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>> Thank you very much, Professor Hutton [phonetic].
Now is the last moment for those of you who wanted
to know something about this, Franz Ferdinand,
to leave the room, because the story will be
about a rather less popular and less liked figure
of Franz Ferdinand, the guy with moustache that you see.
But I promise you, although less liked,
a rather interesting figure.
Though he himself entered into history rather unexpectedly,
he became a heir apparent to the Habsburg throne only
after three other candidates before him died
of a premature death.
His uncle, Maximilian, was shot by a Mexican firing squad
after he foolishly accepted the Mexican crown during a
revolution there.
Rudolf, Franz Joseph's son, the emperor's son,
who was the crown prince, committed a suicide
when he was 17 years of age, together with his lover,
Baroness Maria Vetsera, in what was probably the greatest
celebrity scandal of the 19th century in Mayerling.
And then his father, Prince Karl Ludwig,
died from typhoid poisoning after he drank water
from River Jordan on a pilgrimage [laughter]
to Jerusalem despite the advise not to do so.
So in the year 1900, there was he facing this grim reality
of being a heir apparent to the oldest empire in Europe
at the moment, and successor
in what is the oldest family in Europe still.
Habsburg family can trace its lineage probably
over thousand years.
No family in this country can boast such a long history.
So he had all this burden and on the first day,
he was already engaged with his long time fiancee Sophie Chotek,
and the emperor, this is his later wife,
disapproved of him marrying her
because she was a mere Czech countess, also not capable
of marrying Habsburg heir apparent and he still loved her
and would not give her up.
So after many squabbles, he publicly performed one
of the most humiliating, degrading act
where he renounced in--
in her name and the name of the future children,
their right to inheritance,
and throughout their marriage they have--
they have experienced insults and humiliations
because she was never allowed to appear alongside.
This renunciation also meant that despite the fact
that Austria-- Austria-Hungary basically began the First World
War over their deaths, they were not accorded a public funeral
and a place in the Habsburg family crypt
for the proper burial.
Now, he is remembered in history for a very notable record,
namely-- and I have to read this,
since this record will never be broken as it seems.
According to the records,
he meticulously compiled in his own game book.
Franz Ferdinand had been responsible, he is the bloke
with moustache in the middle, for the deaths of a grand total
of 272,439 animals during his lifetime, the majority
of which had been loyally driven straight towards his overheating
guns by a large assembly of beaters.
Three thousand of those are still in display in Konopiste,
his castle in today's Czech Republic.
He also holds a record for a single day hunt
when he murdered 2,198 animals.
Again, we cannot judge him according to our own standards
of today since this was a rather accepted hobby at that time,
especially among the nobility.
The primary source of-- of the dissatisfaction, let's say,
were his politic-- politics, his support of reform plans,
namely the Habsburg Empire was fading, disintegrating
and there were attempts
in the years preceding First World War to reform it.
One was along the so-called trialist lines namely
Austria-Hungary was organized,
according dualist lines there were two halves, Austria
and Hungary, and Slavs which made a majority of 50 percent
of population were not represented.
So this was one attempt to include the Slavs.
And the third was to reorganize the empire along federalist
lines and create 16 states.
He is also remembered for his rather explosive temperament,
erratic tendencies and prejudices, stubbornness,
and a rather thin skin which especially brought him
into conflict with Hungarians in the empire.
But certainly, there was much talk and speculation of the day
about his mental health particularly because of the--
as I said, thousand years history
of insanity in Habsburg family.
Now, in addition to Hungarians, he had other known animal--
other enemies-- other enemies were the Serbs
because of his plans to reform the Habsburg Empire,
this would meant a failure, prevention of the plans
of South Slav or Serbian unification.
And one particular territory was very fragile,
namely the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina
where the assassination would take place.
Now, let me say a few words about Bosnia
and Herzegovina and-- and how they became Habsburg provinces.
After four centuries of Ottoman rule,
it was actually British foreign secretary, Lord Salisbury,
who proposed
that Austria-Hungary occupies these provinces at the Congress
of Berlin in order to prevent Serb
and that means Russian expansion to warm seas.
