Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Little Gun That Started a Big Old War

The September 25th Guardian.co.uk had an article about the new exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London called "In Memorium: Remembering the Great War" which runs through September 6, 2009. This includes the gun carried by Gavrilo Princip, an 18 year-old Bosnian Serb who assassinated Austria's Archduke Ferdinand and launched World War I which last four years and claimed over 20 million lives.

This is the first time the gun, and a homemade grenade/bomb have been in the UK, and is on a rare loan from the Heeresgeschichtlinches (How's that for a name) Museum in Vienna. The exhibit also focuses on the lives of 90 individuals during the war including Winston Churchill and Harry Truman as well as personal possessions of regular folks.

One reason for the display now is that of the more than 5 million persons who entered British service during the war, only three remain: Bill Stone, Harry Patch, and Henry Allingham.

One other article mentioned that there were six people involved in the assassination plot.

I'd Sure Like to See This Gun. --Cooter

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