Origins of WW1: Beyond the Archduke

Warfare

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4.5 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2022

⏱️ 41 minutes

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Summary

The 11th of November marks Remembrance Day, a memorial day honoured since the end of the First World War. Hostilities ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 after four years of global conflict. As we use this day to look back at those lost, it's important to understand what caused one of the most devastating conflicts in modern history.

On the 28th of June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. His death is often cited as the spark that started the First World War - but how accurate is this statement? Claiming this assassination as an isolated incident ignores the troubling context of the time. What should've been a conflict restricted to the Balkans somehow turned into a catastrophic global conflict, with rising nationalistic sentiments brewing, and the eventual involvement of European Superpowers - what really lead Gavrilo Princip to fire a shot against the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire?

In this episode, James Rogers is joined by Paul Miller-Melamed to examine the origins of the wider geopolitical context of First World War.

You can find Paul Melamed's book here

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The story of how the First World War began has been told so many times.
0:06.7	Archdupe Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Habsburg Empire,
0:10.6	is shot dead on June 28th, 1914 in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo.
0:16.7	The war begins and it doesn't end until the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 and that of course was today 104 years ago the day the guns fell
0:28.4	silent.
0:29.4	Yet is this the full story of why the war began?
0:33.2	Well, I'm your host James Rogers, this is the warfare podcast, and as we mark Remembrance Day in Europe
0:39.0	and Veterans Day in the US, I've invited author and historian Paul Miller-Mellimed onto the
0:45.0	podcast to provide us with a slightly different perspective. Now rather than
0:48.9	focusing in on the bang of the assassin's gun fired by Gavrilo Princip or reinforcing the mythology
0:55.3	that has risen around this assassination Paul embeds the incident into the longer
1:00.0	turn context and turmoil in the Balkans and by doing so he lays out for us the surprising
1:07.3	historical foundations behind this political murder.
1:11.6	Enjoy. Enjoy.
1:13.0	Hi Paul, welcome to the Warfare Podcast.
1:19.0	How you doing today?
1:20.0	I'm great.
1:21.0	Thank you very much, James. Well Well it's great to have you on the
1:24.3	podcast. I'm on the move at the moment. I'm in the US so apologies for I'm a little
1:28.1	echoier than usual. That's apologies to our listeners and to Paul as well. Where are you in the world Paul?
1:33.6	I'm actually in Southern California right now visiting family.
1:37.2	Oh, it's a hard life. It's a tough life, yes, definitely.
	...

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