Talk:Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Article references a person named "Albertini" as if he/she has already been introduced in the article and his/her importance already apparent. It isn't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.100.97.104 (talk) 00:35, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Article is awful

The political objective of the assassination was to break off Austria-Hungary's south-Slav provinces so they could be combined into a Greater Serbia or a Yugoslavia.

There is no attribution for this. This would describe the long term goals of the conspirators in general, but the assassination wasn't supposed to directly cause this.

Assignment of responsibility for the bombing and murders of 28 June is highly controversial because the attack led to the outbreak of World War I one month later.

That in itself is a highly controvertial statement given that many have seen it as merely a pretext. Why the total vagueness? Why no mention of the ultimatum? And why bring up the bombing as if that is a seperate event?

The new dynasty was increasingly nationalistic and favoured Russia over Austria-Hungary.

Why is there no mention of the 1881 agreement that was highly favorable to Austria?

As Serbia moved to build its power and gradually reclaimed its 14th century empire

Where is the evidence that they wanted to reclaim a 14th century empire?

conflicts with its neighbors erupted over the next decade. They included a customs dispute with Austria-Hungary beginning in 1906 (commonly referred to as the "Pig War")

Started by Austria...

the Bosnian crisis of 1908–1909 where Serbia protested Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (ending in Serbian acquiescence without compensation in March 1909),

Also started by Austria.

Ilić recommended an end to the period of revolutionary organization building and a move to direct action against Austria-Hungary. Popović passed Danilo Ilić on to Belgrade to discuss this matter with Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević, known more commonly as Apis.

Wait your telling me you had sex with my girlfriend.

Ilić informed Mehmedbašić that Belgrade had scrapped the mission to kill the governor.

Who exactly is "Belgrade"? Is this implying that the entire government was in on it?

Serbia's "warning" to Austria-Hungary

Why the quotes?

Bogiĉević made a more forceful case.

Well what is it?

Apis stated that Russian Military Attaché Artamonov promised Russia's protection from Austria-Hungary if Serbia's intelligence operations became exposed and that Russia had funded the assassination.

Source?

Artamonov denied the involvement of his office in an interview with Albertini, stating that he went on holiday to Italy leaving his assistant Alexander Werchovsky in charge and though he was in daily contact with Apis he did not learn of Apis' role until after the war had ended.

Who's Albertini?

Albertini writes that he “remained unconvinced by the behaviour of this officer.”

Why?

Werchovsky admitted the involvement of his office and then fell silent on the subject.

How so?

There is evidence that Russia was at least aware of the plot prior to 14 June.

No there isn't. There is only one sentence that some guy wrote back in 1918.

On 1 June 1914 (14 June new calendar), Emperor Nicholas had an interview with King Charles I of Roumania, at Constanza. I was there at the time … yet as far as I could judge from my conversation with members of his (Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov’s) entourage, he (Sazonov) was convinced that if the Archduke (Franz Ferdinand) were out of the way, the peace of Europe would not be endangered.

Who is "De Schelking"? How do we know this is not being taken out of context? Why would the Russian foreign minister be mentioning something that important to "De Schelking"? What is the beginning of the second sentence? Does "De Schelking" believe that Russia knew about the plot?

After conducting a criminal investigation, verifying that Germany would honor its military alliance, and persuading the skeptical Hungarian Count Tisza

The dual alliance had absolutely nothing to do with the situation toward Serbia. The Austrians wanted to consult Germany to see if they agreed to cover Austrian actions since they might have implications with Russia.

Austria-Hungary issued a formal letter to the government of Serbia.

Calling the ultimatum a mere "letter" is a deliberate mischaracterization.

The letter reminded Serbia of its commitment to respect the Great Powers' decision regarding Bosnia-Herzegovina, and to maintain good neighborly relations with Austria-Hungary.

Relevance?

The letter contained specific demands aimed at preventing the publication of propaganda advocating the violent destruction of Austria-Hungary,

The ultimatum said that propaganda that was directed against the monarchy or the territorial integrity of Austria should be suppressed, not propaganda that called for the "violent destruction of Austria-Hungary".

removing the people behind this propaganda from the Serbian Military, arresting the people on Serbian soil who were involved in the assassination plot and preventing the clandestine shipment of arms and explosives from Serbia to Austria-Hungary.

Serbia responded to the letter by completely accepting all the points except point #6, demanding a criminal investigation against those participants in the conspiracy that were present in Serbia, and to allow an Austrian delegation to participate in the investigation.