And so-- and Austria-Hungary willingly accepted,
had its own reasons to do so, prestige, internal reasons
to suppress South Slavic nationalism
that was threatening the empire also from within.
And last but not least, this was the only possibility
for Habsburg or Austria-Hungary's expansion
at the time since they did not have a maritime colonial empire
as other states in Europe at that time.
Now, historians disagree whether we can consider this occupation,
this rule as a sort of colonialism
since two basic features are missing.
The features of British colonialism for example,
one is that colonies need to be overseas territories
and other very important is racism.
So, European colonial powers like Britain, and France
and others believed in the racial supremacy over peoples
in India and Africa and so on.
Now, this was a bit difficult in Bosnia, which was adjacent
to territories of Austria-Hungary
and inhabited the same kind of white people if you want
that inhabited the Habsburg Empire.
>> So we speak about semi-half colonial rule
because indeed the Austrians,
the Germans at that time considered the local population
inferior, maybe not racially but as minor, as childish,
as a population in need to be governed
and civilized and told what to do.
So the rule was paternalistic, very conservative, medieval,
if you want, feudal, encompassing also some
of the noted orientalist prejudices
and treating the locals who had no rights as immature.
There was only reliance on old elites,
mostly church leaderships and all the civil servants
or entrepreneurs were actually Germans or other subjects
of the Habsburg Empire who were moved and colonized and brought
to live and-- and rule Bosnia.
In addition, corruption, spy network
and a very noted [inaudible] all cast a dark shadow
over some considerable improvement
such as infrastructure and beginnings
of industrialization and so on.
But the two key issues frustrated the population, one,
the land issue was not resolved, and second, the education--
the education, was very controlled with the attempt
to control a typical Bosnian regionalist, loyalist--
loyalism to the crown against the prevailing Serbian
and Grecian affiliation of the people,
and a very restricted access to education.
There was no idea of education as we have it today especially
in the developed world
as an avenue leading away from poverty.
Instead it was only there to serve
and service the needs of administration.
There was no attempt to introduce primary education
from the state budget, and let me read these figures,
20 percent went on [inaudible] and only 3.5 percent
on education and only 1/3 of this,
namely 1 percent was spent on primary education.
Now, this might seem little but we should put it
in a proper context and--
and some claim this was considerable achievement
compared, and now we speak about real colonialism
to British spending, let's say on education in Egypt
which was 3 times less.
Okay, so the rule lasted almost half a century,
administration remained overwhelmingly in foreign hands
and teachers, the system was overtly anti-Serbian
and from 1910 about-- there was a series of student strikes,
there was a series of youth organizations being formed
to protest and resist the occupation, and a series
of terrorist acts and at the rulers and the lives--
and now I answer the first part of the question,
"who killed Franz Ferdinand?"
The lives of the assassins were examples of alienation
and idealism, of poverty-stricken rural youth--
rural blokes as we see them here in big modern world.
There were six of them all together lined
up in the main boulevard leading to Sarajevo town hall
where the motorcade carrying Franz Ferdinand was heading to.
Now, what was he doing on that day, 28th of June 1914?
He was invited by the governor, Austrian General Oskar Potiorek,
to inspect the military maneuvers
that Austria-Hungary organized exactly at the border
with Serbia to threaten Serbia, and the maneuvers were supposed
to finish with this procession parade in Sarajevo on 28th
of June which was Serbian
and still is Serbian national holiday, a very special day
for all Serbs, when many centuries earlier,
in this famous so-called Kosovo Battle,
Serbs lost their medieval kingdom to the Ottoman Empire.
So it was a deliberate provocation
by General Potiorek whether Franz Ferdinand was aware it's--
it is not certain but certainly he was pleased
to accept the invitation and parade because he was allowed
to do so with his wife, something he was not allowed
to do in the capital Vienna, for example.
So-- now, to the assassins, let me dedicate some time,
these are the-- apart from one, five others were all teenagers,
all members of the radical youth organization Young Bosnia
which opposed the Austria-Hungary's occupation
and advocated the unification of South Slavs.
