Historically High - The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Europe in 1914 was basically a powder keg waiting for a match to set the whole thing on fire. Tensions were high in Austria Hungary as the new liberated Serbia was giving the area to be known as Bosnia ideas of independence. The problem with that is Austria wasn't really in the business of letting its occupied lands have things like freedom. Well this didn't sit well with some of the locals as you can imagine and one man ended up doing something that changed the course of human history, starting World War 1 by assassinating Archduke Fran Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria Hungary. How did one death lead to what would be the death of millions and the reshaping of Europe. Tune in and find out. Support the show Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, you heard that correctly. Take your fucking seats! You've heard our moderately volumed bell this week. Sit down. It is time for class. I am sitting next to the... Well, we couldn't do this without him. He's the editor.

He's kind of the chief. I'm the editor-in-chief. That too. He's the Prince of Pot to mine. Duchess of No, that's a girl, huh? We're going to say Duchess of Duluth? Duchess of Dutchy.

Okay. It didn't work, though. Both boys. Well, you can be whatever you want. To your Duchess of Dank? Yeah, Duchess of Dank sounds way better. Yeah, that man who's talking over there, his mind is so sharp, sometimes he cuts

his own head off. Who's that from? Little Wayne. Little Wayne? Yeah. That is my co-host, Professor Chris. What is going on, ladies and gentlemen. Today marks our seduction as I like to call it of World War I.

We are just, we're just meeting her. We just matched. We're, you know, today it's probably going to be some light over the pants action. And by the end of this, we're probably going to be playing just the tip or outtracked from my hair. Just to see how it feels. Yep. And I don't think we could really start into World War I without discussing what most find to be the catalyst or the match, the lit the powder keg that was going on in Europe at the time. Not the only reason World War I happened.

It probably wasn't an inevitability, but definitely the linchpin moment that once this happened, it gave those that wanted to go to war a reason to do it. Yeah, a couple minutes in, I'm going to throw a little curveball. This is a conspiracy episode for me. Okay. Because it's just so odd how it all happened. I do believe that the Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, was shot.

You believe the series of events did happen. I think your conspiracy kind of what I'm looking at on your face is the machinations that happen behind the scenes that possibly caused this, using this as a reason to essentially go to war. A lot of that, a little bit in just the fact that I don't believe that this series, of events could go so incorrectly and still end up correct. And still be pulled off. Yeah.

There's just no way. The planning behind it. It's like a comedy caper movie. It's like everything that can go wrong does go wrong, but in the end, they pull it off. Yeah. Somehow the three suges assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Just fucking incredible how it all comes together. Yeah.

So in case you weren't aware, Franz Ferdinand, the band, named after Archduke Franz Ferdland of Austria, Hungary. And today we are explaining the pivotal pre-World War I moment of the assassination of the Archduke, Franz Ferdinand. Bang, bang. All right. So Adam, set the stage. What's going on in Europe a little bit before this happens? Europe's an odd place, to say the least. Just kind of this general area around Austria, Hungary, Germany. you're going to have places like Bosnia, you're going to have places like Siberia. Sort of, from what I heard it referred to.

Serbia, not Siberia. Oh, Serbia. Again, we went from Australia. You still got Stalin on the brain? We went from Australia to Austria and Serbia to... There might be some... Siberia to Serbia. Yeah, there might be some verbal snafews

that occur here just because of previous, close previous topics. Yeah, but it's... The whole area was sort of referred to was like the South Slavic area. I believe that would probably include like Slovenia, places like that. But that whole area in there fought for its independence many, many decades before our story today. We saw the 17 or the 1878 Treaty of Berlin that basically said the Austro-Hagarian Empire would take occupation of Bosnia,

while Bosnia was kind of like the child left at the fire station by the Ottoman Empire. So sort of like that's our land. We don't want to come all the way over to claim it. If you guys just want to run it, cool. But you know, we're still kind of the leader of it. And it makes sense because looking at kind of a map of the area, in relation to where the Austria-Hungary Empire is compared to what would be modern-day Bosnia and everything, thing. It's much closer. It's almost a border state for Austria-Hungary versus actually being separated

from the Ottoman Empire by like Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, that entire area. And kind of like you were saying those Slavic states, there was always this, you know, when you're a country, and that's one of the things that whenever we talk about Europe, you've got to remember like, coming from the U.S., we've never been a country, you know, with our own shit in the past, I think we've never been a country that ever traded hands, really. It was like, first it was the British, then the British that were there were like, we're Americans now and, you know, you get all of that kind of stuff. But then there was never any trading of hands, whereas Europe, throughout the entire course of Europe,

there are only very rare exceptions of something being ruled by, you know, whoever got it second, even second hand. Yeah. Or third hand at everything. So because it's such a small area and everything is so connected, stuff is just changing hands at all times. And so, you know, looking at it, it doesn't make sense that the Ottoman Empire, which is actually in Turkey, on the other side of like the Baltic Sea, separated actually by water. That it makes sense that kind of during this, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was like, as part of this treaty, why don't we just take that? We're a lot closer to it.

We'll handle it. And by taking that in, you're also taking in another culture of people who have just been kind of handed over back and forth between these different empires. So like you were saying, that area that kind of Slavic area was like the Slovenians, the Croatians, the Serbs, and now you have essentially like the Bosnians in there. And you have these people that are almost have a shared culture because they're so close to each other. So you have this, you know, the Slavic people that they refer to. You have these people that are in this country that are wanting to be independent, that are wanting to be free. And we're getting into this already. I completely forgot that we have to hit that beautiful theme song of ours before we get any further.

Oh, I thought we already did it. No, we already did. Yes, we did. We did. Oh, my God. We did do it. I was building the head of steam. I forgot where we were.

But anyway, so you have these people and you have these, it's the same thing we talk. about with like Stalin. In these countries you have these people that are like revolutionaries and that had of a different idea and that's going to come into play because at some point that's you know that's what the actual assassin that ends up killing friends Ferdinand is a part of. Yeah it was a Serb that was born in Bosnia which unfortunately if Bosnia would be like I don't know a jealous teenager it's buddy Serbia gained its full-on- autonomy and independence through this exact same 1878 treaty.

So like we were talking about when you say who's in charge of Bosnia, Ottoman land ruled by Austria, Hungary, right next door, Serbian independence just happened. So you have all these, I don't want to say racial Serbs, because I don't think that's what it was, like Serbian cultured people. Ethnic Serbs. Ethnic Serbs, yes. I forgot that that word existed. Ethnic Serbs living in Bosnia.

in our country, the word slur comes after that, which is probably why it doesn't have a good connotation. That's why I try to stay away from it. But they're essentially seeing their homeland or where their people are from in Serbia be free, while they still have to live under this Austro-Hungarian rule. Yeah, like, wait, what the fuck? How did this happen?

Like, they get to be their own people, but we just get traded over to like this new emperor? Which, to give Serbia its credit, it fought its ass off to become free. Like it wasn't just handed to them. There was a lot of bloodshed and a lot of death that led to them being free. So as this happens, Serbia becomes its own free state. But just by happenstance, Austria-Hungary is really close with the Serbian king and the Serbian royalty.

So Serbia created something within their military called the Black Hand. And this kind of started in Serbia right around 1903. this led to the military coup, or Jesus Christ, coup led by this guy named Dragatan Dmitriovich. And Dmitriovich basically broke into the royal court, couldn't find the king, couldn't find the queen. They had taken somebody else hostage, and then eventually they had gotten the whereabouts of the Serb king and his wife.

And I believe he was shot 30 times, and she was shot 18 times. Then they were disrobed. The king that you're referring to, this was the one that was loyal to Austro-Hungary. Yeah, so he was the king of Serbia, the first royal family of Serbia, but they had really, really close alliance with Austria-Hungary. Like puppet king type stuff, where it's almost like they were put into that position. Okay. Yeah, or just a situation where they might side with Austria-Hungary on things that are more Serbian matters.

Gotcha. So yeah, they went ahead and pumped him full of, I believe it was 30 shots. I believe his wife was 18 shots. Thore. And they disroved both of them and tossed them out the windows of the castle. So pretty rough outcome for them. The Serbs then basically installed their own royalty, installed their own king. Turns out that this king, Peter I was less a fan of the Austria-Hungary regime as he was the Russians.

So you start to see these other ally ships come forward where they, They might have been friends with the Russians before a little bit, but they were just Austria-Hungry forward. Now they're looking at them like, well, we just fought for a freedom and independence. We don't really need you. Russia, the people to the north seem like they're pretty cool. They have a Tsar system that kind of makes a little bit of sense. I'm sure there had to have been some sort of familial connection just because it feels like, and we'll talk about it a little bit later, just to give you a teaser on who the fuck the Habsburgs were.

I don't even know if it There might have been some familiarity But at the same time if we've You know A lot of our topics that we've talked about Of changing of the guard Coups things like that People are looking for change

And so if they're in Serbia And it's like We've been dealing with this fucking Austro-Hungry empire for so long We've finally got someone in there That's not pro Austria-Hungary And so they're looking around

And Russia is probably like hey, you know, we can be friends. Yeah. We're pretty big. We're pretty powerful. We can help look after you. In exchange, you know, you probably have a country full of raw minerals and goods and all that kind of stuff. You also have access closer down to like the Mediterranean and the Aegean, things like that.

They're not a border country as far as like a coastal country, but still, any place you have that is an additional resource not only for materials or, but more people. Yeah. And everything, it's got to be advantageous. And also a big lure is I'm not sure what the state of the Russian military was at this point. Chances are they were probably pretty decent. And if there were to ever be issues with Austria-Hungary, you would like a big partner to stand behind you, which is a little bit of foreshadowing for what would become World War I. There are some other players in there that I really didn't see coming.

So after the military coup happens, we see them turn more towards Russia. And they kind of sent this shockwave through Bosnia being like, all right. We see what's going on. We really don't like Austro-Hungarian rule. And they start forming these ap... Jeez, I'm losing it. I don't know. Maybe I'm not high enough, or I'm too high.

It's kind of a weird middle ground. But they started forming activist groups to start to work against this Habsburg-Austro-Hungarian rule without being like, hey, we're out here. Like more underground. Like something to undermine, start kind of planting the seeds and doubt and kind of building up like a revolutionary force. And that's where we see kind of this group called Young Bosnia that forms. And Young Bosnia is kind of like a youth revolution. that feels like they need to shake some things up a little bit. June 3rd, 1910, a kid named Bogdan Zzerzich,

not great with these names. He was connected to young Bosnia, and he basically attempted to assassinate the Bosnian governor, Marjan, Verzonian. He fired five shots at him. Must have been an awful shot. Probably didn't train, missed him with all five shots. and he had one more bullet left

and instead of trying to take one more shot at the governor, he goes ahead and pumps it inside himself so he didn't have to deal with the free precautions. Yeah. And I don't know if it was forethought, but accomplishing that or not, if you die as a martyr, you start to further, excuse me, your cause.

