SOME DAMN FOOLISH THING IN THE BALKANS - how Britain, Germany and Austria started World War 1

GAVRILO PRINCIP is famous for Gavrila Princip Street in Belgrade, home to my favourite restaurant Zavičaj's, where I have enjoyed three times now the best craft sausage, roast potatoes, cabbage salad, mustard and a memorable house red.

GAVRILO PRINCIP is also famous for assassinating the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and starting World War One.

"Assassinate" is too strong a word. I believe he was provoked. 

The underdog is the eternal scapegoat, and Gavrila Princip was a Bosnian Serb, an excellent example of the species because he and his friends were poor, passionate nationalists in a world of rich, arrogant empires. Had he been British or German or even a disgruntled Austrian or Turk, would the notion that one young man could be the cause of such a cataclysmic catastrophe have been quite so popular with our history books?

Serbs had lived in Bosnia for thirteen hundred years and at the time Gavrila fired the fatal shot (or shots, actually, because he killed the Archduchess as well) there were 800,000 Serbs living in Bosnia out of a population of 1.9 million.

Why were the Balkans the underdogs, and why Bosnia in particular?

To answer that question, here is what the Germans thought of the Balkans.

“One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans” -

Otto von Bismarck 1888, founding Chancellor of Germany and wealthy aristocrat.

And here is what the British thought.

"All these Balkan peoples are trash" -

Alexander Cadogan 1941, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and wealthy aristocrat.

I haven't tracked down the originator of the phrase describing the Balkans as "the powder keg of Europe" but it would have to have been a member of one of the many empires that taxed them, exploited their natural resources and used their populations for military service - the Austrians, Hungarians, Germans, Ottoman Turks, Venetians, Italians, the British or the Russians - and who discovered the hard way that the Balkans didn't appreciate being exploited. 

Here is what Gavrila Princip thought. "I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria."

Why did Austria get control over Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in the first place?

[In April 1877] Russia went to war with the Turks...Such a general conflagration was just what European Diplomats feared. It was the dreaded Eastern Question, or what to do with Turkey's European possessions once the [Ottoman} Empire collapsed...At the Congress of Berlin in 1878...the Balkans states were not invited to participate beyond presenting their views. The decisions of the Congress were to have tremendous historical impact...In a great blow to Serbia, the provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina were given to Austria-Hungary to adminsister...[This occupation] contained within it the seeds of the First World War. (2)

Those seeds were fertilized and watered with the connivance of Britain and Germany.

In the war of 1877 Serbia allied with Russian against the Turks, during which the Serbs 'reoccupied the whole of Southern Serbia . [but] the agreement that had been reached by the Russians and the Turks ...did not suit Britain or Germany, who feared that they would mean Russian control of the Balkans through a puppet state in Bulgaria. [So] at the Treaty of Berlin Serbia and Montenegro acquired almost complete independence from Turkey but Bosnia and Herzegovina were handed over to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. ...Bismarck insisted on this to offset what he regarded as the undue support for Turkey given at the Congress by the British Government. The Austrian garrisons stationed throughout the territories were bitterly resented by the Serbian population...as was the separation of Serbia and Montenegro ...by a fortified strip of territory under Austrian control.'(3)

Bosnia is a country of three faiths but two of these have strong ties to Croatia and Serbia. Austria's actions in Bosnia only amplified Serbian and Croatian nationalism.

'In 1878 the Austro-Hungarian Empire occupied Bosnia...until it was formally annexed in 1908. Fearing general unrest, Austria initially maintained the Ottoman laws, including the agrarian privileging of Muslim landholders. Gradually, however, the new colonial government began establishing control over the three religious communities [Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox] with the aim of curbing political and ideological ties between Bosnia and the neighboring Croatia and Serbia...It tried to promote a sense of unified Bosnian identity [and] it tried to cut off religious ties with the immediate neighbours [Croatia and Serbia]. As education and literacy among the local populations improved, so did their ties with national movements in Serbia and Croatia.[There was a] zeal of national awakening pouring in from Serbia and Croatia.(4)

And then in 1914 on the 28th June, the most sacred day in the Serbian calendar, Archduke Franz Ferdinand chose to parade Austrian imperialism through the streets of Sarajevo.

'Why ever did the royal visit take place on Vidovdan, a great day of mourning for the defeat of the Serbs by the Turks in the fourteenth century?...Was the visit a provocation? Did the Vienna government want some incident to occur that would give an excuse for the subjugation of Serbia?' (1)

I would like to say that Empires have the best interests of their territories at heart but that would be naive. Empires want resources and here are just a few examples of many.

Immediately after it took control in 1878 Austria began to construct a narrow-gauge railway system in BiH to transport Bosnian timber, bauxite, coal, iron ore, zinc and lead. Although the country in World War 2 was supposedly divided by the Vienna Line into Croatian and Italian sections, Hitler helped himself to the bauxite mines near Mostar for aeroplane manufacture. 'In 1900, [in] the rural economy of Croatia-Slavonia 56% of the direct taxes … went to Hungary' (6) and countries under Ottoman Turkey were so heavily taxed that whenever people could leave, they did. Most couldn't, and in Serbia the Ottomans harvested local boys every five years, forcing them to convert to Islam and using them as troops called Janissaries. Between the wars Britain posted mining engineers in Belgrade to help Britain, not Serbia, and was widely believed to have manipulated Serbian politics in order to precipitate the coup d’etat that led to the disastrous invasion of Belgrade in 1941.

After World War 2 a political agitator from Jerusalem named Al Husseini was wanted by Tito’s Yugoslav government as a war criminal, so it is worthwhile taking a look at Britain’s relationship with the Arabs. A day after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, five Arab states invaded in a joint land grab. The evangelist Derek Prince was living in Jerusalem when ‘a fragment [of a shell] flew through an open window…When it was cool enough to handle, I picked it up and examined it…Neatly imprinted on it were the words “Made in Britain”’. (7)

That the British Empire was a cruel colonizer is well known but it seems to have enjoyed better relations in the Middle East. The explanation can be long and convoluted but, put simply, it was due to oil. Britain had established oil supplies in Iraq and Iran during the 1920’s and 30’s, having discovered oil in Iran in 1908. 'Iranian popular opposition to the ... royalty terms [where Iran received only 16% of the profits] was widespread and created political discontent throughout the country' (5). In 1921 Britain gave two thirds of the Holy Land to Jordan in order to protect British interests and the British oil pipeline that ran through it. The action pacified the Arabs alarmed by the arrival of Jewish settlers from Europe. In the remaining land west of the Jordan River, Al Husseini incited violence against the Jews and in 1921, Britain made him grand mufti of Jerusalem in the hope of calming him down. Instead, it made him more violent and, as the official leader of Muslim Arabs he later moved to Berlin to assist Hitler in carrying out the Holocaust. In BiH he formed three SS divisions of Muslim soldiers who committed atrocities against Jews and Serbs, and attracted the ire of Tito.

So, go to Sarajevo and stand in the footsteps of Gavrilo Princip, but don't blame him for starting World War 1. As Tito said: foreign land we don't want, our land we don't give.

1. Balkan Essays of Hubert Butler. The Irish Pages Press 2016

2. The Serbs by Tim Judah

3. Conflict in the Balkans by Malcolm Booker. Catalyst Press Sydney 1994.

4. Good People in an Evil Time by Svetlana Broz. Other Press, New York 2004. 

5. The Discovery of Oil in the Middle East | World History

6.  Rural Women in Croatia/Slavonia in 1900 Elinor MURRAY DESPALATOVIC   14421755.pdf 

7. The Key to the Middle East by Derek Prince. Thomas Nelson 1982.