← After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
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- [00:00]
Maddy Pelling
Hello everyone, it's me, Maddy. I am back. Well, not quite. I will be back on the pod very soon, but in the meantime, if you've missed your fix of Anthony and me together, you can now catch us live on stage at Conway hall in London on the 7th of May. There we'll be discussing my brand new book, Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment. Out that very same day, we'll be discovering how fake news is nothing new, chatting about what it's like to spend time in the darker side of the Georgian world, and meeting the three extraordinary, bizarre and often frightening characters at the heart of the book. Copies of Hoax will be available on the night, which I'll be signing after the show and hopefully chatting to as many of you as possible. So get your tickets now. The link is in the show notes. You can go to the Conway hall website or follow the link in my Instagram bio. I'm so excited about this book and I just can't wait to share it with you all. Do come along. It is going to be the most fantastic evening. See you there.
- [01:08]
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- [01:53]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
We're in Sarajevo in Bosnia on the morning of the 28th of June, 1914. The air feels taut, as if the city itself is holding its breath. Less than a decade earlier, Bosnia was absorbed into the Austro Hungarian empire and resentment simmers, barely concealed beneath the surface. Crowds gather as Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie arrive to inspect the Imperial troops. Their motorcade glides through streets and is watched by disaffected young men with a cause, nothing to lose and concealed weapons. These conspirators wait for their moment, the perfect chance to strike a blow right at the heart of Imperial power. In the end, all it took was a wrong turn, a moment's hesitation and two single shots from a pistol. And before we know it, history teeters on the edge. Welcome to After Dark. This is the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
- [03:27]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Hello and welcome to After Dark. I am not Anthony Delaney and I'm definitely not Maddie Pelling. Maddie is off this week after discovering the lost treasure of El Dorado, she is completing a trans Antarctic expedition with a crew of sled dogs. And we wish her well.
- [03:43]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Well, I don't. That's very specific and I hope she achieves her aims.
- [03:49]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Ma a gold medalist she is. And I don't see her abandoning this expedition until she crosses the Antarctic.
- [03:55]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
No. There's a good few weeks left in advance for her. And Maddie, we wish you the best out the snow is not too snowy.
- [04:01]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
We do. And whilst Antarctic lasts, we wish you well. And until she has returned. I am filling in this month.
- [04:09]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
This is Gareth's last episode. We've done Henry viii. What else have we done?
- [04:13]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Titanic.
- [04:14]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Oh yeah.
- [04:15]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
And d'. Alrizio.
- [04:16]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
God. But again we said this at the outset. You're span of expertise goes so wide, which I love. I think that's a really. I think it's a really good mark of a historian.
- [04:26]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Well, that's very kind. And this today we are talking about one of the later periods I've written about, but one of the earlier books I wrote, which was one called the Emperors and one of the main events in it was the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who of everyone I've ever written about is one of the people that I change my mind about the most while writing it. Yeah, he's. Franz Ferdinand was close to a 180, I think for me.
- [04:53]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
So before we get into the details of the assassination, then let's delve into that a little bit more because I love that. I think that's really fascinating and I also think it says something about the way in which one approaches their research because let's be honest, you do go in with ideas sometimes and you know, you'll hear so many academic historians going, no, you, you rid yourself, you become a vessel for the research. It's impossible. Right. Like you, you can't do that. It's like, well, I'm not AI so therefore I am bringing. Yeah. Opinions and life experience and whatever. What was your thoughts on him before you went in?
- [05:27]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
My thoughts on him were that what the fairly standard impression of him is, which is that the death was tragic but the loss of him was not. And that he was this sort of stuffy, blotchy cheeked, reactionary, a bit of a warmongerer, you know, charisma of a lettuce, really sort of just a kind of quite miserable, stolid figure. That was the idea that I had of him. Prickly, which is the one bit that was true. He was quite. He took offense easily and it lasted for a long time. But the impression that I had was completely incorrect. And as I read his letters and particularly his love story with Sophie, that did change a lot. And it's, I think, one of the great love stories against the odds, really, that I've ever written about. And he was far more politically liberal in some ways than I thought. I hadn't realized just how wide reaching the reforms were that he planned to enact when he became Emperor after his uncle's death. And so he was someone with much more nuance in his politics. There were some conservative things he believed he was someone who observed a lot around him. His visit to America in 1893 really did change how he saw the world and the future. He had some surprising hobbies. He was a really keen horticulturalist, loved a rose garden, even came to Brit in order to see the Chelsea Flower Show. So someone who was, you know, as we always do when we research anyone in more depth, they're more nuanced than you think. But I find him. Heroic is probably a strong word, but certainly I find him more sympathetic than I had gone into the book.
- [07:09]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
I'd be interested to get your take on this, then, having heard you say that, about there being a slight change, and then we'll get into the day of the assassination in more particular detail. But I have heard historians say that the great irony of the Archduke's assassination is that he was possibly one of the only people that could have prevented the war that was potentially going to come. Do you think that's fair?
