Conservative History Journal

100 years ago today, on June 28, 1914 the shots that ushered in the disaster of the twentieth century were fired in Sarajevo by a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip at the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. I need not go through all the subsequent events that eventually led to the First World War which, in turn, led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, and of Europe in general, pushed Britain and the British Empire closer to the bankruptcy and dissolution of the second half of the century and unleashed the two most evil ideologies of history: Nazism and Communism.

Just out of interest here is a link to The British Newspaper Archive that shows the coverage the Archduke's assassination received in British papers.

The second act of the century's tragedy is also commemorated today. 95 years ago, on June 28, 1919 the Versailles Treaty was signed and many of the century's tragedies was unleashed then. Certainly, in the Middle East we are still dealing with the outcome and no solution seems to be in sight.