Kara

Hey everybody, this is Kara.

Ed

And this is Ed.

Kara

And this is Daisia. And this is your day's dumpster fire.

SPEAKER_01

I feel like we're here.

Ed

I I feel like you bouncing around on that chair. I feel like the microphone's just gonna pick up all the squeaking and I heard nothing. Really? Okay. It's just my paranoia.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. I am good with the mute button. I'm not good with unmuting, but I'm good with the mute button.

Ed

Yeah, we've had uh we've we've had quite a morning.

Kara

Um why don't you just tell them about our lovely trash can fire? That literally just happened. Because I've been sitting here for an hour.

Ed

What happened there? Did you hear that, David? Like carriage turned into a robot.

SPEAKER_01

Like that's a you problem, my friend. I didn't hear anything.

unknown

Sound fine.

Ed

Yeah. Holy crap, what is going on now? I everybody sounds horrible.

SPEAKER_01

This is our trash can buyer for the day. We are we have been technically disabled, enabled or no, disabled, and just it's not doing the great. We're here. We're here.

Kara

We're here. We're fine. We're doing we're doing fine. This is great. Deja, why don't you tell them about the trash can? Oh right.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so Ed and I live about 20 minutes away from each other, and I don't have the best setup for recording. And I didn't want to do this at night because it makes me really sleepy, and we like to do it during the day. So I came over to Ed's house and we're in his office right now, and we don't know what we're doing. Therefore, we did not know how to be in the same room, hear each other's voices, have two mics, and all of that simultaneous simultaneously. Therefore, we spent about an hour and a half figuring it out.

Kara

Yeah, we're doing great. Yeah, so good.

SPEAKER_01

Good job.

Kara

Yep, so that was our trash can fire. How to record. We're press the button.

SPEAKER_01

We're doing it. We're gonna we're gonna make another podcast like about us being able to be podcasters, but like it's all of the things we do wrong. Probably be really successful.

Kara

Actually, you're not wrong. Let let us tell you.

SPEAKER_01

Which we just record while we're doing the things wrong, and it's like check out what we did and don't do that. Perfect. Anyways, Kira, it's you today.

Kara

It's me today. What you got for us? I got a doozy. I decided to tackle uh the assassination of France Ferdinand and the start of World War One.

SPEAKER_01

Um this is gonna be good.

Kara

I'm very excited. I hope you all have your notebooks out pens, papers. There's a quiz at the end. I have that's about half of our size. I have been lugging around a giant World War I book for the past like two weeks. It's great. I am going to I'm telling you, you're right. You're right. Um, so I know that the assassination happened in 1914, but unfortunately for you guys, I have to take you all the way back to 1839 to start to understand why this was an issue. Um 1839 is the first alliance that we have set forward that's going to help push the dominoes along in 1914. But we're gonna go back to 1839 real quick. I am going to just give you some framework so you know how I have this organized. I'm going to start with all of the different alliances between the European powers, starting with 1839 all the way up to like 1907. Yeah, to 1907. And then we're going to briefly take a pit stop at the Industrial Revolution and what's going on there, the arms race. After that, we're going to get into the annexation. And then finally, after the annexation, we're going to talk about the Balkan Wars ending with 1914 and the assassination. Unfortunately, you need to understand all of those pre um uh I guess information. You need all that information before you even start thinking about this assassination. So we're gonna start there.

SPEAKER_01

No instant gratification for you.

Kara

Absolutely not. We gotta work up to it.

SPEAKER_01

Patience is a virtue, my friends.

Kara

Patience is a virtue. Stick with me. I know it's confusing. We're gonna try and bolt through it pretty quick, though. Again, get your notebooks, get your pens and pencils. Winner gets a cookie at the end. Here we go. They just get ready with a notebook. All right. Well, she just wants the cookie. Yeah, she just wants the cookie. Here we go. So in 1839, the Treaty of London was signed, making Great Britain a protector of Belgium. If you look on a map, Belgium is between France and Germany. Great Britain is now a protector of Belgium. So if anybody is wanting to invade Belgium for any reason and Belgium doesn't like it, then that means Great Britain is uh assigned, I guess, to aid Belgium in that conflict. And then shortly after that, in July of 1870, the Franco-Prussian War occurs. During that time, Otto von Bismarck, German chancellor, was divisive in the beginning of that war, seeing an opportunity for a German victory. This guy, Bismarck, man, he's a he's a real treat. But uh the politics are a little confusing. I'm not going to get into them for the Franco-Prussian War. Let's just say that Germany was a small coalition of different areas, all under the rule of Prussia before it's actually Germany. So Prussia is like the umbrella, and then Germany is like five or six empires underneath the rule of Prussia during this time period. The Franco-Prussian War, I'm about to tell you. So the Franco-Prussian War was a war between Prussia and France. I'm not going to go into all of the details of the war, but in a nutshell, France wanted to assert dominance over Prussia. They wanted their land or whatever. And the German army under Prussian rule was bigger. They were more trained, they were stronger, because remember, it's like a force of five or six different empires. And uh, Germany ended up winning that war. They gained independence from Prussia, it was a peaceful transition, and the king of Prussia became the emperor of Germany. So essentially, Prussia turned into Germany. It was swallowed up by the German Empire. Cool? Good? So far, so good? Yeah, absolutely. Keep it on, keep it all. About seven years later, in March of 1878, Ottoman Turkey was defeated in a war against Russia. This forced the Ottoman-Turkish Empire to recognize the independence of both Serbia and Romania. And they were under Ottoman rule before this. So this is the time period just before the Ottoman Empire used to be super powerful and super awesome. They were starting to weaken at this point. They're losing their grip on their power. In 1879, one year after Serbia gained their independence, Germany and Austria-Hungary created an alliance. Germany and Austria-Hungary created an alliance. Underline that, that's important. Two years later, Russia joined in this alliance, creating what was known as the League of the Three Empires. So we've got an alliance between Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia during this time period. It doesn't stay that way forever, but it is important to note. In 1882, another alliance was created between Germania, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. This one is called the Triple Alliance. So it's a different alliance, very similar, but instead of Russia, it's Italy.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

Kara

The next year, a year later in 1883, Austria-Hungary, Romania, and Germany, another triple alliance, but this time it's Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Romania, formed an alliance as well. In 1885, two years after that, Austria-Hungary created an alliance with Serbia that lasted until 1995, which is interesting. To me, that's really an interesting alliance. In 1901.

