Dying while vacationing on your anniversary seems unimaginable, but that it what happened to the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. To understand this senseless murder/assassination, one has to examine the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, which recognized Serbia as a sovereign state, but diminished the size of the Kingdom of Serbia and allowed the occupation of Austria-Hungary by Bosnia and Herzegovina. Over the ensuing decades, Serbia’s discontent increased and between 1909 and 1914, Serbian nationalists attempted several unsuccessful assassinations against Austro-Hungarian officials (New World Encyclopedia). On July 28th, 1914 the Archduke and his wife Sophie visited Serbia to observe military maneuvers and to celebrate their 14th wedding anniversary (Preston). During this visit, Carvilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, shot the Archduke and his wife in their
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Since his death in no way could change the political landscape or result in Serbia regaining territory, it was just another violent act and meaningless murder. Even if he had been ruler, it is not justified to kill him. In Plato’s Crito, Socrates says “by living in a state one contracts to obey its government; the citizens of the state made an implicit promise not to resist the government (Zelner 230).” Simply put, citizens cannot just rebel against a government and certainly cannot murder their leaders when unhappy. Even if one condones assassination of a tyrant or unjust head of state with the idea that the killing would positively benefit the society, Prinzip’s reason for murdering the Archduke was not legitimate because Prinzip only wanted to kill an important person; he did not have a specific reason for killing the Archduke. According to The Daily Telegraph Prinzip “had intended for a long time to kill some eminent personage from Nationalist motives (Preston ‘Reuter document’).” One cannot justify this type of random killing that is not designed to improve a
Since his death in no way could change the political landscape or result in Serbia regaining territory, it was just another violent act and meaningless murder. Even if he had been ruler, it is not justified to kill him. In Plato’s Crito, Socrates says “by living in a state one contracts to obey its government; the citizens of the state made an implicit promise not to resist the government (Zelner 230).” Simply put, citizens cannot just rebel against a government and certainly cannot murder their leaders when unhappy. Even if one condones assassination of a tyrant or unjust head of state with the idea that the killing would positively benefit the society, Prinzip’s reason for murdering the Archduke was not legitimate because Prinzip only wanted to kill an important person; he did not have a specific reason for killing the Archduke. According to The Daily Telegraph Prinzip “had intended for a long time to kill some eminent personage from Nationalist motives (Preston ‘Reuter document’).” One cannot justify this type of random killing that is not designed to improve a