I don't know how you can be a martyr if you shoot yourself, but I'm sure in an activist mind like that, any kind of death will always bring some sort of eyes to your cause. And, you know, one of the questions I kind of at first glance, when I saw that, it's like, why is he trying to kill the governor? I could see him trying to go ahead and take out, which we'll get to later, someone from another, the actual ruling class. Yeah.

But once, you know, the Austrian-Hungary or Austro-Hungarian Empire took over, they're just putting their people in place. It's not like these people are like pro-Bosnian looking out for the people type people in governorships or this, you know, the ruling party, whoever is running Bosnia at this point. I mean, it's really the Habsburgs and everything. But at the same time, they're putting in loyal members of their kind of their group. And so trying to kill the governor is essentially a shot at them in its own way. Yeah, there's so much, these weren't democratic elections that put these monarchies into power. They're called monarchies because it's just a royal family.

And the easiest way that the Habsburgs that we keep bringing up and will probably continue to, they weaseled their way into these royal families by marrying off women in their families to princesses or duchess, anybody that's in waiting to become a bigger part. I started doing, when you started talking about them to me, I started doing too much research into them as well and had to stop myself because I was like, it's going to interject too much into this. The Habsburgs are like this not an Illuminati type thing, but like a known quantity

that somehow through marriage and interjecting into certain things and being in the right place at the right time, this one family from Switzerland, yeah, from Switzerland, tiny Switzerland at this point, ends up having members of the Habsburg dynasty in like rulership across all these different countries.

And then looking back on it, I'm like, I heard something that like two thirds of these dynasties and these royal families never made it past 100 years. So for them, they ruled. And, you know, the beginning of the Habs or dynasty was like hundreds of years before this event. Way before. Way before.

I think it was like the 8th century, 9th century, maybe. And so you have all of these, one of the rules with the Habsburgs just to kind of let you know how exclusive it was is that you weren't allowed to marry a member of the House of Hasburg. You had to be a member of a reigning or former dynasty of Europe, like a ruler of a country to even be considered to marry a member of like the current Habsburgs and that were ruling over the Austro-Hungarian, you know, empire. And just to explain how intertwined they were into literally everything, another rule that they had to in state at one point

was that uncles were not allowed to marry their nieces anymore. That's how shallow the building pool was. They were just like enough. They were, they were, I told you this, they were Game of Thrones before game of, they were the Targaryens before the Targary. Or they were actually, yeah, the pre-Targarians.

It just, it blows me away that you're that intertwined into everywhere in Europe that you actually have to start setting out rules that you have to make sure that who you're marrying isn't like a one, like similar generation or one generation removed. That's a, you're in a lot of different places

if that's a rule you have to make. Well, and you're a country in a dynasty that your main concern is furthering the lines of your dynasty. You're not, you like to conquer these lands and take over these lands because it makes you wealthier. But when you're taking over these lands of people that have different cultures and everything like that, you're not really taking care of these people.

You're just, you're like claiming the land. You're glad to have the hands. hand, but you don't really care about the land, but you're not really concerned about the people who live on it. Yeah, they're, they're just kind of like renters at that point is how you look at them. And so the main issue with the Bosnian rulers that were being instilled was basically the lack of care for like the poor peasant class of Bosnia, who were the majority of the class of Bosnia, that's how it worked in Europe. And they were basically stopped, you know, any of these classes or these groups and everything like that were basically just snuffed out at every opportunity for an

uprising to install someone that like had the good you know essentially the the Bosnians on the mind like the Bosnians at heart they wanted to see the people do well and yeah any kind of revolution or anything that was squashed immediately just because they didn't really have a way to get that message out there without these people intervening and stopping any kind of uprising because that's like you're worried about the land but then you're also worried about making sure that the people on the land, the renters don't essentially kick you out, overthrow you, get rid of you. And it just, I can't imagine the way that you would have to be seeing your neighbors, seeing distant family members in Serbia, chilling and being good, and then you're just right back

under these same assholes. Yeah, it's hard to like, you know, there's definitely in this story, you know, the tale of this, there's a good guy and a bad guy but at the same time it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone who's lived somewhere where your people have been put down for so long

never having experienced anything even remotely like that where we're at you just have to wonder like everyone in your family everyone that you know is just like we've never known a time where it was just like us looking out for us it's always been somebody fucking taking from us and making us

conform with how they want things done. And then when it's not this group, it's another group that we get traded off to. There's no, we don't have time to breathe. It's just. So I can, I can wrap my head around the understanding of, of course, there's going to be groups that are in this to try to do what they feel is best for their people. Absolutely. It's done with their best intentions. But the way that it's done is probably, I don't know, at this point, do you just not have any other means rather than just trying to kill somebody?

Yeah. I think people jump to violence pretty too quickly. nowadays, but after you've been ground down so much, I mean, I can't say that I would condone what they did, but at the same time, there's a part of me that sort of gets it. Where their option is left. Yeah, yep, that's really what it was. And this black hand movement that started out in Serbia, starts to leach its way into Bosnia. And like we said, this was started through the Serbian military.

So these people were trained. They were in higher positions. And the Serbian military being able to extend this. hand, not all of the Serbian military, but the ones, the members of the Black Hand help into Bosnia, was really important. And they wanted to form something that they called the Greater Serbia, which Greater Serbia would be those Slavic lands altogether kind of living in peace and harmony under their culture to sort of have an ethnically homogeneous area. And they'd been around since 2001. They were formed in, so they had 10 years already before they even started. kind of offering their help into Bosnia.

They already nailed a military coup, too. So they have that checkmark under them. The black hand really starts to have an effect on the youth. Young Bosnia is still going strong, and that's where we meet the antagonist of our story today, Gavarillo Princep. Wild name. Yeah.

So at this point, where we're kind of at as far as the status leading up to the date that this is going to occur. We're going to talk a little bit about Gavrillo and his upbringing and what led him to essentially be the assassin. We have a Europe that is basically divided into a couple of main territories. So you do have Austro-Hungary. So what that comprises, if you're looking at a map nowadays, it's crazy how many, how few countries they were

and how many other countries came out of it and how recently some of this has even occurred. Like both world wars have created countries, right? So we have Austria, Hungary, of course. course, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and a portion of Ukraine are under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. You then have the German Empire, which is Germany, Poland, and then a small portion of France, one of the portions that during World War II remember when they just took, and they were like, this was ours before. Yeah. They were trying to go into France.

You then have the Russian Empire, which is Russia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the rest of Ukraine. So, I mean, sizable, like, you know, there's not these small, there's a few small countries, like Switzerland is still there and everything. Luxembourg, Belgium, these little ones. You have the United Kingdom, which at this point is Britain and Ireland. Irish independence hadn't happened at this time. You then have France, pretty much how it exists today.

Italy, kind of how it exists today. Romania, Serbia, like we've already discussed a little bit in Bulgaria. And then the Ottoman Empire, which is basically modern-day Turkey now. Is France what it was? back then because that was just all they got left after Napoleon probably got arrested yeah got sacked enough out of you France you fucking chill for a little bit your borders go back to where they were originally anything that you had taken over were taken back yeah so yeah getting back to

guerrillo principi young Bosnian born July 25th 1894 he was born under Austro-Hungarian rule so that's all he knew growing up and at the age of 13, he was sent to Sarajevo, which is the capital of what they consider Bosnia, Herzegovina, and basically was sent to, like, merchant school. I'm assuming there weren't a ton of different schools. You learn how to sell goods and count the money that you're selling for it, and you learn a craft, and I don't know. Yeah, there are job titles back then were...

We have things that we call business school. What did you go to? I went to business school. You think that that's what merchant school was, was essentially business school? Could have been. Yeah, I guess now that I think about it, that kind of makes sense. And after he went to merchant school, he really wasn't great there. He was fairly smart earlier on in life, but he sort of started to see politics in a different way.

He joins the young Bosnia group in 1911, and their goal was to unify these South Slavs by freeing Bosnia from Austrian rule. And going back a little bit to Serbia, Serbia had been killed. kick an ass kind of before this time. During the Balkan War, Serbia had claimed back Kosovo, Macedonia, from the Ottomans. So you see Serbia not only being independent, but you also see them start to gain land. Young Bosnia is probably thinking sort of the same thing. Like if Serbia is rolling through these places, maybe this whole South Slavic area, this greater Serbia, there's a chance that it could happen. It's very appealing and it's a reality because you've just seen them have a military victory. So you see it being possible. And then you take a young guy and basically who might be

from a small village where there's not a lot of independent thinking going on, you end up going to the capital of the country. You're going to a type of school. You're going to be around more people. The more people you get around, the more ideas you're going to hear. And especially being the capital, there had to be a big presence of young Bosnia and probably a little bit of the black hand there as well. Yeah. And the black hand would have been in that area during that time. 1913, the Bosnian governor, this guy plays a huge role in this in his last name sucks. First name, Oscar with a K, pretty sweet. Potioriorek. Portio Rick? Sure. Close enough. Oscar. Yeah, we can go with Oscar. He declared a state of emergency after seeing the Serbian military's

success against the Ottomans and he banned all Serbian public cultural educational societies in Bosnia. So you start to see the, I guess trying to squash maybe an uprising that was going on, but looking at it from another lens, you are shutting down a cultural hub. Yeah, exactly. It's usually, as we've seen in history, when you shut these things down, they don't go away. When we say Bosnian governor, It's kind of an air quote because Bosnia gets like crossed out and it's basically Austro-Hungarian governor who's put in place there. So that's still going on. Prince and his friends at the Black Hand basically decide that they need to do something huge to make an impact.

And basically light the fires of a rebellion or a revolution. Every action that they're taking here, they're hoping that it's the catalyst point for like the freedom of their country. Yeah. And they needed to do something. Prince, one of his big role models growing up was this Bogdan dude

that had attempted the assassination earlier. So he kind of sees like, shit, that guy made an impact on me, and he did to do something very similar. He's a hero to these people. Yeah. And I believe while he is in Sarajevo,

he sees a newspaper article clipping saying that the Archduke of Austria-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand, is going to be coming for a visit. in 1914. All right. So that's a perfect segue to talk about Franz.

Yeah, who was Franz? So Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now, he was... Not how he started his life. Not how he started his life. So basically,

he is born to, essentially wasn't going to be the heir. He was, I think, fourth, actually, originally in the line succession. I thought he was third. He was third after...

I'll get to it. I'll explain. So, Carl Ludwig was Archduke Carl Ludwig. So an Archduke in Austro-Hungarian society or ruling class basically means you're the brother or like the sister. Like I don't know if it was Duchess or something like that, arch-duchess, you're the brother of the current king.

So his brother was Franz Joseph, who's the emperor at this time of Austro-Hungary. Weird that they used emperor. Yes. I kept renting king down. And then I kept looking up. like, fuck, it's emperor. Again, everyone's taken from Rome at this point to everyone wants to, yeah.