SPEAKER_01

1995.

Kara

Yeah, lasted a hundred years.

SPEAKER_01

Born that year. That's crazy.

Kara

That's right. Ridiculous. In 1901, discussions of an alliance between Britain and Germany fell through without any traction on the idea. Despite that, Britain was successful in taking an alliance with Japan a year later, which will come into play during World War I. In 1904, three years after that, Britain and France formed an alliance called the Anglo-French Entente or the Entente Cordiale. Sorry, my French is trash. That's the best I can do. In 1907, Entente. In 1907, Russia and Britain formed an alliance called the Anglo-Russian Entente.

SPEAKER_01

I really like that word.

Kara

Entente is a good word. Alright. So I know all of the above, Entente. I know all of the above is extremely confusing, trying to keep track of all these alliances, who's aligned with who, who's not, and all of that. Um, especially if you don't have a map in front of you. If you go onto our website, look onto our show notes, I do have a really great map happening. So to simplify this huge network of alliances that were made between 1878 and 1907, to various world powers and all of that nonsense. For our story today, what we truly do just need to worry about is Serbia's independence and its alliance with Austria-Hungary in 1885. Um, it I do go into all of the other alliances down the road. That's where the cookie comes in. I hope you're keeping your notes handy. All right. So, whilst alliances were being made throughout the Western world, the Industrial Revolution was also in full swing, which meant new warships were being built. Bolt action repeater rifles were finding their way to military use in the late 1800s, and by the early 1900s, armies began using early machine guns on top of that. The first submarines were being sent out, the first Zeppelin airship was launched in 1900. In 1903, the Wright brothers created the first airplane. Seven years later, in 1910, militaries across the worst world began using them for military purposes. It's all going super fast. If you look at that, we have bolt-action repeated rifles entering the military in the late 1800s, like 1890s. Maybe 20 years later, we have men in airplanes in the military. Retonculus. The period between 1880 and 1914 was also a period of small wars between one nation and another nation. A lot of people, especially here in America, feel like this area is if of time is peaceful and everybody's hanging out. It it wasn't like that in Europe. In Europe, it was a lot messier. The public was having a great time. The public having a grand time. Politicians, not so much.

Ed

Uh it was interesting to note is uh when I took a Western civilization history class in college, my teacher was like, the 1800s in Europe was considered one of the most peaceful hundred years time period in Europe. And that's accounting for the fact that there was a lot of little wars going on.

Kara

Yeah, I'm talking about the 1900s, so 1899, 1880 up to the 1914 period.

Ed

Oh, oh, okay.

Kara

Yeah, so you're talking like not not the bulk of the 1800s, yeah. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Ed

And well, and one thing I I want to mention um about the American Civil War, and you're probably thinking like wrong podcast, and when we look at the technology from uh going into like 1910s and whatnot, a lot of Europeans, including Americans, they looked at the American Civil War and they're like, Hey, we need faster loading guns, we need the idea of pumping bullets down a range really, really fast, we need machine guns like the Gatling gun and all that stuff. And a lot of people in the uh in Europe were kind of looking at the American Civil War, uh, because it was a lot of uh um modern day I'm doing air quotes, modern day technology mixed with antiquated strategies, and a lot of Europe was looking at that in terms of how they were gonna go fight a war. So uh it was one of those things where the American Civil War was really, really popular in Europe.

Kara

Yes. With that being said, too, it is also important to remember I'm not really going to touch on America at all in this episode. They have nothing to do with anything right now, not until they enter the First World War, and even then they don't really get their footing on the world stage until World War II. But yeah, they they were looking at the American Civil War as like um an experiment to see what they could do better almost. Um so in 1899 to 1902, you have the Boer War between Britain and South Africa, one of their uh colonies down there. It was a British victory victory for for them. It did affect them, but it didn't have like a huge cost. It was more like a learning curve for the Brits. In 1899 to 1901, China suppresses the Boxer Rebellion, and it had a great cost to the Chinese government. It could be its own dumpster fire. I'm not going to get into that, but just know that that happened. In 1905, Germany, afraid of being surrounded by enemy countries, came up with the Schleifen Plan. Uh, the Schleifen plan does come into play. It is rather important. In a nutshell, a very small compact nutshell that I will not dive super deep into, but I'm sure we'll get into it later. Germany planned to take out France in a knockout blow and then go for Russia after that because they felt they couldn't fight a war on two fronts. They had Russia on one side of their country, they had France on another side of their country, they were super freaked out, and they're like, okay, if anything happens, we're gonna go all out. We're gonna just murder everybody in France, and then we'll go murder people in Russia. Super small nutshell. Again, there's whole doctor thesis papers written on the Schleifen plan. I'm not gonna go into that too much, but just know it's there.

Ed

Yeah, there's there's history professors that are just screaming at their phones right now. Like, you're forgetting all this.