- [07:32]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
One of the great ironies is that the war that he said must not happen was justified by his assassination. And he would have been absolutely horrified had his murder been used as an excuse for Austria Hungary to declare war in Serbia, which he believed it must not do. So to give sort of a context of what the world of Franz Ferdinand is like. Franz Ferdinand is the nephew of the octogenarian Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, and he was 25 when he became heir to the throne. And it was in particularly tragic circumstances. His cousin, the Emperor's son, Crown Prince Rudolf, took his own life. And as a result, Franz Ferdinand eventually moved forward in the line of succession. And he and his uncle, Emperor Franz Joseph, never enjoyed a particularly warm relationship. And it was not through lack of effort on Franz Ferdinand's part or emotional cruelty on Franz Josef's. It was simply that Franz Joseph could never really bring himself to warm to the nephew who had, through necessity's sake, replaced his dead son. And interestingly and revealingly, he did not give Franz Ferdinand the title of Crown Prince that he should have received. He was kept as an Archduke, which were male members of the Austrian Imperial family at the time. And it was that Rudolf's position was Rudolf's, and Franz Joseph couldn't let that come. And Franz Ferdinand did try and was always very respectful of His Majesty, my uncle, the Emperor, he was very, very keen to show the proper respect to the Imperial hierarchy. But the real differences between them are how they saw the future of the House of Habsburg and also how they saw the future of the Austro Hungarian Empire. So this is to try to boil down quite a tricky constitutional question, but when Franz Josef became emperor in 1848, he was very young, he was a teenager. But he is facing an empire called the Austrian Empire. And in the 1860s there is a huge groundswell of Hungarian nationalism that results in something called the Osglite. And it is the compromised solution whereby the Austrian Empire becomes the Austro Hungarian Empire or Austria Hungary, and it is a bilocated monarchy. So Vienna is the capital for most of the empire, but Budapest is the capital for the Kingdom of Hungary. Within the empire, there will be separate chief ministers, there will be separate ministries, separate parliaments in Vienna and Budapest. And Franz Josef has a natural conservative instinct, which is that you seek to fix problems one by one. You don't seek massive reform and you only embark upon change when it's necessary. Stability is something that should be valued. And by 1900, the osglait has arguably caused many problems as it has solved, because it is not just an empire of Austrians and Hungarians. It is consisting of broadly about 11 different national groups, some of whom are happy to be part of the empire, many of whom are not. And in particular, there is deep resentment in and around Prague from Czechs, also from Slovaks, about why did the Hungarians get this and we didn't? Why do we still send delegates to the Parliament in Vienna? Serbians are particularly hostile to it as well. Croats are pushing against it to some degree. And Franz Ferdinand goes to America in 1893 and he comes away with a warning and an inspiration. One of them is that he famously says that freedom in America for workers means freedom to starve. And he comes back convinced that actually the American dream is a chimera. But he is deeply inspired by the federal structure of the United States, and he thinks the states of the USA are a brilliant idea. And he sees how deep American patriotism runs and he wants to bring that back. And his plan when he becomes Emperor is to create a completely federal empire. There will be parliaments for Austria in Vienna, one in Budapest for Hungary. There'll be ones for Croatia, there'll be ones for Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bohemia, Slovakia. He plans to take it to its logical conclusion. And the Hungarians in particular are strongly opposed to this. And they do not want what they want for themselves to be applied to the rest of the empire. So Franz Ferdinand is very unpopular in the Hungary, Hungarian part of the empire. And Franz Ferdinand is regarded by his uncle, the Emperor, as a radical because of this, because of the strength of Serbian nationalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, part of the empire that borders an independent Serbia. Franz Ferdinand believes that nothing should be done to exacerbate that and to fuel a desire for a united Serbia. So his policy is to create a federal empire when he becomes Emperor and not to embark upon war unless it is absolutely necessary. And this leads to him falling out with his close friend Count Conrad von Holtzendorf, who is the Austrian chief of staff, head honcho in the military. And von Holtzendorf is a huge supporter of Austria declaring war in Serbia and dealing with the threat on the southern borders. And they fall out over this. They never repair their friendship. So those are the great political and military differences with Franz Ferdinand. The other thing is his private life, which is that he leads a sort of a permanent tension with the Emperor because he refuses to marry a royal, because he hasn't fallen in love with any of them. He ends up marrying a Czech aristocrat called Sophie Chotek, who by aristocratic standards is as blue blooded as they come. She's what they call one with the 16 quarterings, which means that she can boast on her coat of arms for unbroken aristocratic ancestors on all four sides of her ancestry. So that's the pinnacle. But she's not a Habsburg. And so they will allow him to marry her only when he threatens to kill himself, as his cousin Rudolf did. And at that point they say, fine, but there will be conditions. She will not be an archduchess, she will not be an Imperial Highness. She will not attend any official or state functions. She will not even enter on your arm at the opera or at any ball or at any dinner. She'll sit at the bottom. Your children will not be in line for succession. That will go to your nephew Carl. And so Franz Ferdinand says, fine, that's the price. Okay, he marries Sophie. They are madly in love with each other. He writes to his stepmother, I cannot believe how happy I have been. I thank God every day for her. They have three children, Sophie, Maximilian and Ernst. But in Vienna, she is Ritually humiliated. They will close one door to a ballroom and she walks in, they'll give her the worst seat. They stop bands playing the national anthem if she's there. Sophie is just constantly mortified by the etiquette. And so he starts spending less time in Vienna. Yeah, he starts traveling. And they have a home in Bohemia. They have a home near the Danube in Austria, but they spend a lot of time traveling. And the British, Belgian and Romanian royal families are very welcoming to them. But it means that Franz Ferdinand doesn't spend a lot of time at the Imperial court because he doesn't want his wife to be insulted or embarrassed. He is on every level. By 1914, he is a political and social outsider to the Austrian establishment.
