How a Teenage Boy Started World War I

On 28 June 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his beloved wife, Sophie were visiting the picturesque city of Sarajevo in the Balkans. He was attending military exercises in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina. Franz Ferdinand was also the nephew of the Emperor, and heir to the throne as well!  The Austro-Hungarian Empire had recently annexed the Balkan provinces, infuriating neighboring Serbia. Tensions were high and the fuse for World War I was about to be lit by a teenage boy.

The Young Bosnians, revolutionary students and Serbian nationalists, learned of the Archduke’s visit.

They immediately plotted his assassination. The revolutionaries planted assassins along his travel route through the city. In Sarajevo, Franz and Sophie boarded an elegant open-topped car for a pleasant motorcade ride through the city to the town hall. They occasionally waved to the populace as they drove by.  As the cars passed, one of the Serb assassins suddenly hurled a bomb at their vehicle! It bounced off the folded roof top, and rolled underneath the wrong automobile. The loud explosion wounded two army officers and some unlucky bystanders, but not Franz Ferdinand and Sophie.

“I AM FINE!” the Archduke bellowed at is guards.  And rather than flee Sarajevo at that point, he incredibly insisted they continue on to town hall. Only upon finishing his royal duties there did he agree to leave the city. They drove away at a higher speed this time, to dissuade other potential bombers. Unfortunately, their chauffeur was unfamiliar with Sarajevo and turned off the Appel Quay onto a side street by mistake.  It was at this corner where Serbian teenager Gavrilo Princip was nervously waiting. Gavrilo (Gabriel) was a short, skinny 19-year-old peasant Serb, barely able to grow a mustache.  He and his co-conspirators had been radicalized by the infamous Black Hand Society after the Serbian army rejected them.

As the 6 car motorcade attempted to back up, Princip saw his chance.

He whipped out his Browning pistol, charged forward, and fired two shots into the carriage at point-blank range. Bullets pierced the Archduke’s neck and Sophie’s abdomen as she lunged forward to protect her husband. She collapsed back onto the car seat. The Archduke clutched his bleeding neck. “No, no Sophie. Sophie, don’t die!” he managed to cry out. “Live for our children.” The motorcade rushed the pair to a hospital as they bled profusely.

An angry mob instantly attacked Princip as he attempted to commit suicide with his pistol. He shouted proudly to the furious crowd, “I am a hero of Serbia!” The police arrested a black-eyed Gavrilo and threw him in jail. Within the hour, both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie had died. Sadly, it just happened to be their wedding anniversary as well.   They left behind three young children in Vienna.

Tensions were already running high between all of Europe’s great allied powers. There had not been a continental war for almost 60 years, but all that was needed was someone to light the fuse.  The Austro-Hungarin Empire considered the Serbs thieves, pigs and dogs, in no particular order. Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of the Archduke set off a rapid chain reaction of hostilities across Europe. They would culminate in our planet’s first ever WORLD WAR:

• Exactly a month later, on 28 July 1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
• Russia, bound by treaty to Serbia, then began to mobilize its vast army in Serbia’s defense.
• Germany, allied to Austria-Hungary, saw this as an act of war, and declared war on Russia on August 1st.
• France, bound by treaty to Russia, then mobilized its army as well, so Germany declared war on France as well on August 3rd.
• Germany then invaded neutral Belgium the next day, as a precursor to reach Paris.  Britain, allied with Belgium & France, then, declared war against Germany on August 4th, and by extension Austria-Hungary as well.
• Japan, bound by treaty with Britain, declared war on Germany on August 23rd.  Austria-Hungary responded by declaring war on Japan on August 24th. 
• The Ottoman Empire invaded Russia in October, so the Russian Empire declared war against the Turks.
• With the British Empire came the armies of its many colonies in Australia, Canada, India, and South Africa.
• Italy managed to stay out of it for a year, but joined on the side of the Allies in 1915. It’s really tragic how quickly and easy war was able to cascade globally out of control.
• U.S. President Woodrow Wilson tried to stay neutral at first, but finally declared war against Germany and Austria-Hungary and entered the war in 1917.
• The alliances were chosen and battles quickly broke out across Europe.  Britain-France-Russia-America against Germany-Austria-Hungary-Turkey, AND all their colonies across the globe. 

More than 9 Million soldiers on both sides would die in the bloody trenches and battlefields of the “GREAT WAR TO END ALL WARS.”

World War I introduced new implements of death for the very first time, like tanks, machine guns, bi-wing airplanes and poison mustard gas . Four long years later, millions of young men had perished in the French and Belgian trenches or the battlefields of eastern Europe. The introduction of American forces finally tipped the scales. Germany and Austria-Hungary were forced to surrender at the Paris Armistice.  It was signed in a railroad car outside the capital on the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month – 11 November 1918.

But it wasn’t over for many. The Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 would bring further death to the world. The surviving troops returned to their home nations with the deadly influenza virus in their lungs. 50 Million more people would die from the pandemic.

And what of teenage Gavrilo Princip?  At his October trial in Vienna he stated:

“I am a nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs.  I do not care what form of state, but we must be free from Austria.”

He was legally too young to be hanged, being just 20 days shy of his 20th birthday.  The court instead gave Gavrilo a 20-year prison sentence.  He was sent to the Terezin prison in Bohemia and placed in chains and solitary confinement. He died of severe malnutrition and tuberculosis four years later, at only 23.  In Serbia today, Princip is remembered as a national hero and a freedom fighter, who fought to liberate his people from Austrian imperial rule. In 2014, 100 years later, a statue of Gavrilo Princip was erected in Belgrade and unveiled by the Serbian President.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.