Kara

I know, I'm forgetting a lot, but also I'm not. It's also something that scholars and historians argue about. I'm not going to get into it. Just know that that exists. It's there. It happens, it's important later. In 1904 to 1905, you have the Russo-Japanese War, uh, Russia, Japan. Russia loses and they lose really bad. They find it extremely embarrassing. Japan takes the victory, they also ally themselves with France and Britain, so just keep that in mind. In 1911 and to 1912, Italy and Turkey go to war over a land in Libya. Italy wins and they take the land. So you have all of these little tiny, smaller wars and battles and all of rebellions and stuff like that happening all throughout Europe. And a combination, if you combine the innovation that's going on, plus the warfare in Europe, created this creates an arms race between most of the countries led by Germany and Britain. They arm themselves with the newest and greatest in terms of military arms and tools. And it was something that moved so fast you could compare it to technology today. So, like you want to buy the next greatest cell phone, it's super cool. You pre-order it by the time this phone comes out, there's already another phone out that's bigger and better. Same thing is happening during this arms race. Britain is building these super cool ships. Germany sees these cool ships, and they build more, but Britain's already building something better than what Germany built. Same same idea, just on a much larger, scarier scale. So we have all of this stuff going on. We have all of these alliances. It's extremely chaotic. I hope you guys are following.

Ed

Yes, every word.

Kara

I hope you're taking notes because here is where I want you to really pay attention. We have the annexation of Bosnia. Here's oh goodness help me. Herzegovnia. Herzegovania. Herzgovnia, something like that.

SPEAKER_04

Herzegovania.

Kara

Uh, we're gonna start focusing on southeastern Europe and the Baltics. So we're going to be here until the end of the episode. So if you find yourself on a map, go ahead and search for Serbia, Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary, that area. That's where we're gonna be hanging out for a while. So there are a lot of rising tensions during this time between Russia and Austria-Hungary over the Slavic states in the Baltics. That is Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Greece. Russia considered itself to be a protector of the Baltic states. They had a good relationship with them. They were hoping to gain control of the land in the area, especially while the Ottoman Empire was in great decline. Austria-Hungary saw the Baltics as an issue. They were like a thorn in their sides that needed controlling as if they were a naughty child, causing all kinds of issues. At the time, Austria-Hungary had a large Slavic population with ethnic ties to people there in the Baltics. Therefore, the Austrian Austria-Hungarian, oh goodness, government was aiming to use their control in the Baltics to control their own population. So because those people had ties to the Baltic states, they were like, maybe if we control the Baltic states, that'll help us control our own people here. It's a weird logic. I don't know if I really agree with it, but sure. Okay, politicians.

Ed

I feel like it's it's it's a lot of paperwork.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

I I feel like there's a lot of memos going around at this point. A lot of aggression. A lot of you like. Yeah. Yeah.

Kara

But at the same time, you have all these little wars, you have an arms race. It's redonc.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

In 1908, Austria-Hungary decided to annex Bosnia-Herzegovnia. Um, basically, that means they're going to take over this territory without any kind of diplomacy or paperwork or conversations. They're just like, this is ours now. They didn't even give them a heads up.

Ed

Yeah, I feel like that part of the world is all about annexation.

Kara

And it's a little bit scary considering how this plays out, but we'll we'll keep going. Uh, as you can imagine, this caused uproar and discontent in the Baltic states, especially in Serbia, where Bosnia-Herzegovina is located. This resentment towards annexation created groups and factions of angry young people with the aim of revolt and revenge. So they started creating um, like almost, I don't want to say terrorist groups, but they kind of are terrorist groups. It's really hard to define. They're they're basically small angry groups of young people wanting to rebel against the annexation and the government of Austria-Hungary within the Baltic states. The whole thing angers Serbia, and in turn, it angers Russia. Russia is attempting to bring the country to war, but they're unable to convince Britain and France to assist them, so they backed out ultimately. Serbian people began creating their own groups and factions to act against Austria-Hungary. So we have angry groups in both states for and against this annexation. One of these groups is called the Black Hand. They're a lot smaller, uh, but they do have some power in the area. We'll come back to them here pretty soon. All right. So after this annexation in 1908, we get the Young Turk Revolution that occurs within the Ottoman Empire. Uh well, I mean, what was left of it. So what happens is Macedonia is the center of this big revolution and the revolution essentially it results in the empire's transitioning from an autocracy to a more constitutional government, and it's essentially the end of the Ottoman Empire, and it turns into Turkey in a nutshell.

Ed

Yeah, I feel like uh I feel like the Ottoman Empire, it's not like Rome, where it like had centuries of expansion and success, and then it kind of petered out. I feel like the Ottoman Empire just started off big and then just spent its years declining.

Kara

I could see that. Yeah. Just like this is the end of it.

Ed

Yeah, like hey, we're we're not gonna like we we just popped up on the map as this giant empire, and then we just kind of petered out over the course of centuries. No growth.

Kara

Here we are. Yeah, they're all you could do, you can make those same argument with Germany too. But Germany's still alive in KK. Yeah, what are you gonna say, Deja?

SPEAKER_01

I said hey there. Oh, hey, like I was like I was the Ottoman Empire. Like I said, hang out for a little bit and then slowly just head out.

Ed

Nice, just fade. Oh, like Ottoman Empire.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's like that that gif of um of uh Homer Simpson when he's going into the hedge. He's just like sinking into the right now I gotta go.

Ed

Perfect. Yeah, just moving on back.

Kara

Uh the countries in the Balkan League. So these these are the the main countries, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria. These countries became super alarmed with all this discontent happening. They were super alarmed with the revolution, the Young Turk Revolution, they didn't like it. Primarily because a lot of their native people were still living in Macedonia, and the Turkish government now they are trying to rule with an iron fist essentially with a central government. And the Balkans were like, no, our People are there. What are you doing? Like that destroys everything that we're doing over there. So in 1912, here we go, guys. In 1912, the Balkan League attacked Turkey, essentially starting a war. There were some battles, they fought. And the Balkan League did win that war against Turkey. They call it the First Balkan War in early 1913. So just a year later, it didn't last very long. That tells you how powerful Turkey was at the time. The victory, though, left the Balkan states with a blot of land to be divided amongst them. And uh they did this this did not go well whatsoever at all. Upset with the division of spoils, Bulgaria, who didn't think it was fair that Serbia is getting everything, attacked Greece and Serbia, and it sparked the second Balkan War in 1913. So from one war to another war, we can't agree on anything. It's fine.