These are the two most prominent,
here Nedjelko Cabrinovic, and here Gavrilo Princip,
a very notable name, Princip in Serbo-Croatian means principle,
so what a better name for an idealist revolutionary
than a family name saying principles.
Now, both of them and the others were already known as activists
in Bosnia, and in fact Nedjelko Cabrinovic which was expelled
from Bosnia by a German judge,
so imagine his frustration being expelled from his native land,
and they ended up in Belgrade in Serbia, of course,
which they saw is [inaudible] of South Slav unification
in the year preceding the assassination.
Now they both had reasons to be frustrated.
Nedjelko Cabrinovic's father was a loyalist, he owned a pub
in Sarajevo and was noted to be a Habsburg spy
and he had a long running conflict with his father.
Gavrilo Princip went to Serbia in order
to join Serbian paramilitaries to volunteer
and join the paramilitaries fighting the Ottomans
in the south of the Balkans.
But because as you can see from this photo,
his frail health and-- in general small--
he was rather of small figure, he was refused
and that caused further frustration.
So they spent the evenings in Belgrade cafes where they were,
if you want, victims or subjects of Serbian national propaganda
of some of these paramilitaries and--
and with the help of some of these contacts, they managed
to procure some weapons and they wanted to do something big.
Their idol was a certain Bogdan Zerajic,
who in 1910 who already attempted to assassinate the--
Potiorek, the Austrian governor, but failed and was executed.
They wanted to do something even bigger and they heard
of the heir apparent visiting Sarajevo
and they thought what a better chance to march into history.
And as they said later, they both came
to the idea at the same time.
We don't know who came to the idea first, and they,
with the few bombs and guns that they procured,
they traveled back to Sarajevo, gathered a few
of their teenage friends from Young Bosnia and lined
up on Sarajevo's streets on that day.
Now-- this is now Franz arriving with Sophie
and let me explain how this event took place.
>> It's a rather interesting story and very different
from some other famous assassinations
or let's say the recent ones of Benazir Bhutto career in Lebanon
where those murdered had no chance of escape
or survival, let's say.
Here the story was different.
Four of the would-be assassins, having no military training
and being teenagers as I said, were so scared
that they didn't do anything as the motorcade went by.
Only Nedjelko Cabrinovic, the one I showed before on--
on the right, on your left, managed to throw a bomb
but he didn't wait 12 seconds as he was told back then,
that's how the bombs function.
So the bomb actually hit the car but bounced off and clattered
onto the street and exploded under the vehicle behind.
So nothing happened.
The motorcade basically speeded up and ended in the town hall
where Franz Ferdinand was able to vent off his famous anger
because of this incident.
Now, some advised that he called off the visit and because
of a possible follow up.
But this was against his temper and he wanted to show off
and visit one officer from the car behind who was wounded
from shrapnel of that bomb, so he wanted to go back
to the city hospital and visit this officer.
And he only consulted General Potiorek whether it was safe
for him to do so, and of course General Potiorek who was--
could not admit that his own provinces were not safe
so told him to proceed.
Okay. It took 2 hours between these two attempts.
They spent 2 hours in the town hall and in the meantime most
of the crowd dispersed and even Gavrilo Princip got hungry
after awhile, went into a snack bar--
snack shop at the corner on one crossroad and ate
and the motorcade drove back.
So he pulled a gun and fired two shots,
and each bullet killed both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie.
Now there was no photographer obviously on the scene,
so European newspapers which were delighted with news and--
and such-- which cause so much excitement all
over Europe ordered these drawings as you can see,
and on both of them you can see
from the near distance how he fired his shots.
Now both would-be assassins, first Nedjelko Cabrinovic
when he threw his bomb, he drank the cyanide and even tried
to jump in the river nearby trying to commit suicide,
but the river was only one foot deep in them.
[Laughter] It was middle of the summer
and the cyanide they had was old, had no-- expired or--
and so-- so did Gavrilo Princip, both of them were arrested,
taken to police and under the duress of investigation,
divulged all the details, the names of--
this is another interesting attempt of legal image
of the ***, here is Gavrilo Princip.
