When Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife the Duchess Sophie came to Sarajevo on 25 June 1914, they were ushered into a suite at a spa resort in the nearby municipality of Ilidža. The room, decorated in a Turkish style in vogue at the time, was provided by a local Jewish merchant from the …
To realize the national ideal, the unification of all Serbs. This organization prefers terrorist action to cultural activities; it will therefore remain secret. — stated purpose of Ujedinjenje Ili Smrt When Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife the Duchess Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo, the news abounded with references to a secret organization with far-reaching …
Historical fiction can be the a fantastic way to ingrain history events as long as it doesn’t deviate too far from the dry and dusty demands of factual “truthiness”, and in the vein The Second Seal by Dennis Wheatley is an excellent primer for the dabbler who wants to get started in the area World …
Passion and levity have destroyed me. I pay with my life for my sins. Pray for me.–Alfred Redl Colonel Redl had good reason to kill himself in spring of 1913; as the head of the Evidenzbureau (counterintelligence) of Austria-Hungary, he had been selling Austria’s secrets and war plans to Russia for over ten years. …
World War I nearly started in 1909 over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Worried about a changing circumstance in Europe after the Young Turk Revolution and increasingly bothered by the rhetoric from Serbia, Austria-Hungary felt it had to act in order to preserve the integrity of its borders and its empire. On 6 October 1908, they announced …
Bulgaria was not happy with the status quo at the end of the Second Balkan War. Nearly all the land she had gained in the First Balkan War had been shifted away, and Tsar Ferdinand had felt forced to sign the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest agreeing to those terms. So it was no real surprise …
“One day the great European war will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.” –attributed to Otto von Bismarck The thing is, it was Bismarck’s series of alliances that led to the world war from the damned foolish thing in the Balkans, because it was the Dual Alliance he facilitated with Austria-Hungary …
On 30 September 1915, Serbian gunner Radoje Ljutovac became the first man to shoot an aircraft from the sky. He was given an award and promoted to Corporal. The Balkans were a hotbed of firsts during WWI. In addition to the first plane that was shot down, the first real dogfight also occurred over Serbia. …
In a small church that has been remodeled into an overnight accommodation just outside Mooi River in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa is a cemetery. In this cemetery is a bench with a dedication to a young man killed on 23 September 1918 and buried in Windmill Cemetery, Monchy-Le-Preux, France. Killed-in-action just six weeks before the …
During World War I (WWI) the Balkans was a far flung front, bloody and violent, but away from the brutal, mass-mechanized slaughter of Belgium and France. During the Balkans Wars, however, the machines that would lay waste to millions of Europeans were tested and refined, including combat aircraft. The first pilot killed in air combat …
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