- [15:32]
Don Wildman
What started the Civil War? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was the Paul Revere and did the Vikings ever reach America? I'm Don Wildman and on American History Hit. My expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years to uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors where the nation was formed, meet the characters who have altered it with their touch, and count the votes that have changed the direction of our law and leadership. Find American History Hit twice a week, every week, wherever you get your podcasts. American History Hit. A podcast from History Hit.
- [16:29]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
I have an image of them here in Great After Dark Tradition where we're looking at this photo and we'll put it on socials for you as well, where I have a young couple or a youngish couple at least. Anyway, Sophie is on the left as you look at it, and she has her hair is beautifully coiffed, she has her pearls on, she's wearing a lovely light colored dress. She looks quite young. She looks, you know, like this is somebody who's definitely, I think if you'd spoken to me about these people in my secondary school education or something, I would have imagined older people than they actually are. And then Franz Ferdinand himself has a very kind of squared haircut going on a very elaborate mustache. He really has those, the close together eyes that you come to associate with some of the European and Russia European royal families and dynasties that are very dark back set almost. He is military attired and he's wearing all of his badges and his buttons and all the rest of it. Obviously we're looking at nobility here, we're looking at status here, but we're also looking at, as you've just described, Gareth, a youngish couple who are, as you've said, very much in love and who are navigating their own way throughout Europe, in America, wherever it might be, in order to have their place, that he needs to be visible, he needs to be seen to be doing things, but at the same time not spend that time in those circles where he doesn't want to be. So that is why on 28 June 1914, he finds himself where he finds himself.
- [18:10]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Yeah, in Sarajevo.
- [18:11]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Let's talk about Sarajevo. Let's talk about this particular day. Why is he there? It's their wedding anniversary, as it so happens. But why has he come there?
- [18:21]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
So he has come there because there are some large scale Austrian maneuvers for the army happening in and around Sarajevo, which is the capital of the Bosnian section of the Austrian Empire. And it has a sort of split population. They have Serbians who are mostly Orthodox and want to unite with Serbia. And then you have Croats, some of whom are Catholic, some of whom are Muslim, and Catholics and Muslims in the area tend to be much more pro staying within the Austrian Empire, the Austro Hungarian Empire, because of the big military maneuvers. The fairly beleaguered governor of this district, a man called Oskar Potioric, wants the sparkle of a royal visit. And he had initially invited the Emperor. The emperor, as we've said, is in his 80s and he has bronchitis. So he says, well, I won't go, but we'll send the heir to the throne. And nobody tells the Archduke or his wife Sophie that it's an incendiary anniversary for this to be happening. It's the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. It is a really major day in Serbian patriotism. They had pushed out Ottoman invaders in the past. So the idea that it's a symbolic day for expelling a foreign power from Sarajevo is that even when it's pointed out to Potioric, he deliberately suppresses passing that news on to Vienna because he doesn't want the Imperial household to cancel the visit. Franz Ferdinand goes on a hunting weekend. Just beforehand, he tells his host, Princess von Pless, that he has an uneasy feeling about this, that he knows how intense the feelings about Serbian nationhood can be. He just doesn't feel comfortable going. He doesn't want Sophie to go. One of his reforming initiatives is that he's the first Habsburg to send his sons to school rather than be privately tutored. They're going to a boarding school in Vienna and it's one of the boys exams. And he tries to use that to. So he said, well, stay at home in case he's nervous or he needs you. But she Insists on accompanying him because she feels nervous about him going. So they go down to Sarajevo. They actually stay slightly outside the town. They stay at a health spa as sort of one of those take the waters places because they can be safer there. And Sophie goes in, and she visits various local mosques, Islamic charities, Catholic churches as well. She, like Franz Ferdinand, is deeply devout as a Catholic. They meet a lot of local dignitaries. Certain phases of it go quite well with the initial part of the visit before the anniversary, and they get a lovely telegram from their son saying that the exams have gone okay. They drink a toast to him. It's only that night, the night before that someone says, do you know what tomorrow's anniversary is? And there is a discussion around the table. Maybe. Maybe we call it off and send them back to Vienna. But Governor Pochiork is so distressed by this. The idea of canceling a royal visit last minute is so huge that they decide, look, we don't want to look. It's rude. It looks cowardly. It puts the administration in a bad position. Let's go. And so they go into Sarajevo on the 28th, and unbeknownst to them, there are several young men in the crowd.
