00:00june 28th 1914 a quiet morning in europe where empires stood proud and the world believed it
00:08was at peace then a single gunshot shattered the silence in that moment history took a dark turn
00:17alliances were activated armies mobilized nations prepared for war what leaders thought would be a
00:25short conflict became a catastrophe beyond imagination within weeks the world was on fire
00:33this was not just another war this was the beginning of the great war this was world war one
00:48june 28th 1914 the morning in sarajevo was completely ordinary
00:53the sun rose the way it always does shopkeepers opened their doors children ran toward school
01:00women busied themselves with the work of the house men sipped their tea read their newspapers talked
01:05with their neighbors there was nothing unusual about that morning no strange sound no sign that
01:12this day would be different from any other nobody knew that after this morning the world would never
01:17be the same again nobody could have imagined that one ordinary morning would crack the earth open and
01:23swallow everything that came before it a bullet was fired just one bullet and that single bullet set
01:29the entire world on fire but the story of that bullet is not the story of just one day or
01:34one place or one
01:36man behind that bullet were years of anger decades of humiliation deep wounds between nations that had
01:43never healed old pains that had never faded a slow burning resentment that had been growing deeper with
01:49every passing year everything that had been quietly filling up inside governments inside
01:55armies inside the hearts of proud nations all of it came spilling out in one single moment
02:02that bullet did not kill just one man that bullet pushed an entire world into a war from which it
02:08never fully
02:08recovered the world that existed before 1914 was one world the world that came after 1914 was an entirely different
02:17one
02:17and the distance between those two worlds was so vast so devastating that generations since have spent
02:24their lives trying to understand it and still do this was the great war the war the world would come
02:31to call
02:32world war one but to understand this war you must first understand the world that existed before it you
02:41must understand the europe of the early 20th century a europe that looked beautiful on the surface grand palaces lit
02:47up
02:47streets busy markets opera houses new inventions the whistle of trains the glow of electric lights in the night
02:55but which on the inside had every corner stuffed with gunpowder like an old magnificent house whose
03:01foundations have quietly rotted away strong looking on the outside but silently crumbling within
03:07one strong gust of wind and the whole thing would come crashing down
03:12that gust came and everything crashed in the early years of the 20th century europe was locked in a
03:19peculiar and dangerous kind of game every major country wanted to outrun every other every major
03:25country wanted the biggest army the strongest navy the most colonies the most land the most flags flying in
03:30the most places this was a race born of fear a race where nobody wanted to win they just desperately
03:37did
03:38not want to lose and because of that fear every country kept building bigger weapons larger armies more
03:45powerful fleets because nobody was willing to stop first nobody was willing to take a step back
03:52look at germany under kaiser wilhelm ii germany was becoming a new and rising power in 1871 germany had
04:01defeated france taken the regions of alsace and lorraine and declared itself a powerful empire
04:08now it was becoming the largest industrial nation in europe german factories worked day and night
04:14iron steel weapons german engineers were famous around the world the german army was known for its
04:21discipline and precision but despite all of this germany had not received the one thing it wanted most
04:28the respect the recognition the place at the top table that britain and france enjoyed germany felt
04:35that the world was not giving it the status it deserved this feeling this sense of being powerful yet
04:41somehow overlooked sat in the national heart like a wound that deepened with every passing year
04:47look at britain the sun never sets on the british empire britain nearly a quarter of the entire world's land
04:55flew the union jack from india to africa from australia to canada from the caribbean to the south pacific
05:02britain ruled the royal navy was the most powerful naval force in the world a british man was respected
05:09anywhere on earth simply for being british but beneath all of this there was a deep fear fear of germany's
05:17growing naval power germany was building new battleships strengthening its fleet and britain began to feel
05:24that if this continued unchecked its own centuries-old supremacy could be threatened fear and power living
05:31together in the same room create a very dangerous combination look at france the humiliation of the
05:38franco-prussian war of 1870 sat in the french chest like a slow working poison the loss of alsace and
05:45lorraine
05:45territories france considered its own where french people lived where the french language was spoken
05:51was a wound no generation could forget children were shown maps of the lost provinces in school
05:57men spoke of it in the squares france wanted revenge france wanted its dignity back france was always a
06:05country on the edge ready at any moment for another confrontation with germany look at russia
06:13vast powerful but rotting from within czar nicholas the second was on the throne a man who might have been
06:22a decent
06:22husband and father in a simpler life but who was utterly unable to manage the world's largest and most complex
06:29empire
06:30he could not make decisions he froze in crisis he was under the influence of his wife alexandra who was
06:38herself under the
06:39influence of the mysterious mystic rasputin russia saw itself as the protector of all slavic peoples
06:45serbia bulgaria and others looked to russia as younger brothers looked to an older one
06:52russia liked this role but inside russia itself was falling apart hungry people angry workers a revolution
07:00quietly gathering beneath the surface all of these powers were playing a game
07:05a game in which nobody was alone
07:09every country had agreements with others
07:11treaties signed secret deals in place
07:14this was the alliance system and it was the most dangerous system in the world because it meant that if
07:20any one country got into trouble
07:21all the others would get dragged in with it
07:24it was a chain reaction waiting to be triggered
07:27the triple alliance stood on one side
07:29germany austria-hungary and italy if any one of them was attacked the others would stand with them
07:36the triple entente stood on the other side
07:38britain france and russia
07:41they too were bound to each other
07:43europe had become a chessboard on which the pieces on both sides stared each other down
07:48one move and every piece on the board would shift
07:50all that was needed was a spark
07:53and europe was never short of sparks
07:55that
07:56spark came from sarajevo
07:58gavrilo princip that name will always live in the history books
08:02remembered for a bullet that changed everything
08:04he was a young man
08:06nineteen years old
08:08a bosnian serb
08:10he was consumed by the idea of pan-slavism
08:13the belief that all slavic peoples should unite
08:16free themselves from the grip of austria-hungary
08:19and live on their own terms
08:20he was a member of malada bosnia
08:23young bosnia
08:24a revolutionary group opposed to austrian rule
08:27he wanted bosnia to be united with serbia
08:30he wanted freedom
08:31he lived for a cause
08:32and he was ready to die for it
08:35on june 28th 1914
08:37archduke franz ferdinand
08:39the heir to the austro-hungarian throne
08:41the empire's future emperor
08:43came to sarajevo
08:45he was there with his wife sophie
08:47it was an official visit
08:50he had come to observe military maneuvers in bosnia
08:53to do an official tour of the city
08:56he rode through the streets in an open car
08:58waving at people smiling
09:00a royal visit
09:02nobody knew that death had also arrived in the city that day
09:06gavrilo and his associates had planned it in advance
09:10they wanted to kill the archduke
09:11some of them had already tried and failed
09:14one threw a grenade that bounced off franz ferdinand's
09:17car and exploded under a different vehicle injuring several people
09:21gavrilo believed the plan had fallen apart
09:24he stood outside a delicatessen
09:26defeated
09:27deflated
09:28and then fate took a strange and terrible turn
09:32franz ferdinand's car made a wrong turn
09:35the driver did not know the correct route
09:37the car slowed
09:38right in front of where gavrilo was standing
09:41just a few feet away
09:44gavrilo raised his pistol
09:46two shots were fired
09:48one struck franz ferdinand in the neck
09:51one struck sophie in the abdomen
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