Ed

Wait, so they had one war in 1912 and then they had part two in 1913. I feel like they just just merged them and just made it one.

Kara

But I I mean they do that because of the reason the second war started was because of what they won in the first war. That's why the second one started.

Ed

Okay. And there was probably like a clear-cut surrender, like on this day, this war is over. Therefore, if a fight breaks out next year, then it's a separate issue.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

It's a paperwork issue.

Kara

Pretty much. I mean, really. So the second Balkan War starts in 1913. Romania came to the aid of Greece and Serbia, which means Bulgaria was fighting on their own against two other, no, three other countries. And by that point, it it was a loss for Bulgaria and a big win, especially for Serbia. The second Balkan War only lasted like two months. Yeah, it's a good time.

Ed

It's kind of like the uh the invasion of uh Zanzibar. Uh it's the war it's history's shortest war. It only lasted for 35 minutes. Perfect. And uh Britain just invaded Zanzibar in like a morning. Jesus.

Kara

So the Balkan wars, the reason they're important, it results in Serbia gaining a large amount of land, almost doubling its size. Bulgaria remains extremely angry with Serbia, hoping for a chance at revenge. Russia, traditionally a friend of the Balkan countries, was put in a spot and was forced to choose between Bulgaria and Serbia. They ended up going with Serbia and took Serbia as an ally, kind of forgetting about Bulgaria as a whole, which comes into play later. Not Bulgaria, but Serbia. It's fine. Alright. We're gonna fast forward a little bit to 1914 in April, and we're going to shift gears. So we were zoomed out talking about world powers from a big picture. Now we're going to zoom in to a small little cafe in Serbia in April of 1914. There is a small group of men in this cafe, about six or seven dudes, and they all belong to a Serbian group called the Black Hand. And they receive a newspaper clipping from some friends in Bosnia. And the newspaper clipping was a small informational snippet notifying the public of Austria-Hungary's Archduke, Prince Franz Ferdinand. He would be visiting the capital of the recently annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo, the capital, on June 28th, 1914. This newspaper clipping was read, passed around, and I just want to remind you that Austria-Hungary's annexation is not very popular with the Serbians at all. They're very upset by this. So just a reminder. On the note, a note on June 28th. So Franz Bernan visiting Serbia in Sarajevo, the capital of the annexed area on June 28th. I want to put a note on June 28th just to rub salt in it. Okay, let's rub salt in this room that's already open.

SPEAKER_01

For the Serbians.

Kara

Yeah, it was yesterday. Today's the 29th. Oh yeah. 110 years? I think. Am I counting that right? 110 years? You are? 110 years ago from yesterday.

SPEAKER_01

That's cool.

Kara

I I wanted to note, that is actually perfect. That for the Serbian people during this time period, especially, June 28th is rather important. In 1389, the Serbian people lost their independence to Turkey. No, I think they won their independence. I think I read that wrong. They won their independence from Turkey in the Ottoman Empire after the Battle of Kosovo in 1398.

Ed

It's one of the rare cases where a country kind of gained freedom by not separating with England.

Kara

England wasn't even involved. It was great.

unknown

Yeah.

Ed

Good for them. What was that stat? Like most nations in the world have their own Independence Day celebrating the day that they're no longer part of the British family.

Kara

Yeah, it's a good time. The fact that Austria-Hungary was sending its prince to this particular city on this particular date was quite the slap in the face for Serbians. Think of it like this What if we had a country like North Korea or China or Russia or whatever come to the US, annex Washington, DC, and they're like, this is ours, and then they go and send their prince to Washington, DC, and parade him around like a little toy on the 4th of July.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, hell no. That ain't gonna fly. That's a bad deal. That's awful.

Ed

I feel like they would probably like the prince and everybody would show up to Washington, D.C. in the middle of or the beginning of July, where it's like 100 degrees at 90% humidity, and they're probably thinking this sucks. And then when they really really get to know our politicians, they're like, We're out.

SPEAKER_01

I mean What the heck is going on?

Ed

Like, what is up with these people? We're you know what America, keep it.

Kara

Oh boy. Okay. So I have a primary resource from one of the assassination conspirators. It's really fascinating. However, I cannot pronounce his first name, so I'm gonna sit skip to his second name. I'm very sorry to this man. Um all right, but it's really interesting. I I put it in the show notes if you want to read it. It's really cool. So this account comes from Yevik? Yevich? Yevchik? Yevchik. Something like that. Yevchik, we'll go with Yevchik. That's fine. He was a conspirator for the assassination, and he writes, Such were the men into whose hands the tiny bit of newsprint was sent by friends in Bosnia that April night in Belgrade. At a small table in a very humble cafe beneath a flickering gas jet, we sat and read it. There was no advice nor admonition sent with it. Only four letters and two numerals were sufficient to make us unanimous with discussion as to what we should do about it. In other words, all they needed to know was that date and that prince coming to that city. And they're like, all right.

Ed

Also, nice.

Kara

Just okay, guys, this is so stupid. The people who wrote this article not only wrote the date he was going to be there, he also they also gave the addresses of where he was going to be. They gave the schedule for the day, they gave a map to his motorcade route.

SPEAKER_01

That's how you do it.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, everything. That is all the information was published. All of it was published.

Ed

I I feel like whenever you if you get a job as a Secret Service agent for like the president, they will have that you have to take these training courses, and I bet you anything, the first lesson of the first day of your training is this newspaper clipping that like this is what you do not do.

SPEAKER_01

Like, hey guys, don't do this.

Kara

Don't do this.

SPEAKER_01

What do you not do? That is the title of your first test. Yeah.