That kind of makes sense. So Carl is Franz Ferdinand's father. So now the actual emperor, Franz Joseph, I'm just going to say Emperor Joseph, he had a son who was actually the prince and was next in line. And basically in 1875, Prince Rudolph would have been, would be Carl Ludwig's son. So cousin to Franz Ferdinand. No. You,

okay, you mix that up a little bit. Um, Prince Rudolph was Emperor Joseph's son. He was his direct heir. And then what happens, the line of succession would go. Well,

Franz and Rudolph were cousins. That's what I mean. But what you said is you said that Carl Ludwig was the father of Rudolph. Rudolph is Joseph is the emperor. So Rudolph is his son and then they're cousins because their fathers are brothers. They should have done different names. The Franz Joseph thing does throw me off. I named my son.

It had to be something like that. I named my son after you. So Franz Ferdinand is actually fourth in line at the time of his birth. He's the oldest son of Carl and Maria of Austria. He's born December 18, 1863. And he is behind his father. his father is behind Prince Rudolph and then the current emperor

is Emperor Joseph. So that's how Franz Ferdinand is currently fourth in line. But shouldn't it be third in line? Because the guy that's the emperor isn't in line. No, but Rudolph, Carl, then France. So he's Oh, I guess third in line is what you mean. Is like behind the king. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

I guess in that way, yes. Maybe I was saying it wrong. Franz Joseph actually had four children, but since we are talking about a very sexist culture. He only had one son, so the daughters were never going to be able to gain power. It was always going to be a man. Which is strange because that's one of the reasons why the Habsburgs were able to survive

for so long as a lineage and kind of gain all of this influence and power is because at certain points, they wouldn't let it die just because there wasn't a male to take over. They would allow essentially if they had to females. But at the same time, if, you know, Joseph is like, I have a son and everything. He's not just going to switch and say, well, if something were to happen to him, it's going to be one of my daughters. He already has a brother to take on the line that's a direct Habsburg.

And he has a son as well that's a direct Habsburg. I think probably until it came to Franz being his heir apparent, and then he probably thought back to his daughters. Like, maybe I should call some shit. It's already been done. So Franz doesn't really have to worry about doing it. He's going to be an Archduke. He's going to have the life, whatever life he wants.

1875, this, I think. thought was insane. At the age of 11 years old, his other cousin, Francis the 5th, died, and Franz was the heir to his fortune. And he had to do some goofy shit. Like he had to add something to his name in order to do this. At age 11, he actually becomes one of the wealthiest men in Austria. So that just goes to show how much money this family has that this 11 year old can inherit this plot of land from a cousin. And he's already one of the most rich people. in the country. In 1896, oh sorry, you were saying 1875. In 1889, Crown Prince Rudolph, who is the direct heir to Emperor Joseph, ends up killing himself, but maybe in there, so I'll wait to get that information from you. But basically,

he was in love with and having what would be considered an affair with, like, a, not a peasant girl, but... 17-year-old Duchess. Correct, but someone of a much lower standing, unbecoming and not fitting within the guidelines of that Hapsburg rule of being a member of a reigning or former dynasty of Europe.

So, this guy's in love. And what do you do when you're in love? As most European youngsters do, you make a suicide pact if you can't be together. So their suicide pact involved, he was going to shoot her, and then he ends up shooting himself. Yeah. That's

what they believe happened. And That's what some people have run with. But there were certain other aspects that they looked at it. They think that there's a chance that they could have been poisoned before. But them being royal and wanting to cover this up, they never did autopsies on the bodies to see if there could have been any other situation. The fact that this was a trist where they were up at this winter cabin alone, but still brought some people with it,

there's a thought too that this could have been a way to squash this story before it became a bigger thing where Rudolph was cheating as the heir apparent to the, uh, the emperor. So they said it was suicide. Um, the shots kind of seem like it was suicide, but it also could have been like an angry wife that may have conspiracy gears turning. Yeah. Even this, even at this point in the story. Well, knocks a piece off the board. And now all of a sudden, Carl Ludwig is now the heir, the emperor's brother, and right behind him is Franz Ferdinand. Now, at this point, you're going to understand like the emperor and Carl are getting up in age. I think they're six years apart. Yeah. And I think they were, were they in their 50s? I know they were in their

80s around the start of World War I. Which is crazy that someone was that old. But I guess if you're emperor, you have every single advantage to try to survive. I think we get this thought process of like people just didn't live as long back then. There were some people that did, but the infant mortality rate was so great that that average age would drop because kids wouldn't live past five. Well, in 1896, Carl actually dies of typhoid. And so another piece gets knocked off the bourne and sitting directly. behind Emperor Joe

is France now. Well, and what you were talking about before with them being close in age, you have to think that there is some trepidation because Carl, if he's only six years younger than Franz Ludwig, the rule was still...

Carl, not Friends, though. Quick, Franz Joseph. God damn it. I know. Too many first names. As last names. Carl Ludwig and Franz Joseph, if they were brothers, they should have just had the last name. Same last name. There you go. But you kind of wonder like how long is Carl going to be the emperor after Franz dies?

And then once Carl dies, the next end line is still going to be Franz Ferdinand. So if you weren't sure about Franz before, now you have to be real scared because not only do you hope that Carl lives a long life after Franz dies, but then once Carl dies, which will probably be sooner, you're still getting Franz anyway. Yeah, exactly. And Franz was a fairly cultured kid. He actually circumnavigated the entire world. He stopped off in America, France, just kind of everywhere around that he could. Japan. So 1892 to 1893, he travels around the world.

The things that coincide here are crazy to me. So he basically goes to, he stops in India. So they start heading around because they're able to get access to, I'm guessing, the Baltic and everything. They can set sail from there. They go to India. then they go to Australia where this guy is a huge like hunter

apparently um loved animals love shooting him more weird he loved his pets but yeah he had confirmed in like a journal 272,000 kills 5,000 of them like were deer he had 100,000 trophies exhibited at his castle like how the fuck do you even have

I mean you have a castle but how the fuck do you even have room for that? Yeah he stops off in Australia to hunt kangaroos and emus Got to hunt the emirs Goes to Hong Kong, Japan Then when he gets to the west coast of the United States Takes a train all the way Stops in Chicago

At the Chicago World's Fair 1893, right? Before that, I'm assuming Just because this started at just a scary young age You saw his military record, right? The advancement? Yeah, so being a part of this Hasburg Or Hasburg lineage, they all went into the

military. He entered the military and started climbing the ladder so quickly that by the age of 14, he was a lieutenant. By the age of 14, he was a lieutenant. Where was he at 22? 22, he was a captain. By 27, he was a colonel. And by 31, he was a major general. And you would think that's nuts. It doesn't stop there. By 35, he was given a commission by his majesty, so by his uncle, that he's able to make inquiries into all aspects of military services and the military agencies were commanded to share all their documents with him. At 35. Not only that.

So Major General, 31, he ends up being given an admiralty status for the Navy. He, and because he's a member of the royal class, it's not like he's in combat or anything like that. So, but he's being sent up the line. And of course, how, if you've seen any of like the czar's. rulers from Europe at this point, you always see them wearing the military jackets with all the fucking pins on them.

Probably not a lot of those medals being actually earned. But as you go up in a rank, but if you're the emperor, the king, why not just also say that you have this great military prowess? And you're also a general, so you can come out wearing your jacket just sagging down,

giving back issues with all the medals that you have on there. So I think kind of as a token thing, they're like, well, you're already a general. Why don't you just be an admiral? in the Navy too. I know you probably haven't like seen what we're up to or stepped on a lot of ships, but you should probably be an admiral. Yeah, I'm sure that he was pretty good. I don't think you can just get by on your name. Maybe you could, but I don't think you could to get those positions

basically handed up the line to you without having to be decent at what you did. But yeah, like you say as Franz Joseph gets older, you want the guy who's going to replace him to look like a real sturdy candidate, even though he's traveled the world or is about to travel the world where he gets sort of different leadership qualities than what you would like as a Habsburg leader. There has to be an appearance regards of how you feel personally because his uncle and him did not really get along that well. He thought his uncle was too like, or he thought the um, he thought the um, Uncle Joe thought Franz was like too open-minded, didn't have the right mindset for ruling at the Habsburg way, whatnot.

And at one point, too, he used this authority that he had in the military to actually remove his uncle's like confidant guy that was in the lead of the military. Really? And put in his own guy in them. Huh. So he was already making moves. He's like, and you're going to kind of see he does that a little bit later here just in the next segment we're going to talk about.

But he knows what he's up. for. And he also knows that at this point with these other guys dropping off the board like flies, there's some desperation here that it's like, I don't like this kid that's going to be taking my place, but

he's a Hasberg and my main role is continuing this dynasty. Yeah. That's so crazy that it's the like, it's Vin Diesel family. I got it's that fucking just dialed up as high as you can go. This is

Adam Sandler Back to school Yeah this is Billy Madison Yeah this is Billy Madison Yes No matter what God damn it Billy get the hell out of here You just anytime free spirit

Franz Ferdinand walks in the room Chasing penguins France like this is bullshit Get out of here Yeah So we get basically to a point Where France is getting a little bit older 35 years old dude

That's a very old time to find love in your life for the first real time. Well, and here's the thing, too, is being part of these, like, royal lineages and dynasties, your biggest commodity or one of your biggest commodities is children that aren't wed, is building alliances and relationships with these other huge dynasties that are ruling other parts of Europe. So much so, and we won't touch on this too much, that to give you an example, at this point, or close to it, when you're thinking of like the king of England, then you have the Kaiser in Germany and the German Empire, and then you have the Tsar in Russia, all three of them

at this point, or coming up soon, are all first cousins. They are all the, basically all the children of children of Queen Elizabeth. There was a previous Queen Elizabeth. The first? Yes, I think so. Okay. But she had her children and their kids essentially went on to be king of England, Kaiser of the German Empire, and were, was the Tsar of Russia. Like, I think King of Spain, there was a... Everywhere. That's all it was. We even talked about that, like, in the Joan of Arc episode, how, like, they were trying to keep the ruling class and then Britain wanted him because of the legitimacy to get the French throne and all that kind of shit.

So, him being 35 at this point, he... He's had to, you know, his uncle is also just basically like, we got to find someone. He's being basically, like, farmed out. And any women that are going to come up that are going to strengthen their position are who he's going to be told to marry. Love isn't a thing for this guy, but he kind of breaks the rules on it. And ends up creating this, getting into this relationship with basically the lady in waiting, which lady and waiting is the term they would use for basically the assistance and the servant girls of like duchesses and people like in royal society.

They themselves were like even like kind of like higher up on the social. They were like almost like a step below duchesses. So I'm just going to get this out in the open. I think this whole love story is gross. I don't enjoy. There are certain stories like I'm equal opportunity. Love who you're going to love, but don't make it all gooey and gross like this is. Like just love in a normal way.