The Serbian reply wasn't rejecting an investigation, it was rejecting the involvement of Austrian officials which it deemed a violation of it's sovereignity.

The shortcomings of Serbia's response were published by Austria-Hungary and can be seen beginning on page 364 of Origins of the War, Vol. II by Albertini, with the Austrian complaints placed side-by-side against Serbia's response. Austria-Hungary responded by breaking diplomatic relations.

Blatant bias. This in encyclopedia article, not an ad for someone's book. If it has something important to say it sould be said, if not then it should be removed.

The next day, Serbian reservists being transported on tramp steamers on the Danube crossed onto the Austro-Hungarian side of the river at Temes-Kubin and Austro-Hungarian soldiers fired into the air to warn them off. The report of this incident was initially sketchy and reported to Emperor Franz-Joseph as “a considerable skirmish”. Austria-Hungary then declared war and mobilized the portion of its army that would face the (already mobilized) Serbian Army on 28 July 1914.

Oh, so Serbia started the war? What a pile of crap. The Austrians attacked because their demands were not fully accepted, not because of some minor skirmish.

Under the Secret Treaty of 1892 Russia and France were obliged to mobilize their armies if any of the Triple Alliance mobilized. Russia's mobilization set-off full Austro-Hungarian and German mobilizations. Soon all the Great Powers except Italy had chosen sides and gone to war.

That is a severe distortion of the actual events that occured.

Overall, this article is a disaster. It is incredibly difficult to follow and certainly is not written in an encyclopedic manner. The sole intention of whoever wrote it is to blame one side for World War I and to exonerate the other side. It has to be one of the worst articles of Wikipedia. 71.65.71.145 (talk) 17:28, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Cool down man. IMHO it was worse before I started editing here and removed some blatant Anti-Serbian POV. The work is not yet finished - you're invited to improve it further. --Alfons2 (talk) 17:57, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

What bothers me more is the fact that the Czech and Esperanto version of this article, both obviously based on the English, have been awarded as "good articles". Unfortunately I can't change here anytthing. --Alfons2 (talk) 15:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Dear 71.65.71.145: I would like to ask you to withdraw your neutrality marker until you have read the full article as it stood in early May (many of your questions regarding the introduction are answered in the body), footnotes, and the cited pages themselves. Hopefully, once you have read all of the cited passages in the original works (making a well cited article that holds together takes a lot of work) you won't refer to portions of it as "crap" or to it as a whole as "awful". One question I will answer now, Albertini was a journalist, Anti-fascist Italian Senator, and Historian. He and his comrade Magrini interviewed many of the key witnesses to the events surrounding Sarajevo. Albertini died before publication of "Origins of the War" and Magrini completed it leaving all credit to Albertini. Albertini and Magrini are indispensable. There is a Wikipedia article on him. The article mentioned the pages on the Austrian critique of the response to the July Ultimatum in Albertini because without that kind of clear side by side comparison people can easily be confused by the soothing language of the Serbian response and fooled into believing most of the points were fully accepted. It is a really nice treatment.Werchovsky (talk) 03:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Stop distorting reality. The Austrians started World War I, didn't they. Why did you delete the references to the July Crisis? --Alfons2 (talk) 05:52, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Dear 71.65.71.145:

Who started World War 1 is beyond the scope of this article and is a point of some contention. If your point is that Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia took place before the other declarations then that is a point easy to agree with. The July Crisis article seems beyond repair to me. If you want this article to tilt in favor of the assassins and their backers, a good section on land reform or the lack thereof in Bosnia would be most helpful. Could you contribute such a well footnoted section?Werchovsky (talk) 00:00, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

We seem to agree that Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, but I don't really get your point about the land reform. Do you think it's within the scope of this article? --Alfons2 (talk) 07:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Motives are within the scope of the article. Lack of the promised land reform may have motivated some of the assassins. An Wikipedia article on that subject to link to would be a good approach.Werchovsky (talk) 08:08, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

See here, for starters. No matter how the July Crisis article is written, a link still seems imperative in the historical context. --Alfons2 (talk) 08:42, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Factual Errors and Other Problems with recent edits by Alfons2

In June 2010 Alfons2 made 97 edits to the article which included the introduction of factual errors, reduced the amount of footnoted material, played down the importance of the higher ups in the conspiracy, reduced the descriptive precision of the text and section headings and so on with the net effect of tilting the article in a way consistent with his stated political views on Austria-Hungary starting World War 1. These edits had to be and were corrected as factual errors in particular are unacceptable, but the other problems are also undesirable. Please discuss the changes you want to make to long standing portions of the article before making them. But first, check the discussion archive. The section titles and much of the contents and language have been debated and ultimately agreed on. This is a serious article. The footnotes to the footnotes have been checked. Since many of the witnesses were killed before making full statements information is imperfect. In this situation making even a small change in the interest of simplification or readability can cause a sentence to move from being a verifiable fact to an unverifiable assertion.

I cannot go into all of the factual errors produced in June but today I see the article says for example:"The three adult defendants at the Sarajevo trial were executed; the top conspirators, being minor at the time of the assassination, were sentenced to prison terms." This is wrong on many levels. There were many adult defendants, not 3. Three got executed, some got prison time, some were acquitted. The top ranked conspirators at the Sarajevo trial were Danilo Ilic, Mihaijlo Jovanović, and Veljko Cubrilovic. They were all executed. No source is listed stating that young men over 18 and under 20 years of age were minors in Austria-Hungary in 1914; in California and many other states and countries they would be majors (but you might be right, in AH they might be minors at that age AH having a liberal judicial system), so this needs clarification. The next sentence: "The other conspirators were arrested and tried on unrelated false charges before a Serbian kangaroo court in French-occupied Salonika in 1916-1917, during which Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence Dragutin Dimitrijević testified that he had organized the conspiracy, assisted by his right hand man Major Vojislav Tankosić, and Rade Malobabić." has similar factual errors. The confession was actually a side letter given to the chief judge, not admitted into evidence and then sequestered in the Serbian Royal Archives until its capture by the Nazis, so the verb "testified" [during the trial] is misleading. Further, his confession did not mention Tankosic! Please, whoever edits here, read the source material first, then discuss, then with agreement edit.Werchovsky (talk) 21:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted the two edits that created the factual errors and fuzzed up the section titles.Werchovsky (talk) 21:56, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Any third opinion? --Alfons2 (talk) 19:53, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Alfons2, please just open up the cited books and read Apis' confession and read the verdicts and read the defendants' statements regarding their age and you will see your modifications to the article created factual errors. If you don't like those sources, then find other credible texts that include Apis' full confession and more or less complete records of the trial and you will find they are in agreement. Regarding section titles, you can see third opinions in the talk archives. The Military History Reviewer and I and I think another person talked our way through the section headings...we compromised and reached consensus. There is no reason to destabilize the article by arbitrarily changing section headings now. Is there a connection betwen Ares33 and Alfons2?Werchovsky (talk) 21:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It was nice to meet you. The article is yours. --Alfons2 (talk) 06:25, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Eugene de Schelking

As this is the only page to metion E de S, will mention that in The Times on 16 July 1920 p 8 there is an entry by John Murray Publishers that they are reissuing a Diplomatic Reminiscences by A Nekludoff without the pages about Schelking to which the latter had objected. Jackiespeel (talk) 18:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

As I recall reading, De Schelking's passage regarding Franz Ferdinand being out of the way in advance of his assassination created a storm at the time of publication and he refused to back down leaving Entente appologists to excuse the incident by saying being put "out of the way" might not necessarily mean assassinated. Well, the key sentence was a little complicated and weird mixing the old calendar and new calendar together in the same sentence, and in order to be sure of the meaning you have to read several pages, so he is difficult to quote.Werchovsky (talk) 21:15, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Is this from the Nekludoff book? Both he and De Schelking are presently too marginal for WP articles - but the reference is worth mentioning for 'the proverbial someone researching the subjects further' to pursue. Jackiespeel (talk) 14:40, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it is from Fey, but Fey is not on my bookshelf any more and I lost the page citation so I am quoting directly from Schel'king in this article. I think Die Kriegschuldfrage may have an article on it. I have never read Nekludoff.Werchovsky (talk) 15:57, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Fragments for further use if either get an article - Nekludoff was involved in the 1905 North Sea/Dogger Bank incident discussions, while Schelking wrote 'Suicide of a monarchy'. Jackiespeel (talk) 16:10, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

There is a quote from "Recollections of a Russian Diplomat: The Suicide of Monarchies" also in the Bosnian Crisis article. I thought it would make a good ending to the article when I wrote it, but it is a bit of fluff compared to de Schel'king's statement in this article implicating Russia of foreknowledge of FF's assassination.Werchovsky (talk) 18:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Caption edit?