- [21:30]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Now, this. This is interesting, because what we have is this doubt that other people are aware of, but maybe the Archduke and Sophie are not. But this route has been publicized.
- [21:43]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Yeah.
- [21:44]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
So by the 27th, everyone knows where we can expect them. On the 28th, we're gonna go down this path. So if you are somebody who's disaffected, if you are somebody who politically opposes this, who feels they've been disenfranchised, you know where they're going to be at this particular time. And if there's something you wanted to do about it, literally, here's a roadmap of how you might do it.
- [22:06]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
And certain people use that, a literal roadmap. And so in Serbia itself, the Serbian press, there had been certain sections of it that had encouraged a version of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie that was designed to make people hate them. So they presented him, wholly untruthfully as the leader of the pro war lobby. And, in fact, even certain members of the Serbian royal family believe this. And one of them refers to Sophie as a filthy Bohemian whore. They really dig into kind of character assassination with them. And within Serbia, there is a paramilitary group called the Black Hand that is committed to creating a united Serbian nation under the control of the Serbian royal family. And they have people in the highest echelons of the Serbian administration and government who are giving them under the table funding. And some of the young men are. Who. Who cross the border into Austria and Bosnia and Herzegovina, are helped by. Are told to be helped by Serbian border officials. That's how high it reaches. And two of the young men are of particular relevance to us. One, a guy called Natalyzko Kubernovich, who is lining the route. And as the motorcade is passing, he tosses bombs that bounce off the car.
- [23:26]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
This image is always so striking to me.
- [23:28]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Yeah, it's odd, right? Yeah. Well, there are different. Some people think that Leopold Loike, who's Franz Ferdinand's chauffeur, sees it and slams forward.
- [23:38]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Yes, I've heard that too.
- [23:39]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
So it hits the bonnet and bounces up and it goes into the crowd and it kills people there. It injures people, it damages a building. And Loyka goes as fast as he can to the city hall. And Franz Ferdinand, the dark legend of him, that is Trey, as I say, is prickly and quite an explosive temper. And he leaps out and is saying, this is the reception that we thought you would have this outrageous. But he's taken in to this, one of these civic buildings, and there's a reception on the ground floor where people try to calm him down. And Sophie goes upstairs and it's a gender segregated reception because they want some of the wives of the leaders of the local Muslim population to feel comfortable unveiling themselves for some of the teas and the receptions upstairs. So Sophie goes upstairs and there is a. A ladies reception, predominantly of Catholic and Muslim guests. And then afterwards they go back. They just. They'll go back to where they're staying as guests of the governor. And a decision is taken because of the near miss of the bomb to change the route. And ironically, it's the change in the publicized route that helps seal their fate. So Gavrilo Princip, one of Cabrinovic's.
- [24:55]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
There's a name we've all come to know over the years.
- [24:57]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Do you know, funny, I have a really good friend at home and he. I think he took history up to gcse and he was like, we don't know why, but, like, Gavrilo Princip is the only name that he's really had. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always write if there's a pub quiz and he knows and that he assassinated Franz Ferdinand, you just hand the pen to him. It's the fact to go to. But Gavrilo Princip is. He's a young man, he is a very, very committed Serbian nationalist. He is a member of The Black Hand. And he has almost been in despair at the thought that Franz Ferdinand has escaped.
- [25:29]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Because it's worth saying at this point that that journey down towards that civic hole where the Archduke is going to give a speech, which he ends up still giving despite all of this, they were supposed to kill him on that route. So the bombs or the grenades or whatever way you want to describe it, that was part one, didn't quite work out. But Gavrilo is also there. He is potentially next in line to shoot as they're making their way down, but he thinks he succeeded because he hears the bomb. Hears the bomb. So he's like, oh, well, there's nothing for me to do, so I'm just gonna stand down. Meanwhile, the Archduke gets to where he's going. So now there's this kind of despondency going, oh, well, we didn't kill him. Like, we kind of failed. And that, yes, we've injured some of his people and there's been people in the crowd.
- [26:12]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
The next Emperor's alive.
- [26:13]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Yeah, the next Emperor's alive. Now we're coming back, and as you say, we're taking a different, slightly different turn. And it just so happens that Gravillo hasn't really gone anywhere from the point
- [26:25]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
that he's gone to a cafe, he's
- [26:27]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
gone to get refreshment.