Now, back to more serious, this is the scene
when they were taken to court.
As I said, couple months later, they divulged all the details,
all the other peasants people who helped them to travel
from Belgrade to Sarajevo, they were all arrested,
only one assassin managed to escape to Montenegro,
and the rest were put on trial.
Nedjelko Cabrinovic was the most talkative, and let me read
to you his final defense, "Before we part,
I should like to express the wish that you understand us,
that you not consider us criminals.
We love our people.
Nine-tenths of our people are farm workers, they scream,
live in misery, they have no schools, no culture.
It hurts us.
We felt the anguish of our people.
We did not hate the Habsburg dynasty.
Although I nourished anarchistic ideas,
never in a single thought was I
against His Highness, Franz Joseph.
The only thing I did not like was
that he received 60,000 crowns per day.
We did not plan this assassination.
We admitted this idea arose in our minds
in the society in which we live.
There was all these talk of assassination.
The people we lived among talked about Franz Ferdinand.
They regarded him as an enemy of the South Slavs.
Nobody told us directly, 'go kill him,
but in that milieu we came to that idea.
Think what you like of us but we are not criminals.
For myself and in the name of my comrades,
I beg that the children of the late heir apparent forgive us,
and you render whatever verdict you like.
We are not evildoers, we are honest people, honorable,
idealistic, we wanted to do good, we loved our people,
and we will die for our ideals."
Now, Princip, the chief--
accused was much more modest in-- in his words and only said,
"If they want to impute that someone else was the instigator,
then I must say this is not true.
The idea grew in us, so we carried out the assassination.
We loved our people, and I do not want
to make any other statement in my defense."
Now I looked at this tribunal court materials
and I found another statement which is maybe more illustrative
of his mindset, the mindset of this 19-year-old man.
When the judge asked him if he believed in God,
Princip replied, "I believe in everything."
Now the debate about the origins
of the assassination has never been resolved and indeed,
Young Bosnians had made contacts with Serbian paramilitaries
and procured weapons from them, and the propaganda they heard
in Belgrade naturally shaped the assassins' thinking but today,
and even at the court, most historians accept the--
the denial that anybody else came with the--
with the plan, anybody else but them.
Only one of the six assassins could be sentenced to death
and executed, the others were spared because they were minor,
and instead they were sentenced to long-term imprisonment,
in solitary confinement and chains
in a notorious Theresienstadt prison near Prague,
which became a more notorious
as a transition concentration camp during World War II, and--
and three of them died in the course
of the First World War next couple of years.
Thanks to the Czech guards, the graves were marked
and later the remains were transported to Sarajevo,
but they were buried as martyrs, as heroes, and in a mausoleum,
and the only survivor was Vaso Cubrilovic,
who even I managed to-- to meet, who lived hundred years
and was remembered as the only person that did not have
to stand up when Yugoslav Marshal Tito entered the room.
It was the other way around, if he entered, Tito would raise
to a salute the would-be assassin
who was only 16 at that time.
Now, back to the answer-- "what killed Franz Ferdinand?"
>> Immediately after the assassination, the programs
against Serbs began in Bosnia and around Austria-Hungary,
and Austria-Hungary sent an ultimatum to Serbia,
in which among other things it demanded
that Austrian agents conduct the investigation
on Serbian territory, and this was unconstitutional,
and Serbia could not accept this particular point,
propose that international tribunal in Hague takes over
but the War Hawks in Vienna rejected this,
and exactly one month after the assassination declared war
on Serbia.
And in a matter of days,
the whole Europe was engulfed in war.
Throngs of mobilized youth in Europe marched
as if going to a wedding.
The march of French recruits
under [inaudible] lasted 23 hours.
Here, you can see the-- some of the war--
World War I pro-smoking campaign posters, but after more
than 10 million of those recruits died,
the belief in progress and heroism
in Europe disappeared together with four empires
and the old world that Franz Ferdinand was emanating.
If we take the assassination of Franz Ferdinand as the reason
for the First World War, that would be a unique case,
that a group of teenagers was able to change the course
of history and actually provoked the greatest tragedy
in the history of mankind up to that day.