Ed

This I feel like they could have made it one step further and made like drew a map of where he was gonna be going through, and then put like little circles like this would be a good place for a sniper. If you're gonna throw a bomb, this would be a good place for a bomb. Like that's kind of what they're gonna try to signal. This will work. They that's kind of in the newspaper, like they put down like that. Oh, not a not in the newspaper.

Kara

No, no, no, not in the newspaper, but that's what the the black hand did. That this little group of guys, they had that little new piece of newspaper and they mapped out where everybody was going to be. They mapped out who was going to do what.

SPEAKER_01

Ugh.

Kara

It's a fiasco. A whole system, whole system, the map to the motorcade route, the schedule for the man's day. So the official schedule, I'm just gonna read it to you because hey, we have it. Uh for Archduke France Bernan is and his wife Sophie for their visit at 9 50 a.m. They were to arrive by train from Bosnia and proceed from the station by car to the town hall. From 1010 to 10:30 a.m., they were to visit the town hall and from 10:40 to 1140, they were to open and tour the new state museum, and from noon to noon toon to 2 p.m., they would have lunch and then they would have lunch and return to the station. Noon to tune. Here we go. We're doing great. Words are hard. But yeah, that's their that's their schedule.

Ed

That is that's uh that's wild. They literally did all the work for these guys.

Kara

Yep, it was all done for them. It's it's a it's a hot mess, and it just gets worse.

Ed

I like how they did they didn't even have to like write it down, they just like clipped out the newspaper article, like, okay, guys, here's your itinerary, you know where to go now.

Kara

I think I think the goal, and I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little bit. The goal was to give this information to the public for the parade. That way they could shake hands, they could see them in the motorcade and all of that stuff. So they could have the public play it ahead, but man, it backfired.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. No kidding.

Kara

Alright, so let's uh let's go to the day of June 28th. Before they even set off on this trip, the Archduke was warned about possible assassination attempts during this visit. But they did it anyway. He was like, I don't care, let's just do it.

unknown

Uh-huh.

Ed

Yeah, there it's a bulletproof motorcade. That convertible that they were in was bulletproof, right?

Kara

Oh, yeah, the convertible. Yes. And it wasn't convertible. You guys can look it up. It's great. The Austrian Hungary, the Austrian Hungary, the same one as JFK's. Um, a little bit older, but close. It's actually actually the similarities are a little um intimidating. Uh uneasy. It's it's really uncanny. Thank you. It's really weird if you if you look at it. Thankfully, uh, we Jackie did not die, but anyway.

Ed

Thankfully.

Kara

She's actually an interesting lady.

Ed

She's very fascinating.

SPEAKER_01

Very no, 100%. So interesting. That lady. Very fascinating. Yeah.

Ed

Yeah. The stuff that she was privy to and the stuff that went down, like leading up to it, and after that whole oh.

Kara

I fascinating.

Ed

No idea how she made it work.

Kara

Maybe I'll do that next after this one. That'd be fitting. That's a good one. Yeah.

Ed

Yeah, I can see that one being good.

Kara

Back to 1914. Uh, the Austria-Hungarian government considered Sarajevo a safe location for the Archduke and his wife to visit. This assumption led to extremely light security during the visit. It was recorded that where there were only 120 police officers assigned to the route. It was a four-mile-long route. And the Archduke was traveling with no military presence in the vicinity. Good very light police. It was just him, his wife, a couple drivers. There was like one military general or two in his little party, but that was it.

SPEAKER_01

Good, good, good, good, good. Check, check, check.

Kara

Yep. All we're we're checking all these boxes. Thanks to this little article, the seven young Serbian conspirators placed themselves along the parade row, because they knew exactly where to be. They armed themselves with explosives strapped to their bodies, loaded revolvers, grenades, and cyanide pills just in case.

Ed

Just in case they got caught.

Kara

Yep. Right. If they got caught, they would, you know, bite on the cyanide pill. That was the goal, at least. They'd bite on the cyanide pill.

Ed

So that'd be kind of awkward. Like if you've got a cyanide pill in your mouth, then your tactic was that you're going to use that cyanide pill in your mouth to kill the archduke by like running up and kissing him or something like that would be a really weird.

Kara

That'd be awkward. The cyanide pill that comes back though, we'll talk about that here in just a second. Uh the motorcade drove by the first two conspirators without incident. Yevchik writes, When Francis Ferdinand and his retinue drove from the station, they were allowed to pass the first two conspirators. The motor cars were driving too fast to make an attempt feasible, and in the crowd were many Serbians. Throwing a grenade would have killed many innocent people. Another conspirator along the route. Yeah. Another guy, another conspirator along the route. He failed to draw his pistol in time to shoot the Archduke, so kind of the same thing. And around 10 15 a.m., this one's my favorite. It's his I mean, not that it sounds really bad, but this one to me is the funniest one. And even that sounds bad. Sorry, dark humor. Here we go. Conspirator Kavrinovich threw a bomb at the car Ferdinand was in. The bomb bounced off his car, hit the car behind him, and it injured several people, including a military general that was close to the Archduke. After throwing the bomb, this guy took his cyanide pill, bit on it, jumped into the river that was along the route. But unfortunately, the poison didn't work, and the river was too shallow for him to drown, so he was arrested.

Ed

Instead of like winning a Darwin award on what should have been the most easiest assassination in history.

SPEAKER_02

Like this is why I wanted to use that one.

Ed

How did you miss the bomb? How did you not take the cyanide pill right? Like, how can you?

SPEAKER_01

Everyone is fired.

Ed

Oh, it gets worse. It gets worse.

Kara

Hold on. After the first bomb hits, the cars speed down the town hall as quickly as they can. The conspirators along the rest of the route did absolutely nothing as the cars rush past them. Because remember, there's seven guys. There's like three or four other guys down the way. They didn't do anything about it. They just ran.

