World War I Catalyst Was an Accident

Try, try again but don’t stop the car for directions!

World War I almost didn’t get its catalyst. On June 28, 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, visited Bosnia, the streets of Sarajevo were filled with admirers and assassination conspirators. One threw a bomb at the car that the Archduke batted away. Later he spontaneously wanted to visit the aide injured by the bomb in the hospital, but the driver didn’t know the way. He came to a bridge, stopped as an official said “that’s the wrong way”, and was about to turn around when one of the failed conspirators, standing nearby and consoling fellow conspirators about their failure, spotted the car. Gavrilo Princip, only 19, shot both Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, who tried to put herself in front of her husband. Both died within minutes, sparking “The Great War”, which killed over 10 million. Ironically, the war continued long enough without U.S. involvement that it was able to “get fat” by selling arms to both sides before entering the war near the end when the outcome was not in doubt. The U.S. lost less than 50,000 soldiers.