- [26:28]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Absolutely. It sounds sometimes faintly hipsterish. He was like, nursing his despair in a cafe, but he is sort of head in his hands, despairing. So they have been given several weapons through the Black Hand, some of which are to kill Franz Ferdinand and the rest are to kill themselves. So they have been given either grenades and. Or pistols in some cases, and they've been given cyanide capsules. If they're captured, they are to crunch down on those. And we know that Cabrinovic was trying to get to his when they pulled him off for questioning. So from every angle, as far as Gavrila was concerned, this has been a disaster for his organization and his cause. Meanwhile, back with the Royals, they get into the car, the Archduke, the Duchess and Governor Potioric. And as they're driving, Potiorique realizes that no one has told the chauffeur, Leopold Loike, that they've changed the room. So he leans forward, grabs him and says, by the way, you're going the wrong way. So it's trying to get him onto the diverted route. That causes Loyka to stop the car, put it in reverse and come into view of Gavrilo at the coffee shop, and he leaps up and fires at the crowd. And we know that one of the courtiers, sort of Franz Ferdinand's aide, a guy called Franz von Harrack, who was the other man in the car, had thought about switching positions with Franz Ferdinand along the way and hadn't. And he would remain sort of haunted for the rest of his life about how different world history could have been if he'd been the one to take the bullet. But Gevilo fires. Sophie doubles forward in the car, and Franz Ferdinand is throwing himself in front of his wife, sort of shouting at her, please stay. Stay. Stay with me. Think of our children. They barrel through the crowds to get them back to the house. The crowd, meanwhile, have fallen on Gavrilo and are trying to. To pulverize him, really, they're so enraged by this. But the police want him for questioning and they do manage to extricate him in time before he's lynched, essentially. They get back to the gubernatorial residence where they've been staying, and they rush the imperial couple inside. Sophie is taken upstairs. They telephone the garrison, one of the loyal garrisons, to send over a physician. And they come back. They're waiting. Sophie's with her, lady's in waiting. Franz Ferdinand is with his aides. And they unbutton, as she says, military jacket. And that's when they see he has been hit and he's starting to choke. The blood's coming up. And the doctor arrives. It turns out that Sophie hadn't fainted. She had died in the car. It was almost a direct hit. It had been very quick. She had been dead long before they got back to the house. Franz Ferdinand dies in the mansion. And quite quickly. Nothing, in fairness, that the doctor could have done would have saved him. The wound was not as clean cut as Sophie's, but nonetheless as fatal. And he turns to the staff and he says, his Imperial Highness's sufferings are over. So the question then becomes, what do you do? How do you tell people? So an extraordinary decision is taken to make sure that the children, their three children, don't find out through hearsay or anything like that. So every telegraph system in the entire Austro Hungarian Empire shut down. The news is brought as quickly as they can to Vietnam. It is sent to, and then it's taken. The Imperial family have gone on holiday, so the emperor's at one of his summer villas, recovering with the bronchitis. The new heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand's nephew Carl, is on holiday with his wife, and she is one of the best eyewitness sources. Archduchess Zita that we have for how they find out. And she says that she remembers being out in the garden and someone came over with a telegram and said, these were all the three that had been allowed through from a baron who worked for Franz Ferg. And Carl says, I wonder why he is messaging looks at it and it's that I regret to inform me His Imperial Highness was shot today in Sarajevo. And they're all told to get back to Vienna as quickly as possible. The telegraphs are still kept shut until Sophie's sister Henrietta can tell the children that their parents are dead. And she talks about the screaming of the youngest one and just the absolute heartbreak. And in many ways I would agree with they're the first orphans the first World War. And they will have a remarkable, remarkable life that I think their parents would have been very proud of in the future, those three children. But Franz Josef has to decide what to do and how to respond to this. And so once the telegraph system is turned back on, the moment at which this was a private, personal tragedy ends. And the question is, is where did they get the weapons? How far did this go in Serbia and how are we going to respond? And that to your earlier point, Anthony is the one person who could have been in that room to say we're not going to war is the man who's been killed.
- [31:45]
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- [32:41]
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- [33:06]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
I love this idea, Gareth. Of two things. Existing side by side, we have this incredibly personal history that you're talking about. The. The Imperial family closing ranks essentially, in order to protect the children so that they don't hear this through media sources or whatever. And their devastation when they hear that their parents have been murdered. And then on the flip side, we have what turns out to be within a month of this event, one of the most universally cataclysmic events that will occur in history. Because, you know, by four years later, we have well over 10 million people have died due to what we now understand as the First World War. And so through these two shots that Gavrilo shoots that day, we have these orphans that are created and a world turned on its head. And those two things sit side by side between. But what has always fascinated me about the way in which this starts to stack up, because on the surface of it, you go, well, okay, this is devastating. This is, you know, personally, this is terrible. And it's an heir to a crown, and so I can see the importance. But how on earth does this then spiral into the First World War? And it starts very slowly in that the Austro Hungarian Empire declares war or issues an ultimatum to Serbia. And then suddenly this ensemble of allies starts to bleed in. Give us a bit of a roadmap of how these things click into place. And then. Gareth, I'd love to know, actually, when you think that it was obvious to the world that they were in a huge war, that it wasn't this just principalities struggling together, it was a much, much bigger thing. Because one of the things that's intriguing me at the moment is you hear a lot of contemporary news reports saying that when international wars, you know, world changing wars begin, it's only in hindsight that you know what the kind of first step is, that actually you're way down the path by the time you've realized, oh, this is happening. So give us an outline of how these allies start to stack up. And then let me know in your opinion, when you think they knew.
