In the early morning of June 28, 1914, the streets of Sarajevo, an important city in southern Europe, were bustling with people, and the long-lost sunshine after many days of rain illuminated the city, and the citizens went out of their homes to welcome a distinguished figure from the north.
At that time, Sarajevo was a territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and this distinguished guest, who was widely watched and cheered, was the nephew of Emperor Franz I, Crown Prince Ferdinand. However, what is not commensurate with the lively scene on the street is that Archduke Ferdinand sat in an open-top sedan with a somber face, and the Grand Duchess Sophie next to her looked pale and uneasy, as if the scenery in front of them had nothing to do with them.
The reason for the bad mood of the Archdukes was that not long ago, the convoy had just been assassinated: an assassin threw a bomb at the Grand Ducal couple's car, the quick-eyed driver slammed on the accelerator to make the car rush forward, and the bomb flew over the third car that the Ferdinands had left behind, injuring an officer and The Maid of the Grand Duchess Sophie, and Sophie's neck was also slightly injured by shrapnel.
Although there was no danger, the good mood of the Grand Duke and his wife was also blown away, and the convoy was ready to return after the hasty welcome ceremony. When passing a street, the convoy suddenly stopped, and a Serbian youth just over a meter away from the car first looked shocked, then burst into a frenzied and joyful look in his eyes, and took out a revolver from his arms and shot at the Grand Duke and his wife violently.
The piercing sound of gunfire pierced the clear sky over the city, and the Grand Duke and his wife were hit hard by bullets close at hand, and Ferdinand hugged his wife and shouted with the remaining weak vitality: "Sophie, dear Sophie! Wake up, our kids are still waiting for us to come home! ”
The couple's good fortune did not happen again, and after a brief period of suffering the two died one after another. The Assassin, named Princip, was caught on the spot, unaware that the bullets fired from his gun would plunge most of Europe into the abyss of disaster.
Assassin Princip (Image from the Internet)
It was a murder that could have been avoided, or that the Ferdinands should not have been on the streets of Sarajevo in the first place. As Imperial Crown Prince, Ferdinand did not have to visit the city of this remote province, and it was no secret that there were extremists in Sarajevo who hated the imperial government, and he had been warned as early as Vienna that the trip was likely to be dangerous. Yet Ferdinand came, and he did all this for the sake of his poor and unfortunate wife, Sophie.
At this time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was ruled by the Habsburg Dynasty, and as the largest and most deeply inherited royal family in all of Europe, the Habsburg Royal Family had supreme glory and naturally had extremely harsh rules and regulations. Archduke Ferdinand, as heir to the Empire, did something that disgraced the entire royal family: he fell in love with a lowly maid and insisted on marrying her. This maid was his later wife, Sophie, a girl from a shabby aristocratic family who was forced to work as a maid at a relative's house due to family difficulties.
Ferdinand I, Emperor of Austria-Hungary and Ferdinand's uncle, was furious and strongly opposed the marriage. Ferdinand, however, was determined and vowed not to marry Sophie. As the only legitimate heir of the empire (Franz's own son had already committed suicide due to emotional problems), even the emperor himself could not easily depose him, Franz had no choice but to compromise, but his heart had planted a deep resentment against this nephew.
After the marriage, Ferdinand and his wife were both happy and distressed, and the dedicated Ferdinand did not stage a drama that was not cherished after getting it, and the husband and wife were always harmonious and loving, and they gave birth to several lovely children; however, the distress was that the entire royal family was full of malice towards Sophie - she was forbidden to attend all important or unimportant ceremonies, she was not allowed to sit with Ferdinand in public, could not enjoy the standard etiquette of the princess, and was often coldly harassed in life.
Ferdinand insisted on visiting Sarajevo in order to make up for his apologies in this "extralegal land" where the royal family could not reach it, and let his wife enjoy a rare scenery as a princess.
Just didn't expect that this was a death trip.
Archduke Ferdinand (Image from the Internet)
Grand Duchess Sophie (Image from the Internet)
The background to the Assassins' murder of the Archduke and his wife is complex, and the core reason for this is inseparable from a national concept, the Slavs.
