Wild Works: '100: The Day Our World Changed':
THE MOTORCYCLIST
NEWSFLASH - WildWorks Twitter account has been hijacked by a strange looking motorcyclist. He says he's from 1914... http://t.co/LEMIiQ8OCn
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 3, 20143rd July 1914: 6 days ago, 28th June, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, was killed before my eyes.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 3, 2014Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot here in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip when their car stalled.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 3, 2014Since June 28th and the deaths in the Franz Josef Strasse this city has seethed in its siege of mountains, a midden brewing something foul
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 3, 2014So many fights are being spoiled for, so many Powers thinking this must be their moment. There are prizes to be seized through war
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 3, 2014Again a night without sleep. Sarajevo’s darkness is full of life – marching boots, shouts, murmurs. Here all comes to crux
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 4, 2014Amar has sent word – the magneto has arrived from Germany, and two spares. There is kindness still in Sarajevo in July 1914.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 4, 2014In the street outside Amar’s workshop I pedal the Triumph back into life. The local people cheer, one cries ‘Allah akbar!’
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 4, 2014I will leave Sarajevo at dawn. Thank God. I believe I have witnessed the first unravelling of all we have known. Please hear my message
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 4, 2014July 5th 1914: with first light I leave Sarajevo for Belgrade. The Triumph runs well through the wooded valleys, plains and farms.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 5, 2014Noon: the Serbian border. Soldiers watch each other across the Drina Bridge, waiting for the war all their leaders want, on their own terms
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 5, 2014When you ride you’re alone. You think. Behind Austria-Hungary, before, Serbia. Imagined lines. If no one drew maps could there ever be war?
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 5, 2014Evening: Belgrade. I hear talk of Princip the hero, killing for the honour of the Slavs, the creation of a pan-Slavic state: Yugoslavia.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 5, 2014July 5th 1914. Ours is an old Empire. Here the old is abraded by the new: fading Austria Hungary, upstart Serbia. Both must try their luck.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 5, 2014Serbia gains by eating away at decaying Habsburgs to the North, Ottomans to the South. It is wild youth spoiling for a fight.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 5, 2014Nationalism is the new word I hear: the errant child of the merchant states who must manipulate their masses to believe that they exist
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 5, 2014I realise my plans have changed. I no longer aim for the sun of the south but for the war furnaces of the North in the old blood trade
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 5, 2014July 6th 1914: away at dawn on the road to Budapest, crossing into Austria-Hungary almost immediately. Belgrade is vulnerable.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 6, 2014At the border, suspicious eyes ask why I cross. I say there is no war yet, demand free passage. Then the Triumph will not start.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 6, 2014I pedal to no avail. The Hungarians laugh, then push till the engine fires. We drink Tokai to each other. To Peace. But soon we will war.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 6, 2014The incident at the border leaves me behind schedule. I push on into the evening but am forced to stop at a town called Subotica.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 6, 2014July 7th 1914. Subotica is a town of Serbs, Hungarians, Jews together. Soon these people will kill each other on behalf of others.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 7, 2014.@I_W_M I ride through flat lands. It is easy to imagine great armies of history sweeping across this plain. Soon they will again.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 7, 2014Wars have flowed through here since times before time, taking everything. Who of these people understood why they suffered? Who would care?
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 7, 2014In late afternoon I arrive in Budapest, twin capital of this ageing empire. Stupid plumed noblemen parade moustaches and sabres.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 7, 2014July 8th 1914, Budapest- Heroes Square, huge new statues of the Seven Magyar Chieftains seem to glare their approval of the coming inferno.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 8, 2014Budapest does not feel itself the equal of Vienna in the empire. Resentment against Austria burns – another issue in the horror awaiting us
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 8, 2014The newspapers and cafés are full of the German Kaiser’s ‘blank cheque’ to Austria-Hungary to do as they please with the Serbs
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 8, 2014Evening in another strange city. I feel a new solitude. Is nobody hearing these warning messages? Why does no one reply?