No matter how much it might seem
that these young assassins were able to shape history as I tried
to present, they were in fact shaped by it.
The assassination was only one in the series of anti-Habsburg
and anti-occupation youth movement events
that could not be stopped or prevented and Austria-Hungary
for years planned to attack Serbia
and finally it started the war only
when it got the reassurance from Berlin.
So it was basically the European concert of power,
division of interest spheres, imperialism, colonialism,
authoritarian rule of medieval dynasties, especially the ones
in Germany and-- and Habsburg Empire,
but also the power [inaudible] in other countries that--
behind that other true reasons of World War I,
and these unresolved tensions pushed Europe on the path
of self-destruction that will determine the cause
of the 20th century and that will cede these cemeteries
throughout Europe.
And let me finish there and leave some time for question.
Here is-- I hope you have the handout for further reading.
>> [Inaudible] say thanks so much,
let's a give a round of applause.
>> Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> That-- that was as educational as it was riveting
and also, if I might say, very, very humorous
about a very, very tragic event.
And we've got some time for questions,
and if you like to raise your hand,
I'm sort of telling you how to do it,
but I'm sure you know how to do it.
Yes? Would-- yes?
Well, [inaudible]--
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Was the Habsburg family multilingual
because they clearly presided over a really difficult set
of languages, the Hungary, Serbia, Germany?
>> No, not really, and that was the big thorn
in the eye of Hungarians.
How could they be persuaded that they are equal to Germans
when the emperor and also the heir apparent did not even
speak Hungarian.
But the sympathy laid with Sissi, the empress who--
who did speak Hungarian, who learned Hungarian,
who was beloved by Hungarians, but she also ended
up being killed by an Italian anarchist on the shores
of Geneva Lake some couple of decades before.
So, the assassinations were quite regular occurrence
in Europe at that time, so this was not something extraordinary
in that sense, you know.
>> Good. Anymore questions?
We have a question over here, yes?
>> Is there-- is there any writer you would recommend
who could [inaudible] one in this area of history
that you've just mentioned.
When I-- who has been particularly fascinated
by the concept of Mitteleuropa and--
well, could you recommend any writers?
And we would read them-- I would, in translation of course.
>> What I put on the reading list are rather scholarly books,
trusted ones, let's say--
>> Yes, I'm not sure we had--
unfortunately we had such a wonderful number of people here
that I'm not sure you-- you have got that,
but if you could comment as well, that's good,
I think some people have got that but-- yes, good.
>> No, I mean, there are a number of works
that described Mitteleuropa and Vienna at the turn
of the century, and this was certainly a very interesting
time and in history but describing the particular event,
if you mean literary works, no, not that I'm aware of, no.
>> Okay, I think we have time for one more question
and then I think we-- anymore questions?
Yes? We have a question here, yes?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Could you wait-- wait for the-- it's alright, sir,
thanks very much, wait for the--
>> You mentioned within your lecture Tito,
when he eventually died, the implosion
of Yugoslavia was unbelievable.
Do you reckon that now the throes of that have come
to an end because it's all the same area
as where Franz Ferdinand was?
>> Well, Tito himself embodied many controversies, paradoxes
and some called it the last-- called him the last Habsburg
because he presided for such a long time
over a multinational country that was very unique in Europe
at that time and that he managed to hold together
where everybody else was creating nation states
to South Slavs created a multinational state.
And unfortunately as we know, as Europe was united, or uniting,
this country was falling apart and after Tito's death.
Now, he, as I said, celebrated the assassins
but later was identified with Habsburgs.
He himself in 1914 was fighting on--
was mobilized as a Habsburg subject and was fighting
on the eastern front, and where he defected
and joined Russian communists and later October revolution
and only later moved to Yugoslavia
and to cover the communist party.
So, there is no easy answer to-- to your question, I'm afraid,
as history is full with these controversies and he is one
of the most controversial figures of the 20th century.
>> But I think that we've got the time
at which we must say thanks once more to Dr. Aleksov.
Thank you so much.
[ Applause ]