Something I’ve Learned
It’s natural to want to directly link a cause and effect in history, to be able to say Event A caused Event B. Circumstances are rarely that cut-and-dry, but with World War I you could clearly point to a single event that caused a row of dominos to fall, leading to the outbreak of global war. That event, of course, is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, by a group of Bosnian revolutionaries.
But what I find most fascinating about this event is that it almost didn’t occur. On the day in question, the Archduke was driven through the streets of Sarajevo in a motorcade of open vehicles. Along the route were stationed five armed assassins. The first two assassins, both armed with bombs, did nothing when the cars drove by. The third assassin threw his bomb, swallowed a cyanide capsule, and jumped in the nearby river to drown. The bomb bounced off the Archduke’s car, the cyanide made the would-be assassin vomit, and the river was only 13 cm deep. The assassination attempt was an abject failure. The Archduke carried on with his day.
But after the Archduke’s planned appearance, it was decided that he should visit the hospital where those wounded by the bombing were being treated. However, his driver made a wrong turn, threw the car in reverse, and stalled it out front of a local delicatessen. Where stood Gavrilo Princip, one of the Bosnian assassins, who promptly stepped forward and fatally shot Franz Ferdinand and his wife.
Perhaps if the driver had made the correct turn, or didn’t make the correction at that precise moment, or perhaps if Princip happened to be buying a sandwich when the Archduke’s motorcade made this unscheduled detour, maybe we wouldn’t have had World War I.
Which led to World War II, and the atomic bomb, and the Cold War, and Vietnam…
Something I Worked On
Lately I’ve been trying to get some writing done, particularly so that I can give myself enough time to re-write. My plans to write and illustrate a Christmas story in time for Christmas is likely doomed, so I also have my eye on a horror story that isn’t pegged to a particular time of year. It’s a story about a woman who is receiving unexpected packages that may or may have been sent by her insane ex-boyfriend.
Something Beautiful
The Passion of Joan of Arc is a silent, black and white film made in 1928 by Carl Theodor Dreyer. It is primarily composed of a series of emotive closeups of the leading actress Maria Falconetti:
The poster is also amazing:
A Final Thought
It’s interesting how many of our holiday traditions are based around the simple fact that they happen at a particular time of year. What if Christmas were celebrated on the summer solstice instead of the winter solstice. What if Independence Day were December 4th instead of July 4th? Halloween feels like an autumn holiday, but would we do anything different if it were in April?