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 8, 2014July 9th 1914: early on the road to Vienna the true heart of this war-built empire. Much activity around the railway yards.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 9, 2014Riding through fertile land, everlastingly flat, perfect for supplying men under arms.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 9, 2014Austria-Hungary is renewing itself for war, calling up reservists who are seen to leave their homes in every town. So many sorrows.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 9, 2014Why do we not simply say no to this? Why do we everlastingly accord with war, defer to the warriors?
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 9, 2014July 10th 1914 Vienna. There is much excitement about events. At breakfast I am asked for news from the east. I pretend not to understand.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 10, 2014The city is full of talk and preparation. The Ministerial Council has been meeting. Meanwhile the German Kaiser has gone on holiday.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 10, 2014An ultimatum to Serbia is being prepared. It will be designed to be impossible to satisfy. Then – war.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 10, 2014The fear here is that Russia will go to war on behalf of Serbia. German collaboration is necessary to deter this.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 10, 2014July 11th 1914: to the telegraph office through the strutting streets, seeking messages from home. Nothing awaits me.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 11, 2014In Sarajevo, in Belgrade, in Budapest: I found no replies to my warnings. And now here, the same silence. Will nobody hear me?
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 11, 2014I place telephone calls to those few I know with an apparatus, to the Foreign Office. I need to speak, to say what I have seen. None reply.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 11, 2014Carrying this burden alone, tomorrow I leave for the true heart of this spiral, Berlin, via Prague. I must foresee the worst that will be.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 11, 2014July 12th 1914: North West from Vienna into the hills and forests of dark Europe. I feel so far from the great plain of Hungary.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 12, 2014Into Bohemia, a long day’s ride. Passing, I frighten horses, threatening their laden carts. At their heads the peasants fight for control.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 12, 2014On the roadside, victualling between silent forests, a sullen column of soldiers, grey clad, so unlike the peacocks of Vienna.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 12, 2014I come to Prague, watched by statues on the rooftops as silent as those resentful infantry; this is empire, not Imperialist.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 12, 2014July 13th 1914: Prague, a conquered city, not a city of conquerors. Still no message at the telegraph office.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 13, 2014#Prague #1914 pic.twitter.com/y9xTTdkRkh
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 13, 2014The purposes of empires: glory, but also money. Prague grows in resentment but still they will fight, against their own interests.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 13, 2014Prague has risen before against the Empire. When all is over, who knows what new borders there may be.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 13, 2014July 14th 1914: north to Dresden, a hundred miles between empires. I cross the border into the German Reich.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 14, 2014This is a journey between nature’s world of hand and eye into the brown cloud weather of heavy industry.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 14, 2014pre #ww1 #map of Germany
The road from Prague to Dresden pic.twitter.com/j7rqNkRNWs
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 14, 2014Germany is a new country, only forty years old, a country of blood and iron addicted to ambition and success.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 14, 2014#ww1 #Battalion of #soldiers raised in Saxony near Dresden 1914 pic.twitter.com/1BhexhSmHC
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 14, 2014Dresden holds a garrison of twenty thousand soldiers. In her old streets I see cartloads of new munitions. A wait is almost over.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 14, 2014early to Dresden telegraph office
Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1987-079-03
http://t.co/4Q4NXBoAMz. pic.twitter.com/Su1cFXzVVg
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 15, 2014Again that silence of the aether. There is no response because you do not want to hear.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 15, 2014Potsdam, Kaiser Willhelm’s Neues Palais. Built of course to celebrate war, the Seven Years War. What new building will we soon see here?
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 15, 2014Potsdam, Neues Palais pic.twitter.com/4KVpQxP7Bf
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 15, 2014Europe lies at the mercy of emperors teetering on towers of flattery and self-importance: Willhelm, Franz Josef, Nicholas, George.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 15, 2014Onward into night: a few miles and I am in Berlin.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 15, 2014#Berlin 1914: the #streets are charged with energy. Everything accelerates towards inevitable #war. #ww1 #Germany pic.twitter.com/72tfZUrWT2
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 16, 2014Those events triggered by pathetic bloody corpses in a car a thousand miles behind me are greeted here as a gold lode.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 16, 2014In Berlin 1914 the manipulations of cause and effect through the arts of opportunity are as fundamental as birth, life and death.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 16, 2014If I could manipulate my heart to find an acceptability to war so many anxieties would fall away and I would be embraced in Berlin streