OK Folks, as most of you have probably clocked, I merely lurk on this forum and do the mod stuff as my interest area is WW2. I know precisely zip about WW1 other than it began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, based upon the troubled politics of eastern Europe/Germany at the time, then all hell let loose. What i am asking here is that you, as knowledgable members of the forum, teach me about WW1, its beginnings, and the progression through the different phases and fronts of the war. When was Ypres? Did it happen before or after passchendale? Is that even how you spell it? Just what the hell happened in Europe? I've heard of the slave camps in Africa which continued up to after the second world war. what was happening in Asia when Japan was our friend? remember i know nothing about this, so you are dealing with an idiot. Just remember i am blonde. TEACH ME!!!!!!!!
Yesterday, the 28th June 1914, a series of coincidences, and the half baked plans of a consumptive Bosnian youth, caused the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife, Sophie the Duchess of Hohenberg, to be assassinated in Sarajevo. Serbia was blamed for the assassination by Austria and the chain of events that would lead to the Great War commenced. In March 1914, it was announced that Archduke Franz Ferdinand would visit Sarajevo, the provincial capital of Bosnia, on the 28th June. The Royal Party were to be driven from the railway station of Sarajevo to the Town Hall along the main street, the Appel Quay. Security was extraordinarily lax, no soldiers lined the route and the early announcement of the Archduke's visit gave a small group of Serbian anti-Austrian young activists, calling themselves the "Young Bosnians", plenty of time to prepare a suicide mission to kill the Archduke. Their leader was a 19 year old Bosnian Serb, Gavilio Princip, who (he claimed) would make a gesture against the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia-Herzogovina by murdering Franz Ferdinand. Balkan politics were so confused, ill informed and associated with so many secret political societies that, even to this day, the true facts are obscure. One fact that is known, however, is that the Young Bosnians were encouraged in their plotting by a very secret society composed of extremist Serbian Army officers and extreme Serbian Nationalist politicians. Their Society was called "Union or Death" later to become known as "The Black Hand". They, for their own purposes, assisted the Young Bosnians in their suicide mission and gave them pistols, bombs and time-expired (and therefore non-lethal) cyanide capsules. They also assisted them in crossing the Serbian border to Bosnia. At the Appel Quay, Nedeljeko Cabrinovic, one of the Young Bosnians, threw his bomb at the Archduke's car but the bomb bounced off and exploded behind the car, wounding bystanders and two officers in the following car. Cabrinovic was captured after his suicide capsule failed to kill him. The Royal car drove off to the Town Hall and the Archduke announced that wished to visit the wounded officers who had been taken to hospital. The driver of the Royal car took a wrong turn and fortuitously stopped his car directly in front of Princip, who had been separated from Cabrinovic. Princip stepped forward and shot dead the Duke and Sophie. The 28th June was the Royal couple's wedding anniversary. Princip's suicide capsule failed to kill him and he was arrested. As he was under 20 years old, he was not subject to the death penalty and died in prison of pulmonary tuberculosis on April 28th 1918.
Thank you GM, that helps immensely. But what was the next chain of events? How did it end up that Germany, obviously as a whole with austria? began a world war?
