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The news that the Russian ambassador to Turkey was assassinated at an art gallery in Ankara was met around the world with shock and quick condemnation of the heinous attack. However, many commentators also felt compelled to instantly compare the assassination yesterday to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, setting off many panicked worries before the Russian and Turkish governments even had time to respond to the attack. While Gavrilo Princip’s shooting of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo is perhaps the most famous assassination in history (due to the disastrous spiral it initiated), the situation in Ankara does not pose the same threat to world stability. To understand why this assassination does not pose the same threat, one has to look at not the assassination of Franz Ferdinand itself but the underlying tension in the Austro-Hungarian war council in 1914.
To understand why the assassination of Franz Ferdinand lead to the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia in 1914 and how yesterday’s assassination does not pose the same threat, one has to look to the context surrounding the assassination. The story starts in earnest in 1908 when Austria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Ottoman Empire amidst deep protestations from Serbia. From that moment, many hawks emerged in Vienna, such as the newly appointed chief of the Austrian General Staff Conrad von Hötzendorf, who saw Serbia as a threat on their frontier that Austria needed to deal with preventatively before they harmed the empire. During the Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913, for instance, historian Christopher Clark states that von Hötzendorf called for an intervention into Serbia at least 25 different times to deal with what he saw as the key threat to Austrian interests. However, Austria-Hungary refused to intervene in Serbia as another strong dovish faction, coincidently lead by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, argued that domestic issues were more threatening to Austrian interests than any foreign actor. Thus, this constant balance of doves and hawks in the Vienna war cabinet held to prevent the invasion of Austria-Hungary into Serbia as early as 1908. Fast-forward to June 28th 1914, and when Gavrilo Princip killed Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, suddenly the hawkish faction in Austria had a desire to pacify Serbia and the dovish faction no longer had a reason to hold them back. As the crisis with Serbia played out, the hawks who had advocated for intervention in Serbia for years finally had the full ear of Kaiser Franz Josef and on July 28th, Austria declared war on Serbia. Why are the events of yesterday’s assassination unlikely to spiral out of control similarly? While Turkey and Russia have not always had the closest of relations in recent year, neither has possessed a desire to start a major war between the two countries. The delicate handling of shooting down of a Russian jet who crossed the Turkish border is another example of how both countries have worked to steer themselves out of crises with each other. Finally, while the death of any ambassador abroad is tragic, the ambassador was not as high level of a decision maker as Franz Ferdinand, meaning the same foreign policy outlooks in both Russia and Turkey remain the same. We often only think of assassinations that created major international incidents and lead to major wars, but fail to look at the non-barking dogs, the assassinations that did not cause major wars. While these are more common, our imaginations are instantly grasped by the easiest historical analogy. Instead, other assassination analogies are more likely to apply to this current crisis. Going back to the turn of the 20th century, assassinations of other royals (including other members of the Habsburg royal family), from King Umberto in Italy to Empress Sisi in Geneva, similarly produced international outrage, but instead brought many closer together rather producing international conflict. While we don’t know how the relationship between Turkey and Russia will evolve following this assassination, early signs indicate that they are cooperating and condemning the attack together. While the outcome in future months could produce many different outcomes, the probability of it spiraling to a major world war is quite low. Not every assassination is of historical importance as the Franz Ferdinand. King Umberto and Empress Sisi are thankfully the more historically common occurrence. Comments are closed.
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