This is a hot topic in Serbia, mostly driven by one-century anniversary and attempts to requestion the guilt of this country in starting The Great War.
What are your opinions about this single event that occured on June 28th? Why, organized by whom and with what purpose in mind?
How is this topic teached in US or western Europe and how in other parts of the world? I do not want to go too deep in reasons why war started, I am more interested in this event as one of the key moments of that year.
Thank you.
This is outside my direct specialty, but I did a term paper on this my last semester of college. So the ruler of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He wanted to transform the bipartite union of Austria and Hungary into a tripartite rule, bringing Serbia to join the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Gavrilo Princep, who had been rejected from serving in the Serbian military, found a group who would welcome him: the Black Hand. While a part of this group, he developed an extremist attitude, believing that Serbia must remain for Serbs.
The murder was orchestrated by the Black Hand, with Gavrilo Princip being the only member to follow through with the assassination. Others backed down, and originally, Princip missed his chance. Only because the car carrying the archduke took a slight detour by Princip's location did he get another chance at the assassination.
I am not in the camp that this single event led the WWI. Europe's system of alliances, the military planning of German Otto von Schlieffen, and a number of other factors made war inevitable. If Princip hadn't sparked it, something in Russia, Germany, or any other European country could have set it off.
An interesting, although sensationalized, read about Princip is Smith's One Morning in Sarajevo. It goes over the basics about Princip's life and his reason for joining the Back Hand.