Thank you for your nice welcome Being welcome is a nice feeling.Terry Duncan wrote:Hi and welcome to AHF
I agree with the events you mention, and the close links between Apis, Bogicevic, and the German military, though it is not clear they consulted over events such as the Balkan Wars or the assassination. What I find odd is that a distinguished historian, one that is felt by his peers to be the worlds leading expert on Wilhelmine Germany, should voice such suspicions in such a way they find their way into print, unless he felt there was a very good chance he was correct. The security in Sarajevo was certainly poor, but how much of that was down to the archduke, incompetence, or a possible plot is hard to say. It does need to be noted that the Serbs seem to have given a veiled warning to Bilinski, and that Potiorek was not fond of Franz-Ferdinand, but this does not mean they conspired to kill him. Also, Apis may well have had links to the German military, but links between him and Princip are tenuous at best, so even if the security was poor, and people had wanted to take this opportunity for war, the rather amateur nature of the actual assassins would make them unlikely choices to commit the deed. To my mind if Germany and at least some in Austria had decided to kill Franz-Ferdinand as a pretext, it is more likely that a group of professional assassins would have been in Sarajevo to kill the archduke, but by a 'happy accident' Princip and Co got to act first.
I am sure Röhl has a much more complete and detailed picture of the events than me. In his very large puzzle it looks quite probable that the Germany could have been involved in Sarajevo, but there are large gaps in the picture, and exactly at the most interesting places. The gaps allow many a different guess, and the fact has no versions. I can imagine the frustration of Mr. Röhl; his heap of such coincidences must be much larger than mine.
For example, the line connecting Apis, Bogicevic and the Germans may seem to have likely carried information or agreements in both directions; so likely as it may look, this cannot be substantiated by a document.
If the Germans and Austrians needed a pretext for war in the summer of 1914, like the Dec. 1912 War Council document implies, that doesn't mean they needed the Duke dead at any price.
Even if nothing else happened after the bomb attempt on the Archduke's life, if it could have been proven Serbia was behind, I think that would have done for an ultimatum and for blowing the event up in the press, as well.*
Yet, the worse the things that really happen in Sarajevo,the better the case for the ultimatum, of course.
The Crown Prince was unpopular, but it is one thing to look the other way when someone is after him, and another one to kill him.
You just reminded me of a book by Malte Olschewski, Austrian journalist and historian, which I read some time ago.
Olschewski points out the many very amateurish details about the plot, too. He thinks Apis never intended or expected the attempt to succeed. At that time, he was at the height of his conflict with the PM Pasic, so he gave the preparation of the plot to the people known to be in good relations with the PM.
The arrest and questioning of the students in Bosnia, before or after the attempt, should than have meant Pasic has to resign.
The book was fascinating to read, ..but has to be considered a speculation, at least in some important parts. I am not sure at all how probable this hypothesis is.
But the story of Olschewski does make one point at least. If It is possible to create many different hypotheses which are apparently consistent with the documents known, then some rather big parts of the picture are missing. That is how it looks to me, at least.
* If you take a look at the notes of the German Imperial War Council session from Dec. 1912, the reasoning for the war ASAP appears to be the Russian rearmament program in the first place. Starting the arms race, Germany had a lead that was melting fast.
Now, the completion of the Kiel Canal reconstruction, the naval necessary prerequisite, has been scheduled for October of 1914, originally. The work has been accelerated, though, for some 4 months and ended in June of the same year. The project took seven years, so four months less does not seem to count that much there, at the first glance.
The second glance tells you, these months do count, indeed. If the war was to be started immediately on the canal completion, the October is an unfavorable month, at the winter beginning. That would mean further delay until the spring; another half a year of the German advantage melting fast.
Under that kind of urgency to start the war, the Central Powers would have had to do with the best pretext they could get their fingers on in the early summer months of 1914, I suppose. If the big maneuver, Archdukes visit on a sensitive date and the rest provoked no reaction, the troops could have been used for border incidents or simillar, puting the blame on the other side, of course. Anything is good as an excuse, only some excuses are better.
What, indeed, has happened was a jackpot, and even if the Central Powers did a bit to help their luck here, they needed and got even more help from this same Fortuna on the occasion..
..If what followed could be called luck.