History Lesson: The WW1 Sandwich myth
Canva totally has an illustrated little Archduke Franz Ferdinand!
I know what you’re thinking — this isn’t a war movie post! No, it’s not. But 110 years ago this very weekend (June 28, 1914), World War 1 kicked off with a bang. Literally. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and basically, you know what happened next. If you don’t, you’re on the wrong site, bub.
So, when I was conceiving this blog and realizing how bananas it was (I don’t care, I love sandwiches and war movies, okay?), I did a little digging into any other online sites that may have the same angle. I stumbled upon a quick read on Medium, titled A Sandwich Started a War - the First World War so naturally, I was in from the get-go.
Sona Kerim writes:
Bosnians and Serbians wanted to unite, and a group of men decided to take drastic action to highlight their cause. They were called the Black Hand Gang, and the most notorious member was named Gavrillo Princip — known for the successful assassination of Arch Duke [sic] Franz Ferdinand and his wife.
This, I knew. It’s basic WW1 knowledge. She then goes on to say:
Gavrilo Princip who happened to be in Franz Joseph Street, buying a sandwich at a cafe, came out and realised the opportunity he had. He aimed at Ferdinand from a distance of five feet. His bullets hit the Archduke in the neck and his wife, Sophie, who was travelling with him, in the belly abdomen.
Essentially, the Black Hand Gang tried to assassinate the Archduke earlier in the day and Princip was hungry after the failed attempt. So, he went to Schillers’ cafe, bought a sandwich, and right-place-right-time’d it, killing the Archduke.
Loads and loads of scholars and students and people who love lore believe this story.
AND IT’S NOT TRUE.
To say I’m bummed is an understatement. I went down the rabbit hole trying to discover what Princip ordered as his sandwich, because of course I wanted to recreate it. And then I found out that The Smithsonian debunked the tale in 2011 in the article, The Origin of the Tale that Gavrilo Princip Was Eating a Sandwich When He Assassinated Franz Ferdinand.
The evidence is pretty clear:
The assassination took place around 10:55am which is too early for lunch. (Bear with me, I know we can eat sandwiches whenever we dang well please).
The original trial transcript was later translated by Gaius Trifkovic—a Bosnian First World War expert and member of the staff at the Axis History Forum—and there’s absolutely no mention of the sandwich.
Someone from said forum volunteered the following information about sandwiches in Sarajevo/Bosnian culture: “this ‘sandwich’ theory is not plausible—even today, with sandwiches available in every street bakery, few Serbs would go for such option. It’s either burek or pljeskavica.”
Then, the Smithsonian author (Mike Dash) gets into the origin of the myth — turns out it was popularized by a series called “Days That Shook The World” (broadcast in 2003 on BBC). But then it gets weirder, and to be honest, kind of hilarious:
The source, if it is the source, is appropriately farcical, because it is not a work of history but a novel–indeed, not so much a novel as a burlesque. Titled Twelve Fingers, it was written by a Brazilian TV host named Jô Soares; its hero is born to “a Brazilian contortionist mother and a fanatically nationalist Serbian linotypist father” and blessed with an extra finger on each hand. These make him particularly dextrous, and so he trains as an assassin and finds himself sucked, Zelig-style, into many of the most important events of the last century.
So, this novel, Twelve Fingers, is kind of like Quantum Leap, I suppose. And it loosely threaded into the real story, as tall tales are wont to do. But why does it matter, you might wonder? Dash has a really damning conclusion:
Yet in one vital sense, the problem really is important. Amazing as it may seem, the sandwich story is in danger of becoming the accepted version of events in both the U.S. and the U.K. And by portraying the assassination of Franz Ferdinand as a piece of outrageous coincidence, the story of Gavrilo Princip’s sandwich makes it seem far less important to think deeply about the killer and his companions, and about their motives and determination. Certainly no one who depends solely on the “Days That Shook the World” documentary will come away from it with a deeply nuanced understanding of what Serbian nationalists believed in 1914, or exactly why they thought the assassination of Franz Ferdinand was desirable or justifiable. But that knowledge is precisely what students need to understand the origins of the First World War.
Or, as my beloved Liz Lemon would say:
What, you want to just sit around and be wrong?
We’ll be resuming movies & the sandwiches I think are inspired by said movies soon! Perhaps the next one should be a WW1 film?