Ed

At this point, the bombs saw the fiasco at the bomb, and they're like, They're like, nope. This guy's invincible. They're like, oh.

Kara

I mean, if you think about it, it would be smart because once those bombs hit, everybody panics, everybody runs. Right. So the conspirators are going to blend in with the chaos. They're going to run away and try to escape that way, acting as casually as possible, right? One of the conspirators was 19-year-old Gabriel Gravrillo, Prince Ep. He was positioned and sitting down at a nearby cafe shortly after the bomb went off. Sitting at a cafe, chilling. One of my favorite stories, and we don't know if it's true or not, but I like it. Uh he went in for a sandwich. Very casual for a guy who just tried to assassinate a prince.

Ed

Meanwhile, like everybody's running around freaking out that a bomb just blew up and he's just sitting there just drinking his coffee, eating a sandwich.

Kara

Yeah, well, what I think he was trying to do is blend in a little bit. Like he was there, he was ready, and then everybody like freaks out, so he just walks to this cafe trying to be casual about it.

Ed

As you do. As you do. When a bomb goes off, yeah.

Kara

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this bomb goes off, everybody leaves, right? Even after this whole thing, the Archduke still decides that he's going to continue with his visit in Sarajevo. Like nothing happened. Nothing to see here. We're just gonna He still goes. We're just gonna keep going. He goes to Town Hall still, as scheduled. He has some of Very.

Ed

I like how the bomb, the attempted bomb part of it, doesn't even slow it down. Like he's on schedule still after all this went down.

Kara

Yeah, I think they're a little bit behind by like 30 minutes, but even so, that's pretty impressive. They go to town hall, some of his like people in his entourage are saying, Hey, we should probably leave. I don't think this is safe for you anymore. And the Archduke is like, Nah, nah, dude. I I we're we're we're we're doing this. This is fine.

Ed

Um you almost got blown up with a bomb. It's fine.

Kara

It's fine, don't worry about it.

Ed

Yeah, it's just one.

Kara

And the guy screwed up, so yeah, don't it's these guys are dumb. So I did read that a lot of the people who were close to the Archduke they describe him as very prideful, very irritable, very stubborn. So that kind of tracks for somebody who would make that decision. The Archduke met with officials at Town Hall, so he was continuing with a scheduled day. They kind of modified it because they wanted to include a visitation to the general who was injured by the bomb. So that general was rushed to the hospital. They wanted to make sure they go out, they went and saw him. So they made new plans, right? They made new plans instead of going to the museum, they made plans to go to the hospital. Okay. Now these new plans were never given to the drivers. And on top of that, the drivers did not get the memo for the new plans, and there was also miscommunications because the drivers spoke Czech while Ferdinand, his wife, and all of the other people spoke German. Nobody bothered to translate and and and tell the drivers that this was a thing. Oh boy. Okay, we're ready. So the Archduke, his wife, and their drivers all left to go to the hospital. Naturally, the driver took a wrong turn. After realizing how it took a wrong turn, he stopped in front of a cafe and was trying to reverse the car to get to the hospital. While the driver was trying to turn the car around, Gabriel Princep was sitting there at the cafe. If we want to go with the sandwich. If we want to go with the sandwich story, he was finishing his sandwich and he saw the car.

Ed

I I just have visions of this guy. Like, he's just eating like this giant subway sandwich. And then he just casually reaches into the sandwich and pulls out this pistol. Like he just so happened to have a pistol in there, and then like I mean, while the driver's asking him for directions.

Kara

I I like to picture it where the driver's in front of the cafe and he's fighting with the car. He's got freaking cars.

SPEAKER_01

He's like, it's all jumbling around and like rocking back and forth, and he's like, Oh my gosh, it's a car. I told them I wanted to know one.

Ed

He's got a map, it's upside down. Like it's just a mess.

SPEAKER_01

It's a hot mess. Gosh, I just need a raise and just oh, I hate this job.

Ed

Should have read the newspaper report that laid out everything.

SPEAKER_01

Should have been a lawyer.

Kara

It was such a bad deal. So while they're tried to turn this car while 19-year-old Princep spotted the Archduke's car. And then he shot his gun point blank twice. One shot hit the Archduke in the neck while the other shot his wife in the stomach. The couple were dead within a few minutes of being shot. Princep was attained by the police almost instantly. I did read another article that I thought was was pretty interesting too. He said it was lucky that they were shot where they were in terms of Princep's intentions, because you would have had to been a doctor or a butcher or something to know where those shots would go to instantly kill them that fast.

Ed

Interesting.

Kara

And he shot them point blank.

Ed

That was the Arstrik's wife, was that intentional, or do you think that was more like missed and hit her?

Kara

Um considering she was from a family of high power and regard, I have a feeling that it was probably intentional. I could be wrong. Because it was point blank, I could be very wrong, but I feel like that that was probably something that was planned as well.

Ed

Okay. If you look at her status, yeah. Like, hey, if you're gonna do it, do it right.

unknown

Yeah.

Ed

Yeah, pretty much. The first few guys that couldn't do it right.

Kara

So a note. After this whole thing, it goes out to newspapers throughout Europe. And for almost the entire population of Western Europe and even as far east as Germany and areas around Germany, it was it wasn't a big deal. They're like, oh, well that sucks for them. And then they move on with their day. There's like pictures of German people hanging out at the beach on the day this happened, eating ice cream, hanging out, like it's crazy. Most of Europe just it it was unfortunate uh, but it's not gonna have a great effect on us.

Ed

Yeah. Part for the course for the region. I mean But doesn't really affect us all that much. It's just Yeah. It's it's whatever.

