Summary of Edmond Taylor's The Fall of the Dynasties

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The visit that the Habsburg heir and his wife, Sophie, paid to Sarajevo lasted only an hour, but the drama of those 60 or 70 minutes has revolutionized the course of modern history.

#2 The view of Sarajevo from the southwest is a lovely one. The valley of the Miljacka, a shallow torrent that cuts the town in two, narrows at its eastern outskirts to a rugged gorge commanded by the ruined Turkish fort from which it takes its name.

#3 The marriage of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Este (as he preferred to be called) and Countess Sophie Chotek was a model of bourgeois felicity. It was in fact something more than that: the day they took their last ride together, they were still in love.

#4 The Archduke’s numerous enemies exploited every weapon in the armory of protocol to vex and humiliate him. The Archduke, a brooding, vindictive man, set up a sort of rival Court at his Belvedere Palace on a hilltop overlooking Vienna.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822517332

IRB Media

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Insights on Edmond Taylor's The Fall of the Dynasties

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The visit that the Habsburg heir and his wife, Sophie, paid to Sarajevo lasted only an hour, but the drama of those 60 or 70 minutes has revolutionized the course of modern history.

#2

The view of Sarajevo from the southwest is a lovely one. The valley of the Miljacka, a shallow torrent that cuts the town in two, narrows at its eastern outskirts to a rugged gorge commanded by the ruined Turkish fort from which it takes its name.

#3

The marriage of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Este (as he preferred to be called) and Countess Sophie Chotek was a model of bourgeois felicity. It was in fact something more than that: the day they took their last ride together, they were still in love.

#4

The Archduke’s numerous enemies exploited every weapon in the armory of protocol to vex and humiliate him. The Archduke, a brooding, vindictive man, set up a sort of rival Court at his Belvedere Palace on a hilltop overlooking Vienna.

#5

The visit to Sarajevo was the culmination of a complicated family history and human geography. Austria-Hungary was not a nation but two separate and theoretically sovereign nations ruled by a common King-Emperor. The Slavic peoples were spread throughout the empire, and the Habsburgs had trouble with their biggest vassals, the Magyars.

#6

The Archduke’s visit to Bosnia marked a contradictory anniversary for the local population: the Feast of St. Vitus, which commemorates the battle of Kossovo in 1389 when the Turks destroyed the medieval kingdom of Serbia and enslaved its Christian subjects.

#7

The visit to Sarajevo was a disaster from the start. The civil authorities in both Sarajevo and Vienna had picked up warnings of a plot against the Archduke, but they did not communicate with each other or with the Archduke.

#8

The first sign of trouble came when Count Harrach, the Archduke’s aide-de-camp, was in the front seat next to the chauffeur. Sophie was in the back on the right-hand side, nearest the embankment; Francis Ferdinand next to her. Suddenly, a dark young man jumped over the embankment and into the bed of the stream.

#9

The reception by the city fathers at the Rathaus was not a success. The mayor had barely begun his speech when the Archduke interrupted him and shouted, Mr. Mayor, I come here on a visit and I get bombs thrown at me. It is outrageous.

#10

The drive to the hospital was safe enough, but it was still decided to cancel the rest of the tour to punish the people of Sarajevo for the morning’s actions. Francis Ferdinand insisted on visiting the hospital to check on the condition of von Merizzi.

#11

The assassination plot was one of those inept but nonetheless deadly conspiratorial operations combining professional planning with amateur execution. The executors were six untrained youths. It was virtually certain under the circumstances that some links in the murder chain would break down, but it was very likely that at least one would hold.

#12

The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie was a tragedy, but it was also a lesson about good breeding. The couple had lived out their lives in a faded, tinsel Court, but in their dying, they attained the dignity of tragedy.

#13

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the result of a schoolboy escapade that turned into tragedy. It was the culmination of the conspiracies of a young Bosnian student named Princip, who had come to idolize the ex-comitadjis.

#14

The boys had no specific target in mind when they began the plot. They just wanted to kill Francis Ferdinand, and they believed that the newspaper clipping announcing his visit to Sarajevo was the reason they did it.

#15

The Sarajevo assassination led to the outbreak of World War I, which ushered in a twentieth-century Time of Troubles from which our civilization has yet to recover. The cause of these troubles was the decline and fall of the dynastic system in Europe, and the social structures it supported.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

On the last Sunday of June 1914, a young Viennese man of letters sat reading under the chestnut trees at Baden, on the edge of the Wiener Wald, which stamps the Danubian plain a few miles south of Vienna. The sky was an even-tempered blue, and the air was warm but light and elegant.

#2

The news of the assassination of