A History Day

The Latin Bridge

There is a line on a street in Sarajevo’s old town where East did actually meet West. To the east of the line are the old markets hugging the walls of a mosque. Everything there and beyond was built originally by the Ottoman Turks. Everything west of this line was built by the Austro-Hungarians – Catholic churches and apartment buildings that could be in Prague, Vienna or Budapest.

Sarajevo’s position on the globe has seen it flourish at times, at other times rupture – often drawing other nations into this divide. In the last 200 years we in Queensland have had the the State of Origin as our main internal conflict – Bosnia has had 23 wars or major insurrections. Our beaches have been invaded by Kiwis and Poms – Bosnia since Roman times has been invaded by the Alans, Huns, Goths, Avars, Slavs, and Franks.

An indication of how bad the Spanish inquisition was for Shephardic Jews, many of them sought sanctuary in Bosnia and established a community here, just as some Syrians are doing now. Bosnia was its own country from 1377, but not for long and not again ’til the 1990’s.

The biggest fracture to be sparked by events in Bosnia was triggered by a young Serb near the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo. Archduke Ferdinand was a reluctant and a bit unlucky heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire. His cousin and direct the direct heir shot himself when he couldn’t marry his girlfriend, his dad died of typoid, that left him next in line. He really didn’t want to be next in line, let alone be next in line in Sarajevo, especially after someone threw a bomb at him earlier in the morning. Because of some confusion over the itinerary (and because cars had no reverse gears in those days) his convoy created their own traffic jam trying to turn around outside a cafe.

Gavrillo Princip was eating a sandwich at the cafe, saw Franz and Sophie, thought what the hell and shot them both. World War 1 resulted. Must have been a really bad sandwich.

The cafe has been replaced by a museum. You can buy all sorts of memorabilia, but there is NO WAY they are ever going to sell anybody a plate of egg and lettuce sangers. Just can’t be sure what might happen if they did.

F C-S