In Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914, a chauffeur took a wrong turn, and so did the world
The two most prominent conflicts in the world, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza, can be traced directly back to the events of more than a century ago. Photograph: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press
In Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914, a chauffeur took a wrong turn and drove back into the path of the Bosnian Serb assassin, who shot dead the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife Sophie. The world too took a wrong turn on that day. It was the most calamitous of black-swan events.
A year later the western part of Ukraine, which had been part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the eastern part, which had been part of the Russian empire, merged to create the Ukrainian state, which was eventually crushed by Soviet Russia. Modern Ukraine, was, therefore, “entirely the product of the Soviet era”, Putin concluded. He made the same point in the interminable history lesson that passed for an interview with Tucker Carlson. Lenin had transferred lands to the Ukrainian SSR that had always been Russian and never belonged to them. In Putin’s warped worldview it is Russia that has the historic grievances.
Elsewhere in the Middle East the borders of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan were created following the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916 between the British and French governments. The arbitrary nature of the borders, which cut across ethnic and religious divides, has been causing trouble ever since. Historical events can be divided into those that are history and have no bearing on the present day and those that remain current affairs. Partition is one such issue as is the situation in the Middle East. Ukraine’s status as an independent country was history until Putin made it current affairs again. Stern’s observations about the importance of the first World War in shaping the 20th century could equally apply to the 21st century.
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