- [35:29]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Right.
- [35:29]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
The world will change from here on in.
- [35:32]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
So the two. Two countries, or factors that really push Austria further down the path than they thought they would go are Germany and Russia. In the latter case, Franz Josef is collecting the world's worst yield on a very bad investment he had made decades earlier. So when he first became emperor in 1848, Austria had a very friendly relationship with Imperial Russia. And in part, that was because the then czar, Nicholas I really believed in the trade unionism of monarchy. After the chaos of the French Revolution, Nicholas believed they should all be sticking together. So when the Austrian monarchy was under threat in 1848, he sent help, and he really expected them to do the same. And then the Crimean War happened and Austria declined to send help. And Nicholas I never really recovered from what he felt was the betrayal of that. And his son Alexander II and his grandson, Alexander iii, felt the same way. And in that time, very bad relations developed between Austria and Russia that I would say probably wouldn't have happened had Franz Joseph sent the help Nicholas I had sent him. And part of what happens in Russia is it allows the czars to become much more tolerant of and even sympathetic to a kind of Pan Slavic nationalism, which sees little Serbia as the country that Imperial Russia must protect as its fellow Orthodox nation. And Austria becomes the villain in many Russian stories. And the Tsar had not gone to bat for Serbia and Serbian nationalism in 1908, when Austria increased its control in Bosnia and Herzegovina and there was immense Russian nationalist pressure on the Tsar by this point, Nicholas ii, not to let that happen again. So when Austria, Hungary issues the ultimatum to Serbia in 1914, Nicholas will not back down in the way that he did over Bosnia Herzegovina in 1908. So Russia comes in and says, we will be protecting Serbia this time. This ultimatum will not fly. Franz Josef is taken aback by this because it seems to him very clear that the murder of the heir to the Austrian throne should be punished. Why is Russia defending this? And again, that goes back to what Nicholas I had hoped would be the relations between them. Germany then comes in and essentially hands Austria a blank cheque and says, whatever you decide to do, we will militarily or diplomatically support you. And that sounds like the action of a good ally. But in many ways, it puts Austria in an impossible position because they now cannot, cannot back down from this quarrel unless they want to look cowardly. And so you have people like von Hotzendorf saying, if we do not go to war over this, we sacrifice forever our honor as a nation. And really, really pushing. I mean, he's nicknamed by one of his biographers, the Architect of the Apocalypse. Worryingly and fascinatingly, one of the chief voices in Germany who's saying, I don't know about this, is the Kaiser. And he has gone, like many royals in their summer holiday, he's cruising around the furniture and there's a quote that's overheard by a brilliant German industrialist called Andrew Ballon, who wants the Kaiser brought back. And then one of the German ministers says, don't bring him back, he'll stop the war. And there's a militarist clique within the Second Reich as well as there is within Imperial Austria that wants this war. Some of them want a war with Russia to try and stop the Russian economic progression before it becomes too strong on their, on their eastern borders. So you have have Germany and Russia getting involved and making it impossible for Serbia to surrender or Austria to back down without looking like they surrendered through fear. They have the heft to back them. And all of these complex alliances then start kicking in. Germany has a plan to knock out France, which is allied with Russia, but it involves going through Belgium, the territorial independence of which is guaranteed by Britain, who also has an alliance with France and Russia. And all of these long term festering problems are kicked into play at the same time, which they've never been before because of the assassination. And so you have this bizarre situation in which what Franz Ferdinand thought was the nightmare scenario was being conjured by his death. And the complexities of European diplomacy and economic resentments all playing out in real time. To your question of when do they realize we're up the proverbial creek without a path? I think they're all in a slight bit of denial. There's a wonderful story that kind of gives you an idea of just how last minute some of these decisions were told by one of the Tsarina's ladies in waiting. And she walked out of her apartment in St. Petersburg to catch the train to Tsarsky Sola, where the Imperial family lived. And she saw all these posters saying mobilization. She turns up and says to the Empress, why? Didn't know mobilization had been authorized. And she says it hasn't. Hasn't been. And she says, no, it's on every street corner in St. Petersburg. And the Tsar came in and said, yes, we have, we ordered it. And she said that Nicholas did not look thrilled about it. The Kaiser thinks it's a terrible idea. George V obviously has less power, but I think strangely, a lot of the monarchs realized first this could be catastrophic. So it's a fascinating moment in European history when monarchism and nationalism are slamming against each other and nationalism is proving them much stronger, stronger force, I would say. Nicholas II realizes that the train has left the station pretty early. Like sort of late July, I think. But in the first week of July, he turns to the French ambassador at dinner and says, do not worry about the Kaiser. His bark is worse than his bite. It's just blustering nonsense. And you replicate that across European high politics. I think a lot of them thought that, oh, we've been here before, we've Been to the edge, it'll not actually tip over. And then they're all over the cliff edge and whoever pulls back sort of has to admit being the weakest in the club. And that's what I think makes it impossible to do this nationalist fervor, long term economic and diplomatic pacts and tensions, and then finally this short term explosion where none of them really feel comfortable or strong enough to be the weak one. It takes strength to be the one to conciliate, and none of them do it. And it's writing the emperors and looking at those two weeks, really, I mean, two months, but two weeks are the ones where I think it tips over the edge. And that is one lesson of anything I study that has never left me, which is nearly everyone can think it's a bloody terrible idea, but there isn't any one person strong enough to stop it. Like, there were very, very few people in the highest positions who thought, yeah, let's. Yeah, yeah, Gavrilo. And anyone who's pledging to the Black Hand, it is something that requires, you know, not just gifts of time and energy, it requires a gift of the spirit and the heart. So they encourage their members to understand that they might be laying down their life for Serbia. So there are initiation rituals in which they keep vigil in front of skulls. And even when they get to Sarajevo, some of them may have pilgrimage to the tomb of fallen members of the Black Hand who had attempted to assassinate the governor in 1908. So it's really, it is a cause that requires your all. And Gavrilo certainly is a full, deeply committed member of it.