The Slavs were a vast ethnic system in Europe and were known as one of the three barbarians of Europe. After a long period of evolution, the later Slavs were divided into three major branches, namely East Slavs, West Slavs and Yugoslavs.
The East Slavs include present-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. At present, Russia, as a world power, no one dares to underestimate, but it was a discriminated existence, regarded by Europeans as an unculturable barbarian, worthy of cannon fodder mercenaries and slaves (some say that the name of the Slavs is derived from slaves - slaves). Russians are also inferior to the point of not wanting it, without the "fighting nation" style touted on the domestic Internet. The aristocrats of the Tsarist era were proud to read French and speak French, and the broken pots and crock pots in Western Europe could be collected as works of art in Russia, and the atmosphere of admiration and flattery far exceeded the public knowledge of the River Martyrs sect more than a decade ago in China. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians had a strong "convert" mentality, wanting to be accepted and recognized by real Europeans. Yeltsin's time even wanted to join NATO, seemingly forgetting that NATO was established to deal with the Soviet Union, and of course it was quickly taught by the United States. Russia, which has suffered a great loss, has finally sobered up a little, and now it is unique, and its cultural mentality has become an independent existence from Europe.
The West Slavs included Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Friends who often watch international news will find that many Poles' names are very similar to Russians, not "Fu", "Ski" is what "Ko", such as the director of the famous movie "The Pianist" Polanski (Polish French), the Nobel Prize-winning Polish writer Chesław, because they and russians are originally a Slavic people of the same origin. Of course, the closer the race turns its face, the deeper the hatred, and the Poles always regard the Russians as the hard-won mortal enemies of the world, and even say that "when the Germans conquer Poland, we lose our territory; when Russia conquers Poland, we lose our souls", and the depth of their hatred is frightening.
Yugoslavs are more well known, post-80s friends must be no stranger to Yugoslavia, which was also a regional power in Europe, known as the "Balkan Tiger". Later, due to the civil war, a bunch of small countries such as Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were Yugoslavs.
The Bosnian province where Sarajevo was located was a territory forcibly annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1908, and the Bosnians, as conquered, had a strong independent tendency. The Kingdom of Serbia, a neighbor to the south of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which belongs to the same Large Yugoslav nation as the Bosnians, has always wanted to instigate Bosnia to become independent from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and unite with itself to establish the "Greater Serbian Kingdom" of the Yugoslavs.
There is no doubt that Serbia's actions aroused the vigilance of austria-hungary, and the hostility between the two countries became increasingly fierce, and Austria-Hungary called Serbia "the jackal waiting for the opportunity to bite the belly of the empire". Ferdinand, who came to Sarajevo as Crown Prince, naturally became the object of Serbia's hatred.
The vast Austro-Hungarian Empire and the small state of Serbia to the south
Ironically, however, Archduke Ferdinand was actually a moderate politician who had always advocated the elevation of the status of the Slavs in the Empire (there were many Slavs in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in addition to the Bosnian provinces, counted as a minority of the Empire), and even gave the Slavs semi-independent political status, ruling the country together with the Austrians and Hungarians, the main ethnic groups of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and establishing the so-called "Triple Empire".
If Ferdinand succeeds to the throne, his political leanings will benefit the Bosnians, even the Serbs, but extreme national sentiments, once instigated, are beyond the control of the government. The Serbs' extremist national organization in Sarajevo, the Mafia, has been funded by the support of the Serbian government, and the Assassins who assassinated Ferdinand were members of the Mafia, but they did not obey the Serbian government.
Serbian leaders had been informed of the assassination in advance, and they had a premonition that the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian crown prince would bring disaster to their country, so they took some measures to prevent the assassination from taking place. Unfortunately, the fervent Assassins completely ignored the government's warnings and even ignored the Mafia leader's order to "cancel the plan" and resolutely took guns and bombs to the streets of Sarajevo.
With the conviction of saving the country, they brought an unprecedented bloody storm to the Serbian nation and to Europe as a whole with the tragedy of "the heroes are gone and never returned".