Because this whole story is like a real life Romeo and Juliet, like the whatever's in the Montecuse. Like just this whole entire thing is just so gross to me how it all plays out. You're not a big fan of the movie Love Actually, are you? I've never seen it and there's probably a reason why. But Countess Sophie Chotech. I find this charming. I find their love story charming. It's so gross.

I don't like it at all. This is like the equivalent of making out in public for me. as we just referred to her as countess. So she does have this status symbol. Unfortunately, her status, her father, who is, I think he's an Archduke, but like you said, he's not a member of the Habsburg dynasty. So they're considered lower end. They don't make a whole ton of money.

They're not the castle type people. She's still a countess, though. There's no advantage. Her family carries no gain of advantage for her getting married to, to the Habsburgs. And to point that out even further, I guess at the age of 20, you were kind of considered an old maid back then. She had two choices.

She could either turn to the coven and become a lady of the cloth. To the nunnery. Yeah, nuns. Yeah. She could either become a nun or she could go into this lady in waiting position. And like you said, a lady in waiting is kind of like a servant to a duchess. Like she's the lady in waiting. Like it's the way that you would do.

The way that I read it, Lady and Waiting, I was like, is she, like, next in line to take that position? Like, is she a princess or something? But no, Lady and Wedding is just a fancy name for, like, the servant girl that had some clout. And there's a chance through some weird Franz Ferdinish line of succession. She could. So it's a sleeping, no, it's a, what's the one where she's? Oh, Cinderella situation. Yeah.

It's a Cinderella situation. So he actually is trying to be set up by this Arch-Duchess Isabella. with one of her daughters who would fall in this royal lineage. Correct. So basically she's trying to go ahead and get her daughter with Franz during like an initial visit and everything like that. He actually strikes up this friendship and relationship with this countess, this lady in waiting Sophie. And he's like, I don't like that lady's daughter, but I do like you.

So we're going to go ahead and start being together. But for, you know, because of her social status, the relationship for the longest time was kept secret until out of spite, this fucking Isabella bitch ends up going to Franz Joseph, the emperor, and is like, guess what I know? Yeah, it's a,

I don't know. I just, true love wins, I guess. And not to say that what's going to happen to Sophie later on with how she's treated, I'm not down with that. I'm not cool with that at all. Yeah. Oh, we'll talk about that. But it's just,

it all gets thrown into this weird vortex of like endless love being played in the background. What, Friends listened to endless love in the world. So, Franz Joseph, the man in charge. By the way, shout out to Julie Bowden. Like a,

the mom from modern family. Oh, yeah, she's... Like a fine wine. She's still got it, huh? Uncle Franz is not pleased with this love because Sophie is considered below the... Well below the status. Yeah. She's not a cousin, so that's already.

strike one. But then she's also of this lower ranking, so that's strike two. She doesn't not share our blood. The only way that Uncle Franz would allow the marriage was under the condition that the marriage was called Morganic, Morganatic. Morganadic. Did you hear how he even got, how Franz Ferns found out got him to that position? He had to agree that he would publicly state that she is below him. Oh no, he blackmailed Franz Jones.

Oh, that's right. So he basically was like, well, I'm going to marry her. And he's like, you're not fucking marrying her. He's like, I'm going to marry your uncle, Uncle Joe. And he's like, well, no, you're fucking on. He's like, here's what's going to happen. You're either going to let me marry her or what I'm going to do is once you die. Once you die, I'm just going to go ahead and get married to her anyway.

And it's going to look horrible on you because then I'm just, going to be like, yeah, I couldn't get married until this guy was dead. So that's going to kind of hurt your, you know, legacy. The old fart wouldn't let me marry my true love. You guys are all fans of true love, right? The other thing I can do is I could make this family look really fucked up and weak and something bad might happen to me because you're not letting me do this. And what would that look like?

That would probably make us look weak if all the errors just keep dropping like flies. And then what's going to happen? If you're gone and then I'm gone, who's next? There was a brother that he had and everything. auto, I want to say, maybe. But at the same time, that would look horrible. Yeah. They couldn't, like, keep these rulers actually alive.

That's not going to make the Habsburgs look very... They're already at the tail end of this dynasty. They're the inner breeding. I'm guessing a lot of maybe small hands, maybe some weird noses, jawlines. I think you said there's a big thing about that. Both of those two things are actually real. There is a Habsburg nose and a Habsburg jaw line from all the inbreeding that happened. So Uncle Joe is basically just, like, fine.

you can do this morganetic marriage. This is the only way it's going to go down is your children, any children you may have, the line of secession, it does not apply to them. It's going to be you, and then when you're gone, it would go to your brother or whatever the line of secession on another branch of the Habsburgs would be.

And he's like, fucking cool. It's not like Franz couldn't have just been like, you know, I can just... He was basically just probably thinking, too, once Joe was dead. He's like, I'll just not make it a morganetic marriage. Yeah, sure, whatever you say. Once you die, it doesn't matter.

Yeah, exactly. I am you at that point. I can do whatever I want. I'll hear the fuck out of you right now for this, but we're getting married. But yeah, so her standing, this is so fucking shitty. So the first one's kind of funny. The wedding thing is sort of funny because the wedding, they end up being married July 1st, 1900 in Bohemia. And Uncle Franz didn't show up.

Not only that, there was like a distant relative that his, just died. Like somebody that they don't really keep in contact with. Like a Duchess, like three cousins removed or some shit. And so Uncle Franz is like, ah, I don't really want anybody else to go to this wedding. You know what? We're going to do 10 days of morning that the 10th day of morning will be on the wedding day.

The customary royal type morning period for this like third cousin, Susie from like a great uncle or something like that. She was drunk and got hit by a carriage. And he fucking set it up to the point where the final day of the morning period actually fell on the wedding. See, now you're being conspiracy theory. I think that this was a really important thing that Uncle Franz did to support this woman. The only royalty that showed up to the wedding because of this morning period was Franz Ferdinand's stepmother. Yeah.

So they had one royal there. These sisters showed up too, right? I don't think they did. Really? They might have, but I think the only... only member of royalty that I read was the stepmother. So undeterred, just love endured all this other stuff. They had three children.

Sophie was just kind of made fun of or screwed with at every turn. She wasn't allowed to be in public when Franz Ferdinand was in the role of Archduke. So she would like have to ride in the pace or in the chase car behind whenever they would be out in public. that she when they would go into balls Prince Harry Megan Markle Macon Markle vibe could be but they would like go into royal balls and gala and shit like that and he would have to walk in by himself and she would have to follow the royal court it was like when you see in movies like hey hey hey please welcome and you would come in through the big huge double doors into the fancy

ballrooms with your announcement everything it was so fucking catty and petty that it got to the point where they would then close one of the doors apparently only double doors were for like the fucking Habsburgs and they made her come through like a single door where she had like turned sideways and shuffle in because her dress was so big

she wasn't allowed when they were having to stand like in the royal line and everything she had to stand separate from her husband like all the way down at the end of the line it did raise her social standing way way up because she was something like she was some type of duchess

but she didn't get like the title that you would normally get where it's like a queen or whatever their highest would be. And it was never like that. So she was basically just like shunned as much as she could be shunned. But they were just like, fine, fuck it. This isn't what's important to us. This guy's going to eventually die in everything. And until then, we're just going to go ahead and have our family. Yeah.

And from all accounts, I think they said that it earned her a lot of respect and a little bit of grace from a lot of the people. because they did see her being constantly shit on, but she was able to endure. They said that she had the grace herself of a queen, a sweet woman that would just always turn the other cheek and always smile through it. Always showed up too. It wasn't like she was not, after this happened for a while,

she was like, I'm just not going to go to these things because it's embarrassing. She was by his side in any way that she was allowed to be in his duties as Archduke or whatnot, she was by his side in any of those circles. circumstances. They had three children. Sophie was the oldest.

Max a million. Yeah. And then Ernst? I think Ernst. Yeah. And then their fourth child, essentially, I don't think survived childbirth or still born. Yeah.

I love this because Sophie did something that I feel like is not done enough these days. And I find it really confounding that we have all these male juniors out there. She went with Sophie Jr. You very rarely ever see a woman that's a junior in life. And I feel like that's a treat to see like Gao Godot Jr. or something like that. Like the fact that you want to pass on that female strength. Franz was a progressive motherfucker.

He was. He was. So I'm sure he probably likes Sophia so much that he decided to name her. They said that her nickname was also Pinky. Don't know where that came from. Kind of seems weird. Maybe she was missing a pinky because of the Habsburg in her. I think maybe just do the color at her birth, maybe. Okay.

Well, that also. might have had a little bit of like rosy cheeks. So in, there's an event that happens in 1913 where, you know, he still likes to hunt. He's the Archduke. He's still traveling. He's still, you know, with the emperor probably staying more so located in the empire. You have him going out and building these connections. He creates a friendship with the Kaiser, is it Kaiser Wilhelm?

Yeah. From the German Empire ends up creating a friendship with him and being pretty close. He goes to visit England in 1913. and he's with, I'm trying to remember who he's with, but they're in Portland. I think it's another cousin. Probably. Chances are it is. And they're actually out hunting.

And this isn't just like modern day hunting where you go out and both of you are just carrying all your stuff. It was like 30 people accompanying you on these like fox hunts. Like someone's banning the dogs. Someone's loading your guns. Well, one of the handlers behind them that was carrying the guns trips and falls and both barrels of the gun go off and apparently came within like. feet of Franz Ferdinand's

I always see it as kind of the wedding Crashers thing where he's like, do the left Yeah, so This is where the conspiracy theory starts For me, buddy. Is it? Yes. So he's almost... This is The guy hanging out in the woods And James Bond

It must, I think it is Moonraker. Yeah, when he's out there And he fires way far to the right and hits The guy in the tree and he goes, you missed Mr. Bond And he goes, did I? And the guy falls out of the tree. And they both witness it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that this might not have been as much of an accidental drop of the rifle as it could have been. So that brings us up essentially to what's going to happen on the fateful day of Sunday, June 28th, 1914. That's essentially a day that will...

Also live in infamy. Yeah, I mean, it's a day that literally changes the world forever. Yeah, I think it was a means to get to that point. But looking at the way that it was all set up, the Archduke was going to head to Sarajevo because he wanted to do an inspection of the Bosnian military. And he was sent over there partially because he's the Archduke, but partially because he holds these high military rankings and these commissions to be able to go in and do it to check on the military. He's also going to be in a position where he's the top dog. So he probably needs to know what's going on in his empire.

And since he's going over there in official capacity militarily, as opposed to the Archduke royalty aspect of it, Sophie gets to come. Sophie's allowed to go with him into Bosnia. It's also the date is very close to their anniversary or some gross, goofy shit like that. So they want to be able to spend time with each other. As couples tend to do on their anniversary.

