One Shot: The Beginning and End of the War to End All Wars
Keywords
Gavrilo Princip, assassination, unintended consequences
Abstract
On a bright summer Sunday morning in June, a six-vehicle motorcade snaked its way through the narrow streets. Crowds thronged the roadside, pressing close to glimpse the celebrities who had just arrived in the city that morning. Emerging from the crowd, a man lobbed a fist size object at the motorcade. The drivers stepped on the gas to avoid being hit. The fourth vehicle was not so lucky. With a ten-second delay, the grenade exploded under the fourth car seriously wounding two occupants. Some thirty minutes later, the motorcade was attacked again as they drove toward the hospital to visit their wounded friends. The main car took a wrong turn and in backing up, the driver stalled the car. Gavrilo Princip walked up and raised his pistol.
What transpired next is heart wrenching to contemplate. The disastrous consequences of that fateful decision were entirely unexpected. From that one shot, murder, destruction, death, and mayhem engulfed the world for more than four years, rewriting history and the political order. The consequences of that one shot reverberate today across the world, contributing, to take one example, to the seemingly endless conflict plaguing portions of the Middle East.
Original Publication Citation
One Shot: The Beginning and End of the War to End All Wars, November 10, 2018.
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Halverson, Taylor, "One Shot: The Beginning and End of the War to End All Wars" (2018). Faculty Publications. 10036.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/10036
Document Type
Other
Publication Date
2018
Language
English
College
Marriott School of Business
Department
Marketing
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