In the article's first picture's caption, it states that The Latin Bridge was the site of the assasination. However, please correct me if I am wrong, this is incorrect because the assassination did not take place at the bridge, however it was the first attempt at an assassination. The real assassination happened elsewhere. --Michaelzeng7 (talk) 21:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The caption as it stands is correct. The bombing was by the Cumurja Bridge. The fatal shooting was near the Latin Bridge.Werchovsky (talk) 01:46, 28 January 2011 (UTC)Werchovsky (talk) 00:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Information box is not going to work

The information box added yesterday is wrong that no one was injured. There were 20 wounded. On other points, the information box simplifies things that cannot be simplified. The target is listed as only Franz Ferdinand. Some would argue that when you throw bombs at a man in a motorcade your target is the motorcade because of the inprecise nature of this kind of an attack. Principe said he fired his second bullet at Potiorek. Mehmedbasic originally targeted Potiorek. So, it is something of an oversimplification to just say Franz Ferdinand was "the" target. To try to sum up the belligerants as Bosnian Serbs is a terrible oversimplification. Serbian Military Intelligence, the Serbian Frontiers Service,the Serbian Narodna Odbrana, and the Serbian "Black Hand" were all behind the attack. Belligerants are more than just the tip of the spear. So, this topic is too complex and controversial to use this inaccurate information box. I am deleting it.Werchovsky (talk) 18:53, 29 January 2011 (UTC)Werchovsky (talk) 18:54, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

All the fields in the infobox do NOT have to be included. The only thing required is the title, location and date; all other information is optional. Will that suffice instead of removing it completely? The infobox is recommended so the article is listed into the microformats systems. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (talk) 23:00, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Princip acting on the orders of Walt Whitman?

This says that Princip believed he was acting on the orders of the American poet Walt Whitman. Is this corroborated anywhere? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 09:14, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

sandwiched text

WP:MOSIMAGE says: Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other.. There are portions of text sandwiched between two images. I propose to follow the rules and avoid that.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 20:01, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Was Sophie pregnant?

The information that Sophie was pregnant can be found on lot of web sites on the internet. Maybe I did not read the text carefully enough, but I did not find this information in the article. If it can be supported with RS it should be added to the text of the article.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 23:09, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

This topic is very controversial as pro-Serb readers feel it is a sympathy play to include this information ...so naturally it has been debated several times here on the talk page. At one time, this article stated she was pregnant; I wrote it based on an internet article quoting a portion of a book written by (as the on-line article stated at least) Sophie's Doctor. The pregnancy reference was challenged a year or two later. When I then looked for the on-line article it was gone. I can't find the doctors memoirs. No history book I have searched refered to her being pregnant. I gave up. In my opinion, we cannot put it in the article unless we find a credible source that can be traced back to its primary source.Werchovsky (talk) 23:15, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Helen of Sarajevo

Princip has had a girlfriend Jelena. Jelena on Serbian means Helen.[1][2] [3]--Свифт (talk) 12:35, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The text recently added relating to Jelena Milisivic spurning Princip is problematic. The magazine article quotes a 97-year-old woman who became friends with Milisic 32 years after the Sarajevo Outrage. If this is the best source we have that Princip had added impetus to attack Franz Ferdinand's motorcade because he was spurned the night before then we should not include it in the article; it would be wrong to turn Princip into John Hinkley Junior on weak evidence. Beyond that, the article does not state directly how this 97-year-old woman knew that Milisivic had spurned Princip. Did Milisic tell her, or did Milisivic tell Mihacevic and Mihacevic tell our 97 year-old, or was it just office-cooler talk? Can the author provide a more credible source? A historic book quoting a diary, a deposition, or taking evidence directly from Milisivic or Princip? The Pity of War link to Amazon did not have any reference to Princip on the page. The Serbian on-line article is just based on the Smithsonian Magazine article as near as I can tell so I am not sure why it is cited.Werchovsky (talk) 23:02, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Protić=

It is not Stephan Protić, it is Stojan Protić, and it should be added that Serbian Supr. Court in 1953 was under the control of communist regime.

Article is still awful

I mean, wholly apart from it's unreadability and confusion, it still is essentially one big anti-Serb propaganda rant. I complained above, but nothing was done and my comments were vandalized.

In fact it's even worse now, what with the article judging the Serbian reply in a totally inappropriate manner.

But my personal favorite is when the article acts like a non-existent skirmish caused Austria to declare war on Serbia. Was that supposed to be funny? 71.65.125.27 (talk) 03:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Let me suggest that you log in and then we can discuss specific historical issues such as the significance of the Temes Kubin incident.Werchovsky (talk) 04:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)