From the Battle of Ain Jalut, we take a tremendous leap across time and place, which brings us to a new war from the war of minds.. waged on a group of ordinary young men.. leading to the outbreak of one of the greatest wars in history, and the fiercest and most brutal.. in which 70 million human beings perished.

In 1911 a "forbidden secret society" is formed in Serbia.. called the "Black Hand".. this organization begins carrying out a set of special moves with which it recruits young people.

The "Black Hand" organization was waging an astonishing war on the minds of the young all the time.. and its gateway to minds was slogans of the caliber of "revolution, freedom, dignity, nationalism".

At that time there was violent tension, because of the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the Balkan wars, and there was a Russian project.. and an Austro-Hungarian project.. and the region was incomparably inflamed.. like our region today amid the Turkish, Iranian, American and other projects.

They had at that time a revolutionary student formation called "Young Bosnia".. they succeed in recruiting many young people with the organization's slogans.. among them a young man we will pause at.. named "Gavrilo Princip".. the one in this picture.

The organization was pursuing a catastrophic goal wrapped in elegant, resonant slogans that stir enthusiasm. The goal was the secession of the Bosnia region from the state.

The war of minds begins on young people of tender age, still searching for the truth and forming their intellectual heritage, not knowing where wrong is and where right is.. this organization still causes controversy among historians to this day.. and many of them say its goals were noble.. and many say it was a terrorist gang.. whatever the case.. the law prohibited students from joining these groups.. so "Gavrilo" was expelled from school.

Lonely, lost and penniless.. "Gavrilo" heads to Belgrade, walking 280 kilometers on foot.. sleeping by the roadside and eating the grass of the earth.. until he reaches his destination and seeks to look for work.. he does not find any.. so he applies to a recruitment office to volunteer in the army.. at least he will find a bed, shelter and food.

Because of his weak physique and build, the army rejects him.. he falls into a bout of depression.. and he takes up a lowly manual job from which he earns a small amount, with which he returns to Bosnia. And there one of the leaders of the revolutionary movement, named "Zivojin Rafajlovic", picks him up.. and here his recruitment begins.. and he is destined to be the cause of one of the greatest catastrophes in history.

So amid the regional tension, the heir to the Austrian throne "Archduke Franz Ferdinand" and his wife the Duchess "Sophie" decide.. to visit Sarajevo on a political visit.

With the crowds pressing to greet the Archduke or see him in the streets or even object to the visit.. six young men slip in among them.. "Gavrilo".. "Danilo Ilic".. "Nedeljko Cabrinovic" "Cvjetko Popovic".. "Trifko Grabez".. and "Vaso Cubrilovic", led by a man named "Muhamed Mehmedbasic".

And the latter was directly affiliated with the Black Hand organization.. not recruited with slogans of revolution like most of the others.

And on 28 June of the year 1914.. the deceived young men stood under the leadership of "Muhamed Mehmedbasic", a member of the forbidden secret society, amid the crowds, armed with pistols and hand grenades, pretending to greet the heir to the Austrian throne and his wife in the open car like most of the people.

"Muhamed Mehmedbasic" was supposed to throw the first hand grenade.. and then the rest of the young men would follow him and everyone would flee in the explosions and the crowd.. but "Mehmedbasic" does not move when the car passes in front of him.. and although his behavior was strange.. "Nedeljko" was after him.. and he throws the first grenade.. so it strikes the back of the Archduke's car and falls to the ground and blows up the escort car behind him.

The Archduke's skilled driver speeds off and tries to get him away from the midst of the chaos and the crowd.. and he succeeds.. and he gets the Archduke to a safe place.. and he cancels his visit and prepares to return.

But "Gavrilo" - charged with slogans and lies and repeated failure - was patiently tracking the route of the car.

One hour later.. the Archduke visits the Sarajevo hospital to check on the wounded guards.. and on the route of his return.. "Gavrilo" is there.. waiting for the open car.. and he fires at him a bullet that pierces his neck, and another bullet at the chest of his wife the Duchess "Sophie".

"Gavrilo" is arrested immediately.. and he confesses against the others without, fortunately, saying "electrocute me".. and they bring "Muhamed Mehmedbasic", who had been affiliated with that forbidden organization.. and they ask him why he did not take part instead of pushing these young men into crime.. and his answer was that he was afraid of being arrested if he did it, because he saw a soldier standing behind him!

But this is the habit of these groups at every time throughout history.. they wage war on your mind.. and convince you of their cause and push you to destruction.. while they are safe.

Based on the act of a young man who lost the war of the mind, a violent diplomatic crisis arises.. which history recorded for us as the "July Crisis".. the tension escalates until Austria issues a final ultimatum to Serbia, demanding certain things of it, and the Serbian reply does not satisfy the Austrians.. so the spark of war is set off in the same month.. on 28 July 1914.

And with the speed of lightning the map is drawn and the allies join one another.. and Russia, France, Germany and Italy intervene.. and a horrific world war breaks out.. lasting four years.. which we came to know as "World War I".

The conditions of "Gavrilo"'s imprisonment were harsh.. and they grew harsher with the war.. given his already weak constitution; in the end he died of illness, cold and malnutrition in 1918. And as usual.. the leftists considered him a national hero.. while people classified him as a terrorist criminal.

A lonely young man of 20.. some succeeded in manipulating his mind, and it caused the death of 70 million human beings!

And the strange thing is that during World War I the "war of minds" did not stop.

At the beginning of this war a man appears on the scene.. named "Charles Frederick Gurney Masterman".. whom we referred to yesterday.. and he lays for us a new stone in the building of the game of the war of minds.

But the foundations he laid we will talk about later.. and there remains more to say.

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References:

Previous posts:

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1 - http://bit.ly/2tPfbS9

2 - Butcher, Tim (2014). The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War.

3 - Mitrović, Andrej (2007). Serbia's Great War, 1914–1918. Purdue University Press.

3 - Craig, John S. (2005). Peculiar Liaisons: In War, Espionage, and Terrorism in the Twentieth Century.