Vaso Cubrilovic

[Phidippides]

Vaso Cubrilovic, on of the conspirators behind the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, was interviewed many decades later about his role in the plot.  "Would you do it again" was the question.  "You really shouldn't ask me that...How could you expect a man of 57 to behave like a boy of 17?  Perhaps the situation in the world today would call for different means.  But I am not sorry."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=G4dLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lCMNAAAAIBAJ&dq=vaso%20cubrilovic&pg=7328%2C5293558

[scout1067]

Oddly, the article does not say what role he played, just that he was imprisoned in Vienna for his role and freed by the allies after the war.  I especially like his blas? acceptance that the war was inevitable.  That is one of the enduring myths about WWI, there was nothing inevitable abot it.  The July Crisis was very similar to several other Crisis of the first decade of the 20^th century.

[Phidippides]

I believe he was just one of the conspirators, of which there were quite a few who lined the parade route in Sarajevo.  Obviously he wasn't the one who fired the shots that killed the Archduke and his wife, and he wasn't the one who threw the grenade which bounced off the car.  From another article I read, I think he was holding a grenade but did not have the chance to use it.

[scout1067]

There were something like ten conspirators that lined the route.  It was actually luck that Princip managed to get a shot off.  If the Archduke had not changed the route to go to the hospital and see the victims of the grenade attack and if his driver had not gotten lost, it is probable that the assassination would not have happened at all.  If nothing else, it proves that happenstance has as much role in making history as deliberate acts.  That is something that historians tend to forget at times, especially when they write as though events are preordained.

[Phidippides]

True, it's like Oswald hitting a moving JFK with a shot from the distance he did.  Probably not an easy shot to make (which I think is why conspiracy theories about a second shooter prevail).

[scout1067]

There is no probably about Oswald's shot, it was like holding a natural Royal Flush and a winning lottery ticket at the same time.  Possible, just not very probable.