On June 25th at 10:35 p.m. on ORF 2 and on ORF ON; afterwards: “Trauma, dreams and tragedies – a peace treaty and its consequences”
Vienna (OTS) – “My great-grandfather was warned, but he would never have chickened out!” Anita Hohenberg, great-granddaughter of Franz Ferdinand, sees the attack in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 as part of her family history; for Europe it was the trigger for the great catastrophe of the 20th century. 110 years later, on Tuesday, June 25, 2024, the “People & Powers” documentary “The Road to Downfall” by Robert Gokl and Leo Bauer (reenactment director) tells the story in collaboration with international historians at 10:35 p.m. on ORF 2 and on ORF ON how the attack in Sarajevo came about. But also how Austria-Hungary misused the murder of heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand to start a war against Serbia, which ultimately became a global war. “The Road to Downfall” was created as a co-production by ORF, Metafilm and BMBF, supported by TV Fund Austria, the State of Lower Austria and Film Fund Vienna.
“Treaty of shame”, “victor’s dictate”, “gag paper” – these were the epithets for the Peace Treaty of Saint-Germain after the loss of the First World War. At 11:25 p.m., Andreas Novak examines the question of what effects and consequences this treaty had on the political development of the First Republic in his “People & Powers” documentary “Trauma, Dreams and Tragedies”.
“Road to Ruin” – a film by Robert Gokl and Leo Bauer
“They were naive young people, incredibly young! Two were still students!” says David James Smith, author of the book “One Morning in Sarajevo”. It was a chain of coincidences and mishaps that ultimately led to one of these young people, Gavrilo Princip, meeting the heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand on a street corner in Sarajevo and shooting him with a bullet. The second bullet should have hit Oskar Potiorek, the civilian and military commander of Bosnia-Herzegovina – and not Sophie, Franz Ferdinand’s wife. There have been repeated assassination attempts on crowned heads, but no state has ever been held responsible: in this case Serbia. “And that’s why Sarajevo is something unique, hardly comparable in world history,” says historian Manfried Rauchsteiner.
Only a few photographs and a few seconds of film remain from the day of the attack in Sarajevo, none of it from the attack itself. For the documentary “The Road to Ruin”, this turning point in history was staged against a computer-generated Sarajevo backdrop under the direction of Leo Bauer – with Martin Muliar as Franz Ferdinand, Gisela Salcher as Sophie, Peter Moucka as Oskar Potiorek and Vedran Kos as Gavrilo Princip. Behind the camera: Helmut Wimmer.
Franz Ferdinand’s visit to Sarajevo was intended to show how important their youngest province was to the House of Habsburg. Bosnia-Herzegovina was annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908, in the 60th year of Emperor Franz Joseph’s reign. A “Pyrrhic victory” for the multi-ethnic state, both in terms of domestic and foreign policy: nationality tensions in the monarchy intensified, as did the struggle for power and influence in the Balkans. Serbia allied itself with Russia and expanded its relations with France. Franz Joseph acknowledged the political change with an economic and agricultural boycott – a serious tactical mistake, France stepped in with deliveries and the construction of canning factories. Oskar Potiorek has been advocating war against Serbia for years. The assassination attempt gave him and the “war party” in Vienna further arguments for a Serbian offensive. A quickly won victory would bring prestige to the House of Habsburg, fame to the Austro-Hungarian Army, and Oskar Potiorek would be promoted to Chief of General Staff and thus the successor to Conrad von Hötzendorf.
However, in the battle between the great powers for supremacy in Europe, Austria-Hungary had long had the worse cards. Without colonies and industrially backward, it glorified the glorious history of its ruling dynasty and tried to play a regional leadership role, at least in the Balkans. It was clear from the start that a declaration of war by Austria-Hungary could lead to a global war. Manfried Rauchsteiner: “It has been said of Franz Joseph that he was peace-loving until the end. This is all relegated to the realm of legend. And he knew that Russia might be fully behind Serbia.” In July 1914, a diplomatic race took place between opponents of the war and those in favor of it. The warmongers won it – with an ultimately fatal mixture of misjudgments, political recklessness, fabricated facts, deception and fraud. The military commander in chief in Bosnia, Oskar Potiorek, acted just as unrealistically. He completely overestimated himself and his troops. It should have been a military “walk”, a quick victory, confirmation of one’s own superiority:
“Serbia must die!” Three bloody offensives at Christmas 1914 ended in an embarrassing military fiasco for Potiorek and the monarchy. Potiorek’s mistakes led to heavy losses for the Austro-Hungarian troops. At the same time, serious war crimes were committed against Serbian civilians.
Today, the beginning of the First World War on the Serbian Front is almost forgotten – overshadowed by the memory of the Western Front, the Dolomites Front and the Galicia Front. In 1918, four years later, the Serbian liberation movement had achieved its goal, a great, united Yugoslavia; the Habsburg Monarchy had collapsed, Austria had been reduced from a large empire to a small state, and the political landscape of Europe had completely changed. And the great catastrophe at the beginning of the 20th century cost the lives of 17 million people.
“Trauma, dreams and tragedies – a peace treaty and its consequences” – a film by Andreas Novak
In the castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris in 1919, the victorious powers laid down the political and geographical reorganization of Austria. The losers of the war – the no longer existing former Wilhelmine Empire and the collapsed Danube Monarchy, represented by a delegation led by State Chancellor Karl Renner – were reduced to extras. The Western powers dictated the geographical reorganization. “German Austria” is being shrunk, from a multi-ethnic state with around 55 million inhabitants to a republic with just 6.5 million. “The rest is Austria,” said French chief negotiator and Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau.
The people and government saw the “ban on joining” the Weimar Republic decreed in Saint-Germain as a low blow. The result:
collective outrage in the country. In addition, in keeping with the attempted demilitarization of Germany and Austria, the Austrian army was reduced to a maximum of 30,000 professional soldiers, along with the ban on general conscription. Mental disarmament, a farewell to large-scale thinking, and integration into a peace and civil society were now required not only of officers and professional soldiers. However, this was to fail, because very soon many soldiers who had become unemployed after 1918 found employment again in the newly founded paramilitary units.
Due to the decoupling of the successor states to the monarchy, important industrial and trading areas as well as sales markets are lost. The new states also impose high protective tariffs on Austrian goods competition. The loans granted by England and France are linked to the confirmation of the ban on affiliation. At the same time, there is a direct influence on economic and budget policy, as the debtors determine the course of restructuring: higher taxes, ironclad austerity and price increases. This in turn slows down public consumption, leads to layoffs and ultimately to mass impoverishment of large sections of the population. All of this would have fatal political, social and economic consequences in the years that followed.
And so the First Republic is increasingly becoming one with fewer and fewer Republicans. In addition to Austria, a number of other countries that emerged from the Saint-Germain Treaty also transformed into authoritarian states after brief democratic interludes. The Weimar Republic, for example, becomes the “Third Reich”, led by a former private from the First World War, who becomes its “leader” with the “shameful treaty rhetoric of 1918 and the honor of the German people that has been trampled into the mud”.