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What if Gavrilo Princip Missed?
Archduke Franz Ferdinand lives!
World War I, known as the Great War and the War to End All Wars, was the bloodiest conflict in history by the time it wrapped up in 1919. The war resulted in 40 million casualties and between 15 and 20 million deaths. It left large swaths of Europe as rutted wastelands and three major empires defunct: the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire, and the Russian Empire. The United States entered the war and announced itself as a world power for the 20th century.
All of these things stemmed from one event in 1914 when members of the Serbian Black Hand assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Ferdinand was warned not to go to Sarajevo due to rising tensions and threats of violence, but his monarchical ego refused to deter him from visiting.
The assassination took place on June 28th, 1914, from the barrel of a gun wielded by Gavrilo Princip (and supported by a network of other assassins and spies). But what if Princip had missed? What if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had survived the attempt on his life in the summer of 1914? Would World War I still have happened? Or would the world have taken a completely different path?