Yeah, I don't know. They could have done it at home. He didn't have to go. Oh, that's true. Maybe he did, I don't know. But he decides to head that way, and this is the same thing that Princep saw in the newspaper that was going to announce the Archduke was going to be in Sarajevo in June. Not only does it announce that he's going to be in Sarajevo, but they actually, I'm sure

it wasn't the initial paper that announced his coming, because it was going to be like a parade and a tour of people coming out to see essentially the Archduke, the news. the future emperor of our land. There was going to be like a parade, a tour and all that stuff. They let everyone know. They published in the paper the route, thinking that it was like, well, we want people to be able to line up

and know which way it's going. But at the same time, it's like, you know who else you're telling exactly where he's going to be during this time? Anybody that wants him dead. Your veil conspiracy talks getting me hard over here. That's a very odd. thing that you would put the entire route that he was going to be traveling in a newspaper

where you know that young Bosnia and the Black Hand are active that have already had all these assassination attempts, let alone the assassination attempts that have happened all over the world in like the last decade, two decades, America over in Europe everywhere that Italy, I think, was one of them. There are these assassination attempts and these successful assassinations that are going on and you're going to put his entire route in probably a free or almost free newspaper. You got to wonder too, like where that slipped through the cracks at. Like if it was just like the people in Bosnia, you're like, yeah, we want to get everyone out because if we end up, he ends up showing up and there's not a lot of people out, it's going to look really bad on us. So we need to tell everyone where he's going to be so everyone can, you know, consolidate in those areas.

But at the same time, that had to have gotten to some point up the ladder with like his guys. and they were like, well, yeah, this seems like, who the fuck? I feel like this is one of those situations where it didn't get high enough up the chain that someone that would have the awareness to be like, don't do that. Someone just didn't pull the trigger on it. Or the person had the awareness did not care. Okay. So Precept decides that this is going to be the movement that they need to make.

This is going to be his defining moment. They start to throw a plan together, him and some of his black hand members, for a group of assassins that will escort Princep into Sarajevo. They are, I believe, in Serbia at this point because they have to be smuggled back into Bosnia. And with the help of the black hand, Princep, a guy named Nelikouvo Karbinovik. God, I can't even short that one up. And Trifco Grabaz are then crossed from the border of, Serbia into Bosnia.

Once they're there, the Black Hand has established like fake passports for them. Did we was it determined? I heard a couple different things. So he's still a member of just young Bosnia at this point. He's not

technically because the Black Hand is the Serbian run kind of thing. He's not technically like an official member of the Black Hand, but he is basically being used by the Black Hand to carry this out. I think he probably came forward to the young Bosnians about what he wanted to do. And they're like, boy, do we got a group for you.

He's 19 at this point, too. Yeah. Very young man. He got radicalized at a fairly young age and just it continued to grow. So it was across the border. They're giving fake or giving fake credentials. I think getting these supplies for what this assassination attempt was going to be, was going to be pretty bad.

Because they said that they actually trained them to shoot while they were in search. but they only squeezed off a few rounds because ammunition was so expensive they didn't have enough to train with. Do you know what's crazy? I looked, did you look at the gun that he uses? Yeah, it's a like a 1911 or something like that. But it's, it's crazy to look at because it looks like a modern pistol. Yeah. Like not as modern everything, but I would have thought like revolver or something like that, but it literally is just like a like gas fed, you know, um, slide pistol. That was just, I don't know why that was. interesting to me. I found it more interesting that they used grenades that had a top that you had to break off to an issue. Yeah, you had to bang and hit the blasting cap or something like that. It was like

when you see someone do a road flare where they have to hit it on the bottom or strike it on the bottom for it to go off. Yeah. Just the weirdest technology to use. So they had, I think it was three handguns and then like six grenades or something like that. Not a whole lot of equipment to be performing with. Once they were in Bosnia, they met with three other assassins that came from Belgrade, which is Serbia? Yeah. Yeah. Vaso Kublovik, Povik,

and Mehmed, Mimid Basic. Yeah, Mimid Basic. These guys were all from Belgrade. They tried to keep them apart for as long as they possibly could before the assassination attempt. So if things did inevitably go wrong, they wouldn't be able to narc on each other,

these three groups. Also, along with these grenades and handguns that were passed out, Everybody got a capsule of cyanide. That might be my favorite part of it, and we'll get to it, because this is what I was talking about, and this is like a three stooges operation. So, yeah, our big day shows up. And remember this guy's name, General, or Governor Oscar,

because Governor Oscar, I think, is a pretty big player in how this all gets fucked up. So June 28th, the parade and tour is set. The assassins, the six assassins essentially positioned themselves along the route at different places. Now, I think they're all separated, or I think maybe two of them together. I can't remember if it was five or six different locations. Six different locations. A couple were like by a bridge and they were all spread out. Like one of the first, second or third assassins was supposed to, like he had a grenade apparently. I'm not sure who was issued the guns versus who

was issued the grenades. But this guy, Governor Oscar, is basically, there was an issue that when they were getting ready to leave wherever they were staying and drive into Sarajevo. He was sent with essentially like what they would consider Austrian or Hungarian special forces, like a group of like his four personal guards, his secret service, if you will. And they were going to get in the car and ride either right in front of him or right behind him. And they were stopped by whoever was working for the governor, the military there in Bosnia, which again is going to be Austrian, Hungary, loyal. And it's like they didn't, this car is not for your guys' use.

like it's our use. So the four guys that are supposed to be like his Secret Service essentially are left right back where they're starting from. So that's already kind of one of the fucking comedy of errors here that's going to occur. The guys that were supposed to be glued to them were replaced by local PD. Yeah, exactly. And so you have six automobiles left to start with Franz and Sophie in the third car. They're right in the middle. Now, they pass, I think, the first assassin who had a bomb. Yeah, Medmid Basic had the bomb. And he was like, this looks nice. See, I'm not going to go ahead and do that. Cold feet. Yep. So we get Vaso Corbilovic. Yeah.

And he has a pistol and a bomb. Oh, you did find out who had this stuff. Okay, great. He was next, and he also did not do shit. Also, we're getting into a real pattern of cold feet here. Now, the third was on the opposite side of the street from Kervinovik. and he actually have the stones enough he's like

fuck it he how is the guy alive still at this point I haven't heard of gunshots I haven't heard anything like that so he basically hits his grenade against like a street light or something like that to like dislodge the blasting cap and chucks this thing at the third car that has Franz and Sophie inside

this guy's my favorite guy this whole entire story the driver no Cabernovic okay I love how this whole thing okay gotcha so the driver of Franz car sees this black thing coming in from the crowd and actually floors it to speed up. And by speeding up, I mean, I don't know where this would have landed had he not, but it bounced off of like where the convertible top comes down in the back. The soft top of the convertible that was laid behind them.

Exactly. Thank God it didn't get caught in that. I always imagine like the accordion style. Yeah. It could have like comically got in there. It hits off of that, hits the street, and goes underneath the fourth car following him and explodes. They said that it left like a foot deep crater. Crater in the ground.

Everybody in the vehicle was injured. And then I think there was like 16 bystanders or something like that that needed medical attention. They said also that Sophie actually got scratched on the shoulder by a piece of shrapnel. Is that where it was? Is that where it was? So what at this point can Kavanaughik do now that he's thrown the grenade? It didn't work. But now he doesn't want to get caught.

Holy shit. this is why they gave me the cyanide. This is the time when I become this martyr and this hero. Pops of cyanide thinks, uh, this might not work as fast as I want it to. So I'm going to go ahead and turn around. They didn't tell me the,

is this time release? Yeah. It didn't tell me the effective time frame. In order to get away before I die, I'm going to go ahead and hop this rock wall and land in the river. And then my dumb ass is going to be floating down the river, fat and happy and proud of myself, and then eventually I'm going to die.

Well, uh, Bad news on two fronts. He takes the cyanide, which is so old and degraded, that all it does is make him sick and easier to catch. Now, you would think, did they have somebody at the end of the river that caught him after he floated away? No, no, my friend.

The wall that he jumps over, he landed in what they said was 13 centimeters of water because it was so hot during that summer that the river had dried up. I think 13 centimeters is like six inches of water, so probably enough to drowned in? Like, do you think he was crawling around looking for puddles to stick his face in? I think as soon as you hit that and there's still standing water in a riverbed like that, he sunk about a foot into the mud and was just comically stuck up to his knees and they just fucking grabbed him and pulled him out. They beat the shit out of him before they brought him in, which totally makes sense. So these are our first three. Cabernovic was the only one of the first three that had the stones to do something about it.

Then he ends up eating bad cyanide that made him throw or that made him throw up. was it cyanide or arsenic? It was cyanide. Okay. Yeah. This also kind of leads me to think even more so than I do initially that the black hand, it wasn't like these guys were valuable to the black hand. They were basically just like, because they weren't, there was no one there from the black hand or anything. They just sent these guys, gave them three guns and some bombs.

It wasn't exactly a well-supplied, like you were saying, like well-funded and supplied assassination mission, and expired. and expired cyanide. All the or all the supplies that they sent on this mission probably literally just came out to like one guy's trunk. The Lost and Found box? Yeah.

They're like, what do we have in the Lost and Found? Like what have people just left around? Oh shit, this says cyanide, but it says it expired in 1909. Yeah, it's probably like Quayludes. It'll just be more effective.

It'll still work. Yeah. Nope. Didn't work. Cyanide is not one of those things that get more potent the longer that they, the longer it goes.

So at this point, the first three cars of the motorcade, as would be expected, fucking start hauling ass. Which I'm sure was probably like going from 10 miles an hour to 25 miles an hour max because this is 1914. Also driving fast enough that when the motorcade passes, Poppibik, Princep, and Grebes weren't prepared. This thing comes flying past and they're just like, oh, I just see them like being like going past me like, was that? Was that the Archduke? Well, and especially if you just heard an explosion down the street, you would think why are those guys driving so fast? You would think you would try to get closer to the street because you would think that if they're going to drive past you, you would try to get them. Because that's going to be your only opportunity before they have this guy under Lockham Key and completely protected for the rest of the time.

You would think. So it completely passes them by and is heading for the town hall where Franz was supposed to get received by the mayor. the mayor mayor. Mayor Kirkuk. So what's crazy to, there's an assassination attempt here. Like, you think of what would occur during an assassination attempt in any modern country where that guy would be taken to a safe location, evacuated out of that country as quickly as possible. Um, they just follow the schedule. They just keep, they're like, I guess we're just going to show up at the town hall a little bit quicker than we anticipated, but we're still just going to keep proceeding with like the schedule of the day.

day. The mayor is going to receive you with a prepared speech that he's going to give to all these people in the square. Do you know who's unaware? Do you think the mayor was even aware that this happened? Because he couldn't possibly be aware this happened before the motorcade sped up there, right? Yeah, I don't think they would have had that technology to be able to radio ahead that fast. But you think once the first car gets there and everybody's breathing heavy and sweating and the mayor's like, what's going on? Long story, do your speech. I'll talk to you about it later or we'll let you know later. Well, like one of the first things Franz came up because he was fucking so pissed off is he's like, I come to view your city and your people greet me with bombs. Yeah. So the mayor starts and he doesn't deviate from the previously written speech. So there was just an assassination attempt like six blocks away. But this dude like, man, hot in Bosnia this time of year, right?

