During high school World History class, we were often taught that World War I started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austria-Hungry Empire. However, it was much more than a single bullet that led to the most brutal war mankind had ever witnessed. More people were killed during World War I than any war ever fought: an estimated ten million. Yet, its carnage is bestowed to a single incident.
In this well researched masterpiece, Frederic Morton explores the city at the heart of the Austria-Hungry Empire from 1913 to 1914, Vienna. It is not that Vienna was the city in which the spark unfolded. In fact, it was in Sarajevo that the assassination took place. However, Mr. Morton connects the historical dots and guides us through a political abyss based on nationalism that could only end in a world at war.
During this time in Vienna, Mr. Morton takes notice of some of scandalous ‘citizens’ in this city who had a major influence following the first world at war: Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky. However, he is quick to note that these ‘citizens,’ while they were in awe of the coming storm, could not foresee its destruction on mankind nor the political capital they would gain.
Mr. Morton reminds the reader that Archduke Ferdinand was a pacifist. He never would not have wanted the war his assassination started. In fact had he lived, many suspected Ferdinand, once Emperor, would seek a mutual peace with Serbia. But this was not to happen. Emperor Franz Joseph was 83 years old and it was only a matter of time when Ferdinand would take over. Thus, his youthful Serbian assassin, Gavrilo Principe, and is accomplishes, Trifko Grabez and Nedeljko Cabrinovic, believed it had to happen in 1914.
After the assassination, it was almost a given that lines had to be drawn and sides had to be chosen. Mr. Morton writes, “The new power had already divided the world into Allies-until-Victory and Enemies-unto-Death.” The lines were so sharply drawn that it put cousin against cousin: Tsar Nicholas II of Russian, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and King George V of England. But as blood is thick, blood split in war seems to be diluted with resentment and anger. For, when the Tsar was forced to abdicate, neither cousin wanted to take him into their country. Thus leaving the Tsar and his family at the hands of the Bolsheviks only to be executed.
Yes, I throughly enjoyed this masterpiece. The information researched by Mr. Morton is imperative to understand that World War I did not start because of a single gunshot. It was so much more. In the end, Mr. Morton concludes it was not Vienna or Sarajevo that was the epicenter of this disaster known as World War I, but man’s nationalistic pride and egotism.
In the Afterword provided in the 2001 “Da Capo Edition,” Mr. Morton makes another historical connection from Serbia to World War I to the war in Yugoslavia in 2001, after the fall of the Soviet Union. He masterfully states, “The future keeps mocking the past. The past, in eerie resilience, keeps shadowing the present.” Yes, history, in one way or another, is always repeating itself. And when it does, shame on us.
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