[lit-ideas] Re: The de-islamization of Europe
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:48:02 -0800
I obviously misspoke. I had just read comments by Gerolymatos pertaining to
what Princip and the other conspirators said at their trial, so I knew it
was a technically a conspiracy, but in the testimony they spoke of being
individually galvanized by seeing the report of Archduke Ferdinand's visit
in the papers. Princip had his own personal reasons for what he did and
that was what I attempted albeit inadequately to say. Here is the passage
I had in mind from Gerolymatos:
P. 38: "Without question, Gavrilo Princip was both patriot and martyr, as
well as assassin and victim. As a Bosnian Serb, Princip was both a symbol
of the unredeemed Serbians under the thumb of the Habsburgs and ultimately a
casualty of war in the nationals struggle to unify all the constituent parts
of medieval Serbia. In 1878, the Serbs living in Bosnia and Herzegovina had
passed from the oriental despotism of the decaying Ottoman Empire to the
subjugation of the autocratic Hapsburgs. Under the rule of the Ottomans,
the Serbs were treated as infidel serfs, and within the confines of the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy, they were regarded as something less than
second-class subjects. The Habsburgs had acquired the right to administer
the Ottoman provinces as part of the settlement of the Congress of Berlin,
which was organized to limit Russian gains as a result of their victories in
the 1878 war against the Turks.
"Thirty years later, in 1908, the Habsburgs formally annexed
Bosnia-Herzegovina in order to enhance the status of Austria-Hungary. All
this was lost on the Serbs, who simply changed one set of masters for
another one. As the new subjects of this predominantly Catholic empire, the
Eastern Orthodox Serbs saw no increase in their standard of living. Little
effort was made by the Austrian authorities to improve the lot of the Serb
population, and any attempts made by the Serbs to sustain their national and
cultural identity were suppressed. The Austrians also failed to address the
agrarian problem, which went a long way in perpetuating the ill feelings of
the Serbs toward their new masters. During twenty years of Austro-Hungarian
rule (1878-1908), 6,000 Muslim landowners still kept more than 100,000 Serb
peasants under feudal conditions.
"It is no coincidence that Princip and several of his accomplices in the
assassination plot were the children of Serb peasants who could not overcome
poverty because of the Turkish land laws retained by the Hapsburgs. . . ."
Princip's "birth underscored the primitive conditions that characterized the
life of Bosnia Serbs in Austro-Hungarian Empire. On July 13, 1894,
Princip's mother, although nine months pregnant, was working in the fields,
carrying sixty-pound (27 kg) bundles of fresh hay. Later that day, she
washed clothes in the nearby brook, and after milking a cow, she felt labor
pains. . . Princip's mother managed to reach her house in time to lie on
the earthen floor and give birth to Gavrilo. Her mother-in-law rushed into
the house and severed the umbilical cord by biting it off, washed the
newborn, and wrapped him in a course hemp cloth.
"Few expected the child to survive; the mortality rate among newborns was
very high. The Princip family had nine children, and six had already died.
. . Princip was a sensitive boy who kept to himself and demonstrated a
natural affinity for books and learning. . . At the age of thirteen, he
graduated from the local elementary school and was sent to join his older
brother in Sarajevo to attend the city's military school. The older brother
shortly rejected the notion of Princip's growing up as a Habsburg officer
and instead sent the boy to the merchant school. This also proved a false
start . . . the few years Princip spent in high school steered him away from
notions of a professional life and into the world of literature and Serbian
nationalism. By 1912, he had gravitated to the various secret societies
mushrooming among the young Bosnian Serbs, and in the spring he was expelled
from school because of his participation in anti-Habsburg demonstrations.
With few prospects in Sarajevo, Princip moved to Belgrade, where he lived in
extreme poverty but had the satisfaction of witnessing the onset of the
Balkan wars that would free the Serbian lands still under Ottoman rule.