Am I right? Hey, who's local? Got any Serbs? Yeah, it's probably not. You guys are under lock and key. fuck you guys and then that's when Ferdinand works in

and he's like Mr. Mayor I came here to visit and I'm greeted with bombs it is outrageous and he was just so fired up until Sof who was in the vehicle with him and then standing next to him like grabbed him by the shoulder

and pulled him back and said something to him to the point to where he steps back before he steps back he leans back forward over the mic and he goes now you may speak Can you imagine to after the he comes at Archduke the guy that's going to be the emperor comes in tells you that he just tried to be murdered in your city and now he's like now go back to this speech that you were going to read

Yeah and just sitting up there and being like well this kind of seems silly now Well and then he ad-libs at the end because all the people that are cheering in the Sarajevo square in front of the town hall they're just going nuts over the salvation and he just leans back in after he's like as I see in them an expression of joy at the failure of the attempted assassination so like he's just poking the bear at this point he just had to throw one little thing in

to make it seem like he knew what was going on while at the same time if the assassins are still out there and like oh he thinks all these people are excited because we failed we're probably going to try and at that point they didn't know how many people were in the crowd and ready to try to kill friends. Yeah. It could have been the six that were on the street. They didn't even know there were six on

the street. As far as they knew there was one guy that made a connection that did something. So these other five guys are going to be robed out there. They're bad in a thousand. Yep. Yeah. Well, so a plan, the normal plan would be like, you know what? Let's hold up here. We have security here. Let's bring in essentially the military. They could escort us back to essentially a safe location, back to where we're going to be protected and that plan was shot down and they were like you know what that seems like a lot of work i hate this so much what we're going to do is we're just going to go ahead and go a different way that we said was going to be the route because obviously these assassins are only going to know

what the route of it is because we posted it in the fucking paper so if we just go on another route they won't even know where they're going to be there and somehow this was agreed upon i don't fucking know how, but the new plan essentially was for Franz and Sophie were like, no, we're going to go to either like the military base or the hospital where they've taken the victims of the bombing and go visit them. That's like... Do you know why plan one was shot down? No, I don't.

Plan one was shot down because they said the time that it would take for them to recall the soldiers to go back home and put on their dress uniforms in order to come line the streets was going to take too long. So their main concern about getting more military there was that these dudes would go home and put on their dress uniforms to come work the crowd. At the same time, how as the Archduke, who obviously has authority over all of these people is not just like, who just fucking suggested that that was going to do? Who fucking spoke?

Yeah. Take him outside, please. I just, I don't think it matters. Once the Archduke's life was just threatened. It's probably not important they get in their dress uniforms. Like, just get downtown. Yeah, exactly. You could cut a lot of time off that.

So the second issue. We're going to go with the changing of the route plan. Yeah. Second issue with that, our friend, Governor Oscar, was the one that decided that they were going to change the route. I guess Governor Oscar communication wasn't his best form of language because he never communicates the plan with the drivers that are taking the cars. Why would you have to tell the people operating the vehicles that they're going to be going in a different way than what they've already been told?

Either that or he just told the wrong person and it never got to them. So they load back up in the cars. And once they load back up into the cars, they take off on the same route that they were going to. It was, yeah, so Franz and Sophie were still in the third car. I believe the governor was in that car, and then they'd actually put somebody alongside on Ferdinand's side? Yeah, he was riding like on the running board. It was like SWAT team style.

Like how you would see like the guy's running aside Kennedy and then jumping on the car. He basically was just going to be like, I'm just going to ride here. So I guess if there's another grenade thrown to you, I can be like, ah, get away. He was essentially a human shield. That was his main goal in life was the only guy that had a decent plan during this time was like, well, I guess if we're doing this, I should probably, like, put something between us and the Archduke. I feel like the guy that had the perfect plans here was Uncle Franz.

I think that it just all leads back to him. Franz Joseph. Yeah, Uncle Franz. So, yeah, as they are headed down, they're in the third car following the first two. The first two, go ahead and take a right onto the Latin Bridge Road. Why wouldn't the third one? Because there's no understanding that the plans have changed, we're going to take a different route.

As they do that, they then take another right onto a side street. Governor Oscar is like, oh shit, no, no, no, no. We were supposed to go the other way. Why did you take this way? And the driver's like, well, the two cars in front of me just went that way. Like, got to turn it around. We got to go back the other way. Like the guy that had the information of where they should be going.

Like, why isn't that guy right in the first car? You'd think. You'd think that that would be a smart move to have that guy. I'm already having to say, like, let's just plan a different route. It's my idea. I'm not going to be in the car that's pivotal to be steering us in the direction we need to go that everyone else is following. Yeah, just an interesting turn of events. Well, you got to turn around at that point.

So they go ahead and stop. The way this is described, I feel like this is the goddamn Austin Powers turnaround when he's in Dr. Evil's base where it's just like turn, reverse, turn, reverse. It's a 54 point turn. You got to explain this part because I just don't. too much here that I just don't believe. So at this same time, coincidentally enough, in the greatest circumstance of coincidence, the world has ever seen up to this point, after the cars had sped by, everyone except Princep was basically like, nope, we're not getting a chance, and bolted.

The guys that already left and ran, there were the first two, then everyone after Princep, the third one was captured, the fourth and, or fifth and six guy bailed. Princep, for some reason, the way that they describe it, he had a feeling that he might get another chance at it. I don't know because I think, from what I've heard, Princep is like a hero in Bosnia and everything. Now, from what I've heard, there's like a park named after him and something like that, just because he was a fighter for like Bosnian independence. So the way that it goes is that he had a feeling or something. It could have been that he wanted a fucking sandwich before he was going to get out of town. He goes over and he takes a seat at this cafe that's close essentially to the area where he was first going to have his assassination attempt.

The routes coming back were essentially very close to the ones going the same direction or kind of coming the same way. They were close to each other. This delicatessen that he was stopped out may or may not have been eating a sandwich was on this Latin Bridge Road. The marked route that was in the newspaper was along this. Bridge Road. He probably looked at that. I think I did hear that he looked at that and said, on the chance, I can try to get this. If they do happen to take this, like, surely they're not this stupid, but just on the off chance, someone is this stupid. I'm just going to wait here. Well, someone was that stupid. And as the Archduke's vehicle, with him sitting in the back,

as well, Sophie, is making this 87 point turn to turn around, he's sitting in the cafe on the, like, whatever you would call it, like the street seating and everything at the patio. He literally just gets up, walks up to the Archduke right beside him, and fires two shots. Crawled up on the running board right next to the guy that was there for the human shield. Fires two rounds. The first one, this is the other part that was weird is, what was the caliber of the ammunition? I thought it was in 1911. What would that be?

I'll look it up. Okay. I guess the ammunition caliber was so small that they had to completely undress him before they realized that the shot, like where the shot had entered his body. And it hit right below this solid gold, like necklace, I guess you could say. Yeah. And went up through severed his jugular vein. I don't think it came back out because they said the only thing they could tell that was wrong with him was he started coughing up blood. Yeah.

Which usually a bad sign. Um, the second bullet hit Sophie in the abdomen. And she, I think, was so hopped up on adrenaline and so worried about the love of her life that she wanted to escort on this anniversary together. She was so worried about what was wrong with him or what could have been wrong with him that she just didn't even realize that she had been shot. And the only reason they knew that she had been shot was they saw the blood and then she just, excuse me, passed out into Franz Ferdin's lap. So it was a 0.380 ACP. I don't know how to read. Like I know there's like when you read like 30-a-6 or like that kind of stuff.

I don't know how you, but it's a point three. It looks like a pretty decent size like just regular pistol round. There's some talk about one of the shots, the one that actually did hit Sophie in the abdomen was a ricochet off of something. Like he went because she was shot first technically. Oh, really? Yeah, I don't know if he was going to shoot and he squeezed off one as he was raising the gun or how it would work. but she essentially caught astray

and kind of the series of events that went down of course the fucking crowd grabs this fucking guy and is like beating this fucking guy to death. He tried to shoot himself before they got to him and he under the same fate as our boy before went ahead and

pop that cyanide that good old non-lethal cyanide the one that just makes your insides rock that keeps you alive so as as he shot and everything. I don't really think he registers that he shot or he does, but he's

more concerned because I think Sophie had actually exhibited that she had been shot prior to him. I thought they saw the blood coming from her abdomen. Yes, that's what I mean. Like, he saw like before France had a chance to even like register that he had been shot, or like, be like, I've been shot. He sees that she's been shot

so his attention to me that goes to her. Power love, baby. There you go. He'll be listening to the news. So she is bleeding and he's basically like please sophie don't die like live for our children i think were his words to her that they had heard and she basically like they think she fainted from like the shock of him getting shot but really she had kind of like passed out and gone unconscious she ends up dying on the way as they're trying to get back to like the hospital or like i think they're taking them back to the castle so they could be seen

by the royal doctor surgeon or something like that the trouble that's probably yeah and so as there's going back his valet or the guy talking to him, he starts to cough up, or Franz Ferdinand starts to cough up blood, and his valley's like, sir, he's like, are you, like, are you in much pain? And he's like, it's, what does he say? It's nothing. It's a flesh wound. I don't think he said. Is that what he said? No, I think he

kept repeating. Oh, that's Monty Python. It's nothing. It's nothing. It's merely a flesh wound. But he ends up going, they get him in, he goes unconscious as well, on the way there. And basically, they get him in, they cut

his uniform off with a saber, It says. And they're looking everywhere for this wound and everything. And finally they find a puncture wound in the neck. And he had been like spitting up blood and coughing up blood and everything like that. And he ends up going unconscious and then never recovering and dies there at the castle as well. Bummer. You would think after such a tragic event that cooler heads would prevail really on any front.

But they didn't. all the assassins were caught eventually. It took them a little while because they all just basically went running. Two days after the assassination, Austro-Hungaria and Germany both freaked out. Actually, before they got to that, they sent out parties of what were those things called pogroms?

that were up in Russia against the Jews Paul Grams They had those with Serbians In Germany and Austria In Serbia Where they were just looting, pillaging Burning down the Serbian parts Of Bosnia because they were so angry

Because when they came out They immediately pointed to the black hand And they pointed to Serbia And they said this assassination attempt was on your hands Exactly And once that happened All hell broke loose These Serbs were all just

absolutely shit upon by these Austro-Hungarian assholes that thought they stood for everything that Serbia believed in when really Serbia probably wasn't too bummed that it happened. We, I mean, you're talking about stuff that still is stuff we have today. Yeah. Like you fucking take the Taliban because they're located in Afghanistan and represented an insanely small portion. Uh-huh. But you see Afghanistan and there's just like, it's all, they're all like that.