Kara

Now that's the public view. If you look at the political side of things that the public did not see, there's there's a lot of activity happening. In Austria-Hungary, after the assassination, Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia were buried in a private crypt. There was no public ceremony, there's no fanfare, it's all very uh low-key. The emperor, so Franz Ferdinand's uncle, the current emperor, the man Franz Ferdinand was supposed to succeed, he had a really interesting uh response. He says, A higher power has restored that order, which I could unfortunately not maintain. In other words, he was kind of happy this happened. He didn't like his nephew. His nephew was obnoxious and annoying. He was going to be a terrible leader, so this is great.

Ed

Ah, families, family bonds are like unbreakable.

Kara

That's great. All right. So we're gonna start to zoom out a little bit back to world power statuses. So we're gonna start slowly zooming out. I'm gonna mention like one more, one or two more individual people, and then we're gonna start talking about countries again. But despite the emperor's opinions, the general population, as I said, were kind of divided. If we're going to count the Baltics and Serbia and Austria-Hungary and Russia, it was divided. So in southeastern Europe in the Baltics, and people were kind of upset, depending on what side you're on. If you're Austria-Hungarian, then you're upset. If you're Serbian, you're excited. Um, Austria-Hungary decided they needed an opinion on what to do. They they they were trying to figure out what to do, and they needed to make sure if things blew up, because I I also wanted to remind you, in this time and age, everybody's waiting for war to happen. Everybody's opinion, especially if you were in politics, was war is going to happen no matter what. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

Ed

Yeah, and I would even go so far if you look at imperialism in that time period. They were it they were not only like, hey, it's just a matter of time before a war breaks up, but they were almost like looking for a reason to try out these new fancy toys.

Kara

That's Germany.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

In fact, that's exactly what Germany does.

Ed

Cool.

Kara

Yep.

Ed

So everybody's just itching to play with their toys, and those toys just so happen to kill a lot of people.

Kara

Yep. So Austria-Hungary decided they needed an opinion on what to do, and just in case everything goes to crap, they go to Germany, their most trusted and strongest ally, and they go to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Kaiser Wilhelm II, if you do any kind of reading on this man, he is um a character who really, really, really wants to go to war.

SPEAKER_01

All he does.

Kara

Okay, if you if you read the whole thing, in in in like the grand scheme of everything, they every single person except for this guy, and maybe like two or three other people want to end this issue diplomatically. It could have been avoided.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

This guy.

Ed

And if you look at pictures of him, he looks like Kaiser Wilhelm.

Kara

Yeah, he looks like a total jerk face.

Ed

Yeah, well, almost like those uh those African warlords where they have like all the medals and the all yeah, and like what did you do to get these medals and all these accolades? But yeah, they're just he's just like he just looks like a Kaiser Wilhelm. It's really funny.

Kara

It's great. So this guy, he was outraged. Well, at least he played outraged. I'm gonna say he was outraged. He told Austria-Hungary that the Serbians should be held accountable and any action should be taken in any way they saw fit. No matter what they chose to do, they would have German support. Um Germany, if we go all the way back, is one of the strongest nations to suddenly pop up after the Franco-Prussian War. Remember, it's an algorithm of like six empires, so they're doing great. Now, Austria-Hungary sent Serbia illicit demands designed to be unacceptable by Serbia. It was things like allow Austria Austro-Hungarian people into your country and have them investigate the murder. Things like you have to put down these rebellions, control your people, give us lots of money, things like that. And they gave them 48 hours to accept these terms. It was designed this way to give Austria-Hungary an excuse to attack Serbia with military force. They knew that it was going to be accepted. It was designed that way. They wanted the excuse. So the idea was to take out Serbia permanently, with the might of their army and the backing of Germany. It was supposed to be a quick knockout to avoid a long, drawn-out conflict.

Ed

Precisely exactly what happened: a long drawn-out conflict.

Kara

Diplomatic attempts were made, but again, it just didn't work, and Austria-Hungary really, really, really, really wanted to knock out Serbia. Like this was this was what they wanted to do. So they did it. And on July 28th, they officially declared war on Serbia. Alright, guys, it's quiz time. You remember those all all those alliances we talked about? Remember it? Did you take notes? Okay, great. Do you remember? The spider web of allies. Whose ally was Serbia? Russia? Russia! You get a cookie. Congrats. Once war was declared on Serbia, Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary. Who's allies with Austria-Hungary? Germany. Germany! Deja gets a cookie. Alright. Now we have Serbia and Russia against Austria-Hungary and Germany. Let's look back at the German war plans real quick. We have these four nations so far. And and a reminder, this is like in a matter of a few days, maybe a week. Germany's plan was to hit France and to hit Russia, or vice versa. Knock one out, then take on the other one. Right? Well, now they're at war with Russia. Now they're at war with Russia. Which means now they're at war with France.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Yay. And on August 3rd, 1914, Germany officially declared war on France. Now, if you get this one, you get two cookies. Remember that Treaty of London in 1839?

Ed

Yes.

Kara

What did it do? Do you remember? What did it what does it do?

SPEAKER_01

Uh it's the one that made Great Britain protector of Belgium.

Kara

Correct. You get two cookies. Now, why do we care?

SPEAKER_01

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Kara

Why is that important? In order to get to France, the Germans needed to cross through Belgium. Okay. On August 2nd, Germany demanded permission to pass through Belgium. Belgium said no. And they decided to scan the ground. In response, Great Britain demanded that Germany withdraw. They refused. Great Britain declares war on Germany on August 4th.

Ed

Got it. So that's how Britain and France got involved.

Kara

It was Belgium.

Ed

Got it. Okay.

Kara

And this friends is how a dumpster fire of an assassination attempt creates an even larger dumpster fire that is World War I. There we have it. I will not go into World War I because that will make this episode at least another two to three hours. And I would love to. It is one of my favorite wars to talk about. Um, and if anybody is wondering, by August of 1914, both Italy and the US are neutral. They don't get pulled in until later.

