The Assassination Before the Assassination

“In 1908, the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary formally annexed the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it had administered for the previous 30 years. That maddened Serbia, because there were lots of Serbs living in these provinces, and Serbia felt, as it apparently still does, that Serbs everywhere should be part of a Greater Serbia, as they once had been (in the 14^th century), not citizens of Austria-Hungary.” Sanford Rose

Dolors & Sense

By Sanford Rose

KISSIMMEE Florida—(Weekly Hubris)—4222013—In 1908, the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary formally annexed the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it had administered for the previous 30 years.

That maddened Serbia, because there were lots of Serbs living in these provinces, and Serbia felt, as it apparently still does, that Serbs everywhere should be part of a Greater Serbia, as they once had been (in the 14^th century), not citizens of Austria-Hungary.

Six years later, on June 28, 1914, while visiting Sarajevo, Bosnia, the Austrian heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his morganatic wife were gunned down by a Serbian fanatic. The assassination was planned and directed by the director of Serbian military intelligence (although this was only suspected, not yet known for certainty, at the time).

This is, as everyone knows, the most fateful assassination in history, setting in train the events that culminated in the outbreak of World War I which, of course, led inevitably to World War II.

In brief, Austria asked, and got, from its more powerful ally, Germany, a so-called blank check to demand satisfaction from Serbia.

It did, in terms that Serbia allegedly could not accept because they infringed on Serbia’s sovereignty.

In actuality, Serbia, frightened by what it realized was an impending catastrophe, was willing to accept Austria’s terms. And it would have if Russia, its patron, had not “stiffened its spine” by promising military aid if it rebuffed the Austrian ultimatum.

Russia offered this aid because it felt that it had to intervene in the Balkans in order to prevent the Turks, Germany’s ally, from closing off the Mediterranean to Russian grain exports. And though it did not want to fight Germany, it would if it had to.

Russia was encouraged in this suicidal strategy by the support it got from France, which essentially pledged to invade Germany if it took the field against Russia.

France, in turn, made that pledge because the dominant French political actor and president, Raymond Poincare, a native Lorrainer, lived for the day when France would once again rule the Alsace-Lorraine region that had been taken from her by Germany (Prussia) in 1871. This she obviously could not do unless there was another war.

But Poincare would not have been the dominant French political actor had it not been for that prior assassination alluded to in the title of this posting. On March 16, 1914, the wife of Radical leader Joseph Caillaux shot a prominent Paris journalist who had published Caillaux’s love letters to her when she was his mistress. Because of his wife’s subsequent trial, Caillaux had to all but recuse himself from French politics. Had he not done so, he would have become premier and his associate, the pacifist Jean Jaures, would have been France’s foreign minister. Caillaux and Jaures would have tried to conciliate, not antagonize, Germany. Revanchism, while not dead, would have been forced into hibernation.

But the March assassination did take place; Caillaux was forced from political life, ceding the limelight to the bellicose Poincare.

And when the Serbs, buttressed by a Russia that was in turn propped up by an aggressive France, rejected Austria’s ultimatum, Austria invaded Serbia. Russia mobilized, followed by Germany.

Knowing that Russian mobilization would be slow, Germany attempted to knock out France first.

But because the Kaiser did not want to go to war with Britain, he tried securing Britain’s neutrality before launching his invasion of France through Belgium.

When Sir Edward Grey, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, appeared to manifest some interest in Germany’s last-minute initiative, even offering to guarantee the neutrality of its French ally, the Kaiser popped a bottle of champagne and tried to turn his army eastward toward Russia.

Then Grey retracted his offer, which he said was just a misunderstanding.

The Kaiser put away the champagne.

So did the rest of the world.

Note: to read further about Madame Henriette Raynouard Caillaux: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henriette_Caillaux.