Yeah. And so something happens like this. And basically, you're going to. have a lot of anti, both anti-Bosnian because that's where it occurred and then anti-Sovian. Serbian sentiment. What's really ironic about this too before we essentially get into what is going to be the result of this assassination, it's really ironic that this was done for like Bosnian independence and things like that when it comes to light what Franz Ferdinand's plans are, were for the empire. And I'm not saying it was independence and everything because, I mean, he's got an empire. You're not going to like break up an empire because this guy had power and everything.

He was probably used to that. But at the same time, he did have plans for more of a self-governance of the territories while still maintaining being under, you know, Austria-Hungary to where he would basically try to put people in positions that were not necessarily from there, but give the people a say or try to kind of like at least increase the self-governance of these areas that they had taken over that they ruled over.

Yeah, it all sounds good. That sounds like something that you think that those people would like. Now put yourself in the mindset of having to live under Habsburg rule for forever and hear all the bullshit promises and lies that you've been told and these people were really just

their existence was to fuck with you. Correct. And now you're going to trust a guy that's going to come and say, hey, I'm going to give you guys some independence. What's your last name, bro? Franz Ferdinand, are you a Habsburg? Yeah. Just another story. There wasn't enough as far as the promise of that and the thought of that to dissuade anyone that was already radicalized and that was already in the mindset that

this is what it was going to take to do. I just find it ironic that like in the effort to try to do this because fucking Princep couldn't imagine in his wildest dreams what the end result of this is going to cause. No, no, I don't think so. Um, I also think that that's the perfect lead-in to how I just tie up this whole fancy conspiracy theory. Okay. Because. Before you tie that up, I know we're a little late in the episode and we've probably got half an hour more, but I didn't take a bathroom break.

Okay. Well, hey, there, all you sexy historians, how are you guys doing? It is time for socials. Where can they find us on Instagram? If they want to. Follow us. They can find us at a historically high pod on Instagram. That goes the same for threads as well.

You can also find us on Twitter. Tell them about Twitter. Historically high. That's historically H-I on Twitter. And if you want to email any of your comments or suggestions, where can they find us at, Adam? At historically high podcast at gmail.com. Gmail.

All right, and back to the show. Okay, back at it. The assassination has happened. Where do we go from here? Conspiracy 30. Okay. This is where I want to throw it out because I feel like this is sort of where it fits in nicely. Before this had happened, there was already a feeling with Germany and Austria, Hungary.

I don't know if it was just hard feelings towards Serbia. but there were multiple attempts on the Austro-Hungarian front to actually start fighting Serbia like not with the thoughts and intentions of hey this is going to be a world war but they're over there waving their independence in our faces we really liked it when we had a say in their country we're also seeing these assassination attempts

that have come out the guy from the black inn in the first place other situations like that. I think that Austro-Hungaria and Germany were looking for a reason to go to war with Serbia under justified means. And if this, the governor, Governor Oscar, Governor Oscar and Uncle Franz were friends. And he's like, hey. I'm sure he was appointed to the position by someone. He had to approve that type of appointment. Could be.

Any situation like that. For him to come up with this whole place. plan to put everybody at ease of taking a different route and then that not being talked to with the drivers about also okay so yours I think I've been doing a good job

not interrupting you this episode you know who you know who I'm talking to regards to but okay so you're saying that the conspiracy part of it was not a was not planning the entire thing, but doing just enough that it increased the odds of something happening. Like, if you're looking at it and you're like, well, this guy is heading to this place,

which has anti-Austria-Austro-Hungarian sentiment, if there was going to be a time that someone was going to attempt to kill this guy, it's probably going to be at this point. So let's put his route in the newspaper. So, because you still have it to where it's not like he could have had a hand in the black can planning this and all that kind of stuff. But it was, so the conspiracy essentially is that they put Franz Ferdinand in a situation where

it was much easier and much more likely that he was going to be assassinated. This was the greatest opportunity for assassination that may have ever, like besides whatever play Lincoln was watching, it must have been the must watch to get him there for an assassination. This is, they just basically hung him out as bait.

Oh yeah. And if he ends up getting killed, then we have the provocation to go into Serbia before it's going to look little grimy and kind of snake-like to do it, but if they kill our era parent to the emperor, we kind of have reason to go in there. The fact that, and this is where my conspiracy kind of falls apart, but this is just the most unbelievable part of it. How in the world, I get that it was close to the route, but there's no way that Princep

could have been sitting at this delicatessen and the car gets stalled and has to do this massive turn in the same area. Chance, probability. There's just no way that that was... I'll argue that with you. Here's the thing. I think essentially if there... I think the conspiracy you were,

you could be right on the fact that like they were making it much more likely and much easier for someone to make an attempt on this guy's life. At the same time, the way that it was set up to where the two cars in front and everything, the governor, I don't know if he was like, well, I'm not at risk because I'm not Franz Ferdinand. I got to make sure this thing is pulled off. I think after those first assassination attempts don't work. At that point, there's so much heat on you that you missed your chance. I don't think it was as much as there was a backup plan.

Like, if they don't get him here, what you're going to have to do. Because here's the thing, all five of the other assassins fled. It couldn't be just one thing where they pulled Prince of its head and said, hey, hang around. because something might happen. If they wanted to do that, they would have had it set up to where all these... Like, they couldn't count on an assassin hanging around and being in that spot and just being in that spot at the same time.

So I do like the aspect that like... Because his uncle, again, he didn't really like him that much. And during this time frame, because at this time, too, when France Ferdin was murdered, I thought for some reason, like Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, he was like in his 20s, he was a young guy and everything. He was 50 years old. Yeah.

And so he was... was and he maybe would have gone on to be a ruler for 20 years once depending on how far uncle Joe was going to live uncle Joe didn't make it out of world war one alive yeah so like that's also aspect that he was pretty old when he got assassinated on that yeah i just i do think the aspect because there was some talk about his brother possibly stepping into i don't know if he'd been being grown behind the scenes but he actually is the one that does take over correct what i'm saying though is that there may if there was going to be any plot to make it easier they would have had that as a back. That would have been their preferred backup plan and their

incentive to try to take him out as they knew that someone would be a little bit more Habsburg and it wasn't going to be Franz Ferdinand. Yeah, dude, it's totally to me two birds, one stone, because you can get friends out of the way and you have a reason to attack Serbia. So you have basically two things that benefit you at the same time. It just seems way too convenient that all that happened. And maybe the wild card in the whole thing was pre-incept was right outside that deli ready to shoot him. They did say, and I don't know if he maybe admitted this, that the round that hit Sophie was intended for the governor.

Yeah, during his trial, the only time he showed remorse was that he had shot her. That's right, because he took both parents away from the children. Exactly. And they asked him something along the lines of, are you happy you did that or something like that? And he just said, I'm not a monster. Yeah. Which is an odd thing to say for a guy that just plotted an assassination attempt and then

completed an assassination. Yeah, his thing was like, I don't regret killing Franz Ferdinand. And they were like, well, what about the mother? And he's like, well, I'm not a monster. So that's the distinction. It wasn't taking away the father. It was like, well, I didn't mean to kill him both. Yeah, just an odd little recognition of his motivations.

They had kind of an interesting deal. Do you want to talk about their trials first? Or do you want to talk about, let's talk about their trials first and then we'll get into that. Yeah, let's wrap up Franz and Sophie. So the whole thing with Sophie not being a real Hasberg, it even endures in death because Franz, I think, would have been allowed what would be considered a state funeral and be interned essentially in like mausoleum or tomb where the Hasbergs were, all that good stuff. Sophie was not going to be allowed to do that. So instead of Franz being buried there, I'm guessing they must have a Will and Testament to make sure that this happened and everything. they were actually buried in Vienna together.

Yeah. But not in the Habsburg mausoleum. So they were separate of themselves. I think that's sort of the way that they lived their lives from everybody else was separate, but with their children. And so that is kind of one last final slap in the face. But at the same time, I think there had been so many before that they didn't really give a shit. Crazy enough, all the assassins were caught as well. And this to me is crazy.

It wasn't just like, kill them all. All the defendants, any of them under 20, they weren't eligible for the death penalty. It's like, that was a fucking rule back then. Well, this is 1914. Yes. And this is in a country much crazier than ours. Yes. It's 2023.

We still give the death penalty out to 18 year olds. Mm-hmm. These people, I know that it's rare because usually they plead down to life without parole and all that shit. But it has a possibility. Yeah. It's a possibility. In Serbia, crazy-ass Serbia. back in 1914, we don't do the death penalty for anybody under 20.

Like, they had the foresight to say, hey, maybe an 18 or 19 year old kid's brain isn't fully formed. Was that in Serbia or was that in, because I'm sure they would have been tried in Austria. Yeah, they would have been in Austria. That's right. So the rest of them that were over 18 were hanged. Instead, the ones that were below 18, each got like a 20-year sentence. Some of them that weren't directly involved because they did go back and find like the people that set up the, the whole assassination attempt.

They were given 10 years, five years old, that kind of stuff. But anybody that was a direct participant got the 20 years or got hanged. None of them got to see the end of their 20 years. Of course not. Because there's some sort of thing that we're going to have to do

just one whole episode on tuberculosis. But everybody had it back then. Like you either had syphilis or tuberculosis. And most people that had one at the other. Huh? Franz Ferdinan had tuberculosis. was at one point and had to go like isolate on an island and that's when he would like write and correspond with Sophie.

Just crazy shit like that. All three of the ones that got jailed for 20 years had tuberculosis. None of them made it out alive. I don't think anyone with them are going to make it out. Like they would never see the outside. Like you have really after 20 years if you happen to survive, you would have been killed in that prison anyway. You would have.

But the fact that all of them succumbed to tuberculosis is crazy. They weren't killed like the first night. Like I can imagine that they would be like keep these guys alive but like make their lives hell and everything that they're going to be here. Two days after the assassination attempt, basically Austria-Hungary and Germany are like, you need the

Serbia needs to start fucking looking into this shit because we have it on good authority that this was a plan of the black hand. And we're holding you responsible for this kind of stuff. And you get this thing that's called basically the July crisis when it's basically this month

of July of diplomatic maneuvering between like Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France, and Britain basically with Austria saying like Serbia needs to pay for this. And they send them this crazy fucking list, like a ridiculous list of demands.

The kind of ridiculous list of stuff that Serbia would have to do that they literally could not do it all. Well, it was shit along the lines of like, you have to do an investigation, but then we have to be able to send our Austro-Hungarian and German

into your country to then fact-check your stuff to make sure that you're doing it. There was like certain occupation requirements that they had to be in the country for a certain amount of time and no less. It was basically demands that were intentionally made to be unacceptable just to get an excuse for hostilities to start the war. And not only that, they had 48 hours to respond. You were given two days to run through this list of demands and figure it all out. Well, here's the thing too.