Ed

Yeah, I feel like the whole France for an ed thing, like like you said, like, okay, he gets assassinated. The rest of the world just really didn't care. But then anyways. But then you but you also know that there's all these secretaries and all these for all these ambassadors and presidents and and Kaisers and all that stuff. They're like, okay, this person's dead. And then they started reading like all the fine print and all these agreements and all these treaties and alliances that they had. And it probably took them a few days for everybody to go through all the fine print to figure out like who's now gotta fight who, and like were allies with their enemy now. And like I feel like there is a lot of really, really sleepless nights of Europe trying to figure out what to do with the paperwork associated with the dead prints.

Kara

Yeah. Also, I feel like I left you, listeners, on a um like a what's the word I'm looking for? Where it's the a cliffhanger. There we go. I felt like I left left you on a cliffhanger with that. But um, if any of you are my students in class next year, you get the rest of it. So you're welcome. Including World War II. It's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_01

It's gonna be good stuff. Um, I watched uh 1917 last night. Love that movie.

Kara

Such a good movie.

Ed

I love that movie.

SPEAKER_01

I well, okay. Let me actually let me go back. Okay. I didn't watch it. I halfway watched it while finishing my notes for my episode, and then I was done, and it was at the very end, and I cried harder than I should have for someone who watched like 25 minutes entirely, but Aaron like summed everything up, so I was like, oh my gosh, this is so sad.

Kara

Love it. Is that your film pop culture reference for this episode?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, sick. Absolutely, it was a great it was really I was around the whole time. It was really good.

Kara

Yeah, that's a great one. And then uh for for literature, I would uh I would suggest All Quiet on the Western Front.

Ed

Oh yeah.

Kara

Anybody else has any, hit me up.

SPEAKER_01

Kara? Thanks, fun one.

Ed

Yeah, that's a good uh yeah, that's a good old-fashioned historical dumpster fire. Oh yeah right there.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, there it is. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Ed

Well, it's one of those dumpster fires where it's not like somebody threw a lit torch into the dumpster full of flammable stuff. It was like a spark. It's like this tiny little spark, and then the whole thing just explodes.

Kara

Yeah, pretty much as a result.

Ed

It's not like somebody took a flamethrower to it. Like in some dumpster fires, no, this is like the most innocuous assassination, if that's even a thing. This little innocuous assassination literally changed Europe and the Middle East.

Kara

It caused a Second World War, which changed everything for everyone. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

Ed

In fact, if you look at a map of today of that part of Europe, it does not look like what it did back then, because there's been so many changes and boundaries and countries collapsing, and it's just like um, like, well, we knew that we had that one lady that our school where she's like, Yeah, the country that I was born in doesn't even exist anymore. It's now a completely different country. I'm like, oh, that's gotta be weird. That's gotta be a weird feeling.

Kara

Yeah, man. It's crazy. It's crazy. I love World War One, love World War II, I love everything in between. So my students get ready, prepare. Um, all right, so real quick, some some house clean some house cleaning, Jesus, some cleanup housekeeping. There we go. That's the word. Housekeeping.

SPEAKER_01

There you go.

Kara

Oh god. Um, remember to visit us at our website, thedaysdumpsterfire.com. If you have a trash can fire that you want us to go over, there is a page for that. You can also email us at thedaysdumpsterfire at gmail.com. Um, we do have an Instagram that gets updated usually with episodes every time we release them. Same thing with the website. We're doing our best. It's fine. But I just wanted to let you know that that does exist. Uh, you guys got anything else before we before we leave?

SPEAKER_01

Kara, can we just drop a little bit of what Kara did for us?

Ed

Like I was actually gonna bring that up. Uh then and then you just brought it up, but that will tie into my announcement if you want to do your thing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I Kara is a phenomenal artiste, okay? We all know this. Um and she drew pictures of the three of us. Personally, you know, I I'm not like someone who I don't I just don't want to take a picture and put it on the website, okay? And I was like, Kara, you know, you should just draw us like in some kind of like error or whatever. I don't know how she does it, but she just executes things like more than my expectation. They're pretty high, and I'm just like so prepare to see her art. It's gonna, it's phenomenal.

Kara

Yeah, they'll be up there on the website if you go to the about us thing. That'll come up eventually. We'll get there, but it will be there.

SPEAKER_01

Work in progress.

Ed

Yeah, yeah, and that and that that will tie into my announcement because I am working on getting our Patreon page set up. Uh the idea behind the Patreon thing is um we don't have like super secret content or anything like that going. Uh, I want to set it up so that, hey, if you like what we're doing, donate. You know, just kind of like maybe we could do some shout-outs down the road and whatnot. But uh yeah, like if you like what we got going on, uh feel free to donate. And then we will also be putting up Kara's artwork on there. And the idea is to kind of set up a uh almost like a shop on there where people can buy uh prints and copies of her artwork because it's uh it it's next level stuff.

SPEAKER_01

It's so good. I can't say enough. I wish I could do that.

Kara

If you if you want to see more on Instagram, um the my art profile is KM Smalls Draws, I believe. I'll double check that.

Ed

Yeah, yeah, go check it out because it's it it's it's really cool. And then when we get the Patreon thing set up, like order prints, because that will help support your favorite podcast. And yeah, she uh yeah, Kara does, she has a way of drawing people that's very flattering.

SPEAKER_01

Honestly, like she really does when she uh when she's really thinking about how she's gonna execute this, she really does take the the uh characteristics of the person, which I just I don't know, I'm done.

Ed

Thanks, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You're great. That's just great. It's just great.

Ed

Yeah, because it because if anybody looks at me in real life, there is absolutely nothing flattering about me. But then when you see like my alter ego drawn by Kara, yeah, it's almost like wow, I could actually I want to mind getting to know that guy a little bit. And then when you actually see me in real life, you're like, oh you're great, you are beautiful.

Kara

All right, with all that being said, thank you for listening to us today. We hope you see in the next one. Thanks, guys.

Ed

Yep, keep it a hot mess.

Kara

Bye too.