- [43:01]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Gareth, it's been really interesting to talk about these chess pieces, I suppose, moving into Place in 1914, and how suddenly they find themselves down this path that they didn't even necessarily fully understand that they were on. And there's this Lockean idea that every generation or so, the world will just almost automatically reassess its governmental platforms and leadership platforms, specifically by going, is this working for us now? Does this meet the needs of the day? And it would be, I suppose, a little naive to suggest that as we record this in March 2026, that there aren't similar maneuverings happening across the globe right now. And we're historians, and we don't want to draw too many parallels between what's happening then and what's happening now. History is not a cyclical event. But are there elements that you have seen in your study of this particular time period that you're starting to see now, or do you think it's totally unrelated. Do you think we're not in a moment of reckoning?
- [44:02]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
The historian's annoying answer of yes and no. So I think I'm usually fairly dubious of the idea that the past exists only to serve the present. And sometimes I think people usually extrapolate lessons to support their own conclusions rather than challenge them. But I also am interested in the long view and how often we make the same mistakes over and over again. I think what similarities I can perceive is that if you're coming from a slightly more old school, like Western European. Metternich. Metternich, sorry, Metternichian conservative position, what essentially was happening is that a society is bored by its own prosperity and without external enemies, creates internal and tears apart the fabric of leadership in others. In more strident critics, they would say that what happens is that leadership becomes complacent and systems need to be challenged in order to be kept fresh. And two things can be true at once. With the First World War and with today. I suppose part of what we're seeing is a real rise in what people might say are identity politics. And. And it's a time when religion is being challenged. So religious identity is slightly less important in 1914 than it was in 1814. People tend to be much more invested in their nation and what that means. And I don't know if you ever touched on the First World War in school, but I remember how we were taught about the Austro Hungarian Empire, which is that we were told there were 11 different national groups in it. And the implication was that therefore meant it was bound to feel what a nation is, was very much defined by the nationalism of the 19th and early 20th century. And we still believe in it. And so the Austrian Empire is really fighting an uphill battle because the version that it has of itself is so out of step with what's happening around the world. Franz Joseph is loathed by nationalists within his own empire because he introduces kosher meals in the Austrian army for the first time and diplomatic service, he will not meet a rabidly anti Semitic mayor of Vienna. So he's seen as a traitor within the cause. Monarchy becomes to a lot of nationalists, the soft touch, the traitor within, whereas a lot of radicals see it as depraved, vicious, elitist. So the old system is being slammed by skeptics on the right and left. And there is an element to which you can see that happening today, that actually a lot of the most successful critics of the status quo can be either left wing or right wing, where I would say it is. Is different is that nearly every nation that you are looking at in the First World War has an unassailable sense of its own identity, like really vigorous self confidence, and that they are in the right and that anyone against them is wrong. There are certainly still many people who believe that, but it's not as universal as it would have been in 1914. So I do think the suspicion of leadership, there are certain similarities. The concept of nation, there is certain similarities as well. In terms of complete trust in your state, in your national identity, I think that's very, very different. So there's enough to be concerned about, but not so much similarities that we need to feel fatalistic about the future. I like to hope, if we see in the past lessons we can take, hope for avoiding them in the future. I like to look at those first orphans sometimes and the life that they led afterwards. And in fact, like many of the other Habsburgs, they were vigorously opposed to Nazism and to the Anschluss. And in fact, the boys spent time in concentration camps under the Third Reich. And I see them as, in some ways, so emblematic of the 20th century that was, and that they all live in the shadow of Franz Ferdinand's assassination. But think of how many millions of children lived in the shadow of that event. And the irony is it's a future that their father would have saved them from. So I think the lesson that I take from this is that there can be events that are infuriating or divisive or from the Serbian perspective or the Serbian nationalist perspective, justified. There can be these incendiary events. The difficulty is that when we're all demanding that our governments react and react quickly and strongly, and in the age of social media, that is something that has grown so much stronger, sometimes it is better not to know everything at the minute and to stand back and not demand the quickest, strongest response. There will be occasions where that's needed, but in many instances, and I think Franz Ferdinand's is the great example, had the governments not had their own pressure internally and yielded to external pressure from nationalists forever, had they given themselves time to react and given themselves a way out, the future of not just those three orphans, but of millions of families across the world would have been a lot happier. So maybe the lesson from Franz Ferdinand's death is that reacting quickly is seldom reacting wisely.