Serbia actually, like, they were like, well, fuck. This kind of sounds like they just want to fight. So on July 25th, they mobilized their army. But at the same time, they literally accepted all of the terms, except for the ones that empowered Austrian representatives to basically suppress subversive elements inside Serbia, to basically Gestapo, be the Gestapo inside Serbia, about these people that were trying to put Bosnian independence and stuff

into these people's ears. And before that, the Australian or the Austro-Hungarian diplomats that were in Serbia at the time all started burning

all their paperwork before they left before the timeline was up yeah so they were getting ready to leave they knew that shit was going to pop off so basically you know

Joe Joseph is like you know what this is this this amounted to a rejection they're breaking off you know they're not fulfilling they're part of the agreement And so on, I think it was like July 28th, three days, they end up declaring war on Serbia and basically begin shelling their capital.

And to show you how crazy the ask was, even though Serbia came back and said, we can do all these but the one, Kaiser Wilhelm is even like, oh shit, that's a really good deal. Take that deal. That's an awesome deal. He's like, I don't want to fucking go to war. Yeah. And that was the other issue. to back like that was the thing the alliances they had to like there were alliances and agreements that like okay if you go to war we have to back you in the war if we go to war you have to back us in the war but at the same time Germany and the Kaiser are looking at this is like yeah this sucks that this happened and everything but like we have an out to avoid like war in europe well they actually told um the the whole idea for austro hungaria to start this fight with Serbia was they went to Germany and like hey if we get entangled with

Serbia we got you guys right and they're like well isn't Serbia kind of buddies with Russia and they're like yeah but if we go to the table and we tell Serbia we're coming and the full mind of the German army at the same time they'll probably just be scared and give up and give in Germany's like cool we're going to give you guys a blank check let them know that you have our full unwavering support and Russia's probably going to look at that and say well shit if it was just Austria, Hungary, maybe we'd intervene, but it's them and Germany, so we're going to be fighting this huge war. They'll probably just be like, it's not going to be worth them trying to back up Serbia. Quite the opposite, my friend, because Russia is like, well, Germany's in, you guys need us,

we're here. We're going to be behind you guys. And not only that, because of this treaty in 1878 that was signed, us and France are boys too. So if we're going in, the French are going in too. and the alliances start showing up, but at the same time, Austria, Hungary, and Germany both think that they're going to be able to get in and sack Serbia so fast that once they make all that happen,

they take over Serbia. By the time everybody else gets there, they're already going to have the high ground, they're going to have taken Serbia, it really won't be a fight at that point. Can probably bring their troops back and everything. But this whole stumbling of this July that you were talking about,

what would you call it? the July crisis. The July crisis. That was how long it took them was the month of July to get this list of demands and everything after they had already said they had full German support. So it gave Russia enough time to talk to France and both of them and be like, yeah, we hear this is coming. Everybody get mobilized and get ready to move because if this is coming and Germany really wants a piece of us, we want to make sure that we can get down there before they get a chance to essentially run their plan. What's crazy too is the speed. of like what started to happen during this time frame.

Yeah. So after this happens, just kind of ripples around Europe. Europe was probably aware that when something like this takes place, it's literally a catalyst for war. So they start, everyone starts trying to get their ducks in a row, checking on old friendships and being like, hey, we're just in case. Yeah.

Not saying it's going to happen, but you're good with us. We're good with you. We're going to back each other up. Basically, after, you know, when they gave them, the ultimatum to fulfill these, you know, this list of demands, Russia had already started preparations for war on July 25th. So basically, they ordered general mobilization and support of Serbia on the 30th. So already at this point, before even the 30th, we now have Germany and Austro-Hungary

and now Serbia and Russia together. And you're like, well, that's not all the people that fought in World War I. How did the other people get in? there were all these weird alliances in which one country would have an alliance with this little country, but then also have one with like, so Britain had a alliance with France, and then the UK had an alliance with Belgium. So Germany was basically getting ready to mobilize and attack Belgium to their north. And Belgium was like, hey, you know, this looks like this going to happen. the French were mobilizing and we're asking Belgium, hey, why don't you let us into your country?

And then we can stop the Germans at your guys's border. And they were like, actually, no, you're not going to be able to come in unless the Germans come in first, which they did. Well, and that was all because the agreement with Belgium that they had made a long, long time ago was a pledge of neutrality, that they would never be involved in anything. So it's kind of like a no man's land,

whereas we're not going to let you in to try to defend us because nobody has entered us to try to use us or take us over yet. They're going to get entered. Yeah, they're to the letter of the word neutral. So Belgium has this agreement with the UK and Britain, which also has an agreement with France, and so you're having all of these countries get pulled in because other countries are getting pulled in as well. So you then have the Ottoman Empire who is kind of like sitting back for just a couple, doesn't take them long, they're like, well, you know what, we're going to start attacking ports in Russia.

So they start attacking ports in Russia because of who they're fighting against. You now basically get who the would be the axis in World War I, which is going to be the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the German Empire. On the other side, you're going to have Britain, France, Russia. I want to say Italy actually fought on the winning side in that. And then crazily enough, we talked about this before, but we won't get into a ton of detail. China and Japan. Through their hats in.

Just threw their hats in on the side of essentially the Allies who would win World War I. Yeah, which also means any land that came from China would be a part of it. The Koreas as a part of Japan would also be considered in, they were Japan at the time but people from Korea would have been in support which almost seems to make

a little bit more sense because I think Korea is closer to that area than Japan ever would be Yeah but it's just crazy that it You know you don't really hear a lot about China and Japan participating in World War I and there's good cause for that We'll get into that when we actually get into the first episode Once the war has started But you have all of these like agreements

That basically draw all of Europe into war and basically the actions of this one guy are the catalyst for it. Not the only reason. Kind of like we've discussed, there's already tension in Europe because it's probably gone a while without a war. People are expanding, people are taking over areas. There's always going to be some type of land grab desire for grabbing of more land, more territory.

You have dynasties coming in, dynasties falling off. So not being the main reason that this happened, but it was just what needed to happen for this thing to pop off. If you think about it too, it wasn't that long ago that war fatigue in Europe from trying to cage in Napoleon was a thing. Yeah. So I'm sure that when they saw this threat from Germany

and from Austro-Hungaria coming towards them, they're like, oh, fuck, not again. You've got to imagine some of these alliances that we were just talking about, which forced these other countries, to team up and to, you know, back up other countries, those had to have existed from the time of Napoleon. Yeah.

The Prussian, the Franco-Prussian wars, all that kind of stuff. Where everyone was sick of France. And so it's like at this point, all the people that had to fight France were like, you're fighting with us this time, right? Like, yes, yes. The Napoleon thing is, it's in the past. Yeah, we've already said, sorry, you guys were falling in line. I think the best part about this whole thing and the best part about war, there's really not

whole lot that's funny about war, but this declaration that you have to make that you're at war with the country. Like you can't just go in and fight. You have to declare war against this country. I mean, you don't have to. But I don't know, is it paperwork? Do you think they fill out like a form

like I, Germany, am now officially at war with... I feel like it's that thing where in the office, Michael Scott with the bankruptcy. He just comes out and he yells and he yells. And I think maybe you can just go to war if your leader is like we are now declaring war against this person.

I would imagine there is some war paperwork though that has to be filled out. Maybe some hands that got to get counted. Something's got to get put down on the record. It just blows me away that that's like a part of it because Austria-Hungary and Germany both declared, or I guess Austria-Hungary and with the backing of Germany, declared war on Serbia. Like you said, July 28th, 1918. once this triple alliance of Russia, France, and Serbia is formed, they all mobilize, and Austro-Hungarian Germany again, mobilize against them.

And they're like, August 1st, Russia, we declare war on you. August 3rd, France, we declare war on you. Like, why not just do it all the same time? Why do you have to do it on separate days? Like, I'm going to war with you and anybody that you align with. Why do we have to make this shit official? And then, like, you were talking about with Great Britain. wants to be first.

Yeah. Russia's like, you know what, we're going to be the first ones to actually declare war to show how much we're going to back up Serbia. And then France is like, we haven't had a war in a while. We're going to declare war too. And then eventually Germany's, like we were talking about earlier, Germany's violation of the Belgian neutrality, that's what brings the British Empire into the war on August 4th.

So from the date war is first declared July 28th, when Austria-Hungary declares war to August 4th, within that six or seven days, you know, have all of Europe plunged into World War I. And you know, every day, Uncle Franz is waking up, and there's some newspaper article,

it's like, so-and-so declares war on Austria-Hungary and Germany. He's like, fuck, another one. Again, it had to have been, like, both ways. So he would wake up, and it's like, on their side, it was like, not Germany,

but the Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia. He's like, yes. And then the next day it comes out, it's like, France. declares war against Germany, Austria, and he's like, oh,

damn it. It was, it's newspaper roulette, like the guy outside that's giving his paper and his tray to take it into his room is just like, fuck.

So you can have a good day or a bad day to day based upon the newspaper. It's going to be bad day. You're going to see the look on the guy's face. Yeah, an insanely interesting topic,

something that I think a lot of people learn about, um, essentially just kind of the most widely known cause or cause for the outbreak of World War I, what caused it to actually start. It's, yeah, not to interrupt you,

but it's the best answer that you can give for it that doesn't get clouded with shit like nationalism or anything like that. Yes, so like if you were to say, in the same way that we say it was Nazi Germany's invasion of, was it Czechoslovakia, right? Yes. That kicked it off.

The invasion of Czechoslovakia. is what kicked off someone to declare war. Germany entering into another country's sovereign territory in the same way, it's this event that everyone knows is the cause of World War I. Again, not the only cause. There was already bad feelings going across Europe and everything like that, but this was initially what popped it off. So that's probably where we should end this,

because if we start getting into World War I, first of all, we haven't studied it all that much. I'm so fucking excited to study for World War I. I know. Well, you got anything else on this one? No. Just know that World War I will be coming. Don't know when we're going to do it.

And number two, there's got to be a Habsburgs episode. Oh, yeah, definitely. Going back and just tracking these people down, it's insane. Just the fact that there's technically still around, the family line is still around is just unbelievable. And is still in politics. Yeah, exactly. All right, guys.

Well, thanks for joining us on another episode. Oh, just a reminder, as always, rate, review, subscribe, hit that like button, hit that follow button. If you don't follow us on our socials, they're going to be at the end of the episode and they were during our commercial break, our little bathroom break. We'll be letting you know what future episodes are going to come out and it's also where you can communicate with us and give us any feedback. We love hearing from you guys. Right. Have a good one. Please. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining us for another episode. If you like what you

heard, hit that subscribe and like button. Follow us. If you didn't like what you heard, Still hit that anyway because we'll probably cover something in the future that you do like. Please follow us on our social media. Adam, hit them with it. Our Instagram is Historically High Pod, historically high POD. And we are on Twitter at Historically High. That's Historically H-I. All right.

And if you guys want to send in any feedback suggestions, hit us up on those two or you can even do it on Gmail. It's historically high podcast at gmail.com. Thanks again. Peace.