Hello Otterites!
Today is a grim anniversary. On this date in 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, touching off World War I.
As you know Otterites, we here at S&O believe you can’t understand our 21st century world without understanding World War I. It reset everything. Our attitudes, beliefs, cultural mores and understanding of what humanity can be and achieve is colored by World War I.
To think it all goes back to a young disaffected Bosnian, filled with hatred for the Austrian political system of his homeland, is stunning. Serbian irredentism for Austrian controlled lands in the Balkans was an ever present force driving the actions of Serbian shadow groups throughout this time.
To learn more, S&O always recommends GJ Meyer’s A World Undone and A World Remade, along with WWI books by Hew Strachan, John Keegan and SLA Marshall. And of course we also recommend episodes 2 and 3 of our own humble efforts. Crucial to know this stuff if you’ve ever looked around our modern world and mumbled “what the hell’s going on around here?”