- [49:18]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Mm. And on that cheery note. No, that is a cheery note because, as you say, there's sometimes the lesson is not, oh, this is bound to happen again. Sometimes it's how can we step back from it a little bit and observe a little bit more level headed?
- [49:33]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Yeah. History is a lesson, not an oracle. That's what I think you have to hold to. Yeah.
- [49:38]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Yeah. Gareth, this marks the end of our co hostery shippiness.
- [49:43]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Devastating.
- [49:44]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Devastating for everybody involved. Thank you for taking me on so many different historical routes. I mean, that's one of the real blessings of this podcast is that I get to speak to so many of myself, Maddie get to speak to so many experts on different things. But when you've come in now and when Elnor came in last month to talk about the areas of interest that you guys have, it is such a gift because, because it's being able to sit with somebody. It is that kind of pub chat thing, right, where you're like, I could talk to these people about these specific things forever. And it just really is so lucky for me and I hope for the listeners and the viewers on YouTube, if you're watching on YouTube, to be able to sit down with you and listen to this over the last four episodes. If this is the first episode of Gareth's that you're coming across, we've spoken to him before about Henry VIII, about Catherine Howard, Catherine Howard, about Henry VIII's descent into madness. There are other Gareth episodes.
- [50:35]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
There's Titanic and Titan and David Rizzio. Why is it always David Rizzio that we do?
- [50:39]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Poor David, Poor David, Poor David. And so you can go back and listen to all of those. We have had a lot of fun this month and learned an awful lot. Well, I have. Gareth came armed with all of that information already. So if you've enjoyed this last month, please do leave us a five star review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it will help other people to discover Gareth's episodes and the back catalog of episodes. I think we're heading for 250 episodes now. Yeah, it's a long, long. No wonder I'm so tired this afternoon. I've been here constantly recording 250 episodes. I haven't slept in two years.
- [51:09]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Actually hasn't been outside in three weeks.
- [51:12]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Thank you so much for joining myself and Gareth. Gareth, I'm gonna leave you with the last goodbye to everybody. What would you like everybody to remember about your time as co host on After Dark?
- [51:22]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
That is a deeply unfair and improvised volley in my direction. I have had a brilliant time doing it. Obviously, we're, we have been delighted to fill in for Maddie while she performs the first silhouette show.
- [51:35]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Did you just refer to yourself in the third Movie.
- [51:37]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
I was gonna say, then I pivoted. But no, actually, I don't regret it.
- [51:40]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
No, I think you should stick to it. I embrace it. Yeah. What did we do?
- [51:43]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
We have been delighted to fill in for Maddie while she leads the first manned expedition to Mars.
- [51:51]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Yes.
- [51:52]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
And I think that's thrilling for her, but not as thrilling as the four episodes we've recorded.
- [51:56]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
And we can all agree on that.
- [51:57]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
Yeah, absolutely. It's small potatoes, to be honest. So I. After Dark's brilliant and the audience and the team and everything have had a great, great time, so. And yes, we've been talking about descents into madness. Descents into the ocean, Descent down a staircase. Yeah. And descent into war. Descent. Thank you. Descent into war. I was like, garth, you've got nowhere to go for the force.
- [52:18]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
There must be another one.
- [52:19]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
There must be. Then descent into war. One of the most famous phrases anyway. But it has been an uplifting experience nonetheless. Despite all the dissenting, we have had a marvelous time.
- [52:28]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
See what you don't compare with all the dissents. And then we're off to. It's like, he's done this before. Listen, go on and do your day's work or do your. Your gym or whatever and good luck to you if you are doing the gym. Fair play. A lot of people go to sleep listening to us. How do you feel about that?
- [52:42]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
That's okay. Actually, I.
- [52:44]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
People say like, oh, God, I hope you don't mind me saying. I'm like, no, no.
- [52:46]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
How soothing.
- [52:47]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Yeah, yeah.
- [52:48]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
If you are someone who is soothed to sleep by talk of a global conflict, then good for you.
- [52:53]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Listen, you must be very snoozy at the moment. If that's the case. Thank you.
- [52:58]
Gareth (Guest Historian)
We'll stop.
- [52:58]
Co-host (likely Maddie Pelling or a guest)
Well, we won't stop yammering. We're going to continue yammering off camera, off mic. But we'll see you next time on After Dark.
- [53:12]
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- [53:42]
Livy Dunn
So good, so good, so good.
- [53:45]
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