke were presented by Count Portiorek to the borgermeister.
09:05The archduke was in something of a temper.
09:08What is the use of your speeches? he asked.
09:10I come here to pay you a visit, and I am greeted with bombs.
09:14The embarrassed city dignitaries read the address of welcome, and the archduke made a formal reply.
09:19He then proposed to drive to the hospital to visit his wounded aide-de-camp.
09:22Some small attempt was made to dissuade him, for in the narrow streets among the motley population, no proper guard could be kept.
09:31But Count Portiorek was reassuring.
09:33He knew his Bosnians, he said, and they rarely attempted two murders in one day.
09:39The party set out accordingly.
09:41The archduke and his wife in the same car were the governor.
09:43About ten minutes to eleven, as they moved slowly along the apple key, in the narrow part where it is joined by the Franz Josef Gasser, a young man pushed forward from the crowd on the sidewalk, and fired three pistol shots into the royal car.
09:58He was a Bosnian student called Pinsip, a friend of Gabrinovich, who, like him, had been living in Belgrade.
10:09The archduke was hit in the jugular vein and died almost at once.
10:14His wife received a bullet in her side, and expired a few minutes later in the government house after receiving the last sacraments.
10:22The tumult of the fete today was suddenly hushed.
10:26The police were busy in every street, laying hands on suspects, and in an impassioned proclamation to the odd and silent city, the burgemeister led the crime at Serbia's door.
10:36My dear friends, this can only be a work of a Serb.
10:52You have just heard, John Buchan's description of the assassination in Sarajevo, in June 1914.
11:20The voice was that of a modern reader.
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