"Unfortunately, Princip's dream of participating in the crusade of
liberation against the Turks was cut short. He failed to meet the minimum
physical standards required to join the Serbian irregular units, and was
forced to watch from the sidelines as the Serbian armies, along with those
of Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Greece, drove the Turks out of the Balkans. It
must have been particularly galling for the young Serb nationalist to be a
mere spectator as his friends took apart in the liberation of Kosovo Polje
and avenged the defeat suffered by the medieval Serbian knights at the hands
of the Ottoman Turks. It has even been argued, by Vladimir Dedijer, that
Princip's failure to join his comrades in the Serbian forces drove him to a
grand gesture that would prove to his peers that he was their equal.
"Ultimately, the decision of Archduke Ferdinand to visit Sarajevo on June
28, 1914, the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, was the catalyst that
transformed Princip from a struggling student into an assassin. He achieved
the martyrdom he had read about in centuries of folklore and epic poetry by
demonstrating that, like Prince Lazar and Milos, he had the courage to
sacrifice his life. In so doing, he perpetrated the Kosovo legend into the
twentieth century."
"It is still unclear precisely when Princip and the other conspirators
decided to undertake the assassination of the archduke, and why they chose
Ferdinand over another Habsburg . . . At his trial, Princip testified that
he had decided to assassinate Ferdinand when he first read about the
archduke's proposed visit in March 1914. He also stated that the archduke
was the embodiment of Austria-Hungary's oppression of the South Slavs, and
he intimated that as the future emperor, Ferdinand would have prevented
their unification. The other conspirators gave reasons that ranged from the
fear that the archduke would create a new federation, and thus prevent the
unification of all the South Slavs, to the belief that the army maneuvers in
Bosnia were a prelude to war with Serbia. . . Princip and his fellow
conspirators, without much deliberation, agreed to kill the archduke both as
a blow for Serbian nationalism and to exact vengeance as part of the Kosovo
ritual."
COMMENT: Back in July of 2002 I read and we discussed, A Peace to End all
Peace, The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle
East, by David Fromkin. This was a critical time in European history, a
time when Europe was growing out of but had not quite given up the "white
man's burden." Some people like the Arabs but also the Serbs were not
deemed capable of governing themselves. They needed the oversight of wise
Europeans. This was the best of the European reasons for colonialism, but
even this one was given up by the middle of the twentieth century. Back at
the beginning of that century, situations were much more primitive. Joerg
seems to have gravitated into a frothing irrationalism and be beyond
communicating with; so I shan't try, but the Serbs had been brutalized by
the Ottoman Empire and as the Austro-Hungarian Empire took over from them,
everything was left in place -- even to the allowing of the 6,000 Turkish
landowners to retain their 100,000 Serbian serfs. And yes, I find that
intolerable - not I hope from an anachronistic point of view, but certainly
colonialism was an ugly manifestation of Europe's belief in its own
superiority. It is good to be past the overt manifestations of that period.
Unfortunately, as Fromkin and others tell us, in the aftermath, the rulers
who took over in the Middle East for European governors turned out to be
worse in many ways than their predecessors.
Does the glory of the Habsburgs compensate for their brutal and insensitive
treatment of the Serbs? No, of course not - any more than the brilliant and
creative period that preceded the Nazi ascendancy in Germany compensated for
that particular European horror. Much has been written about Ferdinand's
own plans, evidencing that he was more benevolent and insightful than some
have painted him, but he was nevertheless operating within a colonial system
and the system was insensitive and rotten.
It is absurd and illogical to assert that trying to understand the Serbs and
shed more light on Princip's motivation during this period is condoning
Terrorism as a principle. Every historian writing of this period is going
to provide his understanding of that motivation. Princip's action was the
domino that put World War One into motion. They were all in place, but no
one had knocked one over until Princip killed the Archduke Ferdinand.
