Franz Ferdinand

100 years ago today, Franz Ferdinand, Habsburg heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and his wife, were assassinated in Sarajevo..  His Austrian family, allied with Germany, made unreasonable demands for compensation from the Serbian government, which was allied with Russia and France and after a month of posturing and threats, Germany invaded France, neither of which were involved with the assassination in any way, but had fought a war 40 years earlier that Germany was still sore about, even though they'd more or less won.  The assassin himself was a Serbian nationalist and frequently expressed horror at the orgy of killing he had triggered, before he was executed 4 years later, but he had no connection with the government being forced to make reparations.

There was no good reason for the war.  A bunch of stupid, inbred people with too much ego and not enough sense had a bunch of petty disputes.  Mainly, Kaiser Wilhelm had had a disagreement with his Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, who had  multiplied the size and power of Prussia and the Kaiser himself enormously.  France was understandably concerned about the growing power on its border and that's what 1870-71 had been about.  But Wilhelm had had a minor dispute with Bismarck and fired him.  Bismarck was long dead by the time Franz Ferdinand was shot but his heirs, not nearly as wise, had made a series of plans to invade France.  On June 28, 1914, something happened...nothing to do with France or Germany, but enough to pull the trigger.

At one level, WWI did a lot of good for the world.  All the hereditary monarchies were gone, or turned into constitutional, parliamentary systems with a monarch as figurehead with no real power.  All the new governments understood that ordinary people had bourn the brunt of their government's foolishness and the union movement and worker protection laws, and women's suffrage became unstoppable.   It cemented the United States as a great power and showed that the rule of law is more effective than the rule of authority.  One of the best ideas was the League of Nations, which was made toothless by Republicans in the US Senate and their belligerent counterparts in Europe.  These same Republicans were not entirely happy with law and fair treatment of the masses of people and wanted a more authoritarian system, and the policies they advocated went hand in hand with the craving by the authoritarian leaders of Britain and France for onerous reparation from Germany.   This created what may have been the worst possible outcome.  Germany was ruined by these reparations, and only recovered when enough time had passed and a German leader came to power who didn't care a whit about law and fair treatment and was happy to ignore the reparations.  The authoritarians who demanded them are ideologically almost identical with the leaders of today's Tea Party movement and share a great deal with Hitler and Stalin.  They prefer government by thuggery and don't like systems where their views aren't automatically adopted.  Suppression of voters they don't agree with is the first step.

Recognizing the error of the French and British leaders after WWI, the Allies, led by the incomparable George Marshall, used the assets of the winners of WWII to rebuild both the winners and losers.  His success, and the catastrophe that the authoritarians brought on, should give the authoritarians pause, but it doesn't.  Germany is now a power again, but they are part of a united Europe and while they are abusing their neighbors economically, at least they aren't shooting them. An economist who is as good a teacher as Marshall was a statesman may be needed.

The consequences of Franz Ferdinand's assassination are still playing out.  The trigger Gavrilo Princip pulled killed at least 100M people and put almost a billion under repressive rule.  It gave numerous petty, incompetent and often sadistic,  but ruthless politicians the opportunity to rule.  It removed constraints from a lot of rivalries, which continue to fester, and will probably continue to fester for a lot longer.  For example, the borders that were drawn by the Sykes-Picot agreement around Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, having nothing to do with the factions within those countries, have created a century of internal frictions and civil wars.