Here is a bit more about Andre Gerolymatos:
http://www.sfu.ca/hellenic-studies/andre_gerolymatos.html . If I haven't
done his ideas justice, that is my fault. He is not a lightweight.
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of David Ritchie
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 3:21 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The de-islamization of Europe
On Jan 19, 2007, at 1:05 PM, Lawrence Helm wrote:
There was the IMRO, a terrorist organization set up to force the Ottoman
Empire to implement Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin. But as far as I
know, Gavrilo Princip acted on his own, and his act was called
"assassination," and not "terrorism."
I have recommended before Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, "Intimate Voices
from the First World War." Chapter one opens with Franz Ferdinand's
after-dinner toast, "To peace! What would we get out of war with Serbia?
We'd lose lives of young men and we'd spend money better used elsewhere. And
what would we gain, for heaven's sake? A few plum trees, some pastures full
of goat droppings, and a bunch of rebellious killers."
And on the next page is a letter from prison, written by Vaso Cubrilovic,
one of Gavrio Princip's co-assassins, to his sisters. Cubrilovic is quite
clear that there was a conspiracy and that Princip's act came at the end of
several attempts, including what the British army calls "an own goal." "At
about 10 o'clock I saw a procession of cars approaching our direction.
Ferdinand's car was the first, instead of an escort car. I can see them
clearly even now. I saw Ferdinand greeting the crowd, touching his cavalry
hat. Next to him sat his wife. She was dressed all in white and was holding
a parasol. I asked a student who stood next to me wheer this was definitely
Ferdinand, and he confirmed it was. I took a few steps back towards the wall
to throw my bomb, but the car was already right in front of me. All of a
sudden I heard a loud crack, as if from a gun. I stopped, realising someone
had thrown a bomb. I saw it hit the lowered roof of the car, bounce off and
fall, just a few steps away from me. I could see it smoking and hissing like
a steam engine. In an instant I threw myself to the ground. The heir [F.F.]
turned to see what was happening and the car stopped just feet away from
Gavrilo [Princip] and Cvjetko [Popovic], but in the confusion they did
nothing. Fortunately, I was unharmed but almost everyone around me was
wounded. The explosion made all six of us run in different directions. Then
I ran to Cemalusa street, for I was hoping to get Ferdinand there."
The first attempt failed. Ferdinand insists on continuing the journey and,
once the welcoming ceremony is finished, asks to be taken to the hospital so
that he may visit people who were wounded in the morning's explosion. It is
on that journey that the driver turns down a cul-de-sac and that Gavrilo
Pincip finds himself, quite accidentally, beside the stationary car. Seeing
this as a sign, he leaps on the running board and fires. The letter
continues, "I wish to add to this that we never intended to shoot
Ferdinand's wife, we wanted to exact revenge on [General] Potiorek for
introducing martial law in 1912-13...[snip]...To tell you the truth, we were
all somewhat exhilarated by then. We were determined, yes, but we couldn't
see straight. What we did we did out of our own free will, and yet I cannot
help feeling that some stronger impulse drove us. Even now it seems that it
wasn't us at all who did it, that it was someone else altogether. Our trial
reinforced that impression. [snip] It was our misfortune that none of us was
maturer. The oldest was Ilic, but at 24 he too was practically a child. It
was especially true of me and Popovic. We were determined to kill Ferdinand,
but we weren't ready for such deeds. They require maturity, a cool head and
caution, traits we could not have had at 17 or 18 years of age. Besides, we
had no counsel, no one to encourage us, unlike the three who prepared in
Serbia. [Of the seven in the conspiracy, three had been recruited and
trained by the Black Hand in Serbia and sent to Bosnia on a mission to carry
out the assassination]. But even they said they had hesitated. Cabrinovic
told me he didn't know how he took the bomb and threw it. The same was true
of Princip. Of us all he was the coolest, the best mentally prepared. He
carried out the attack mechanically--this much is obvious when you analyse
the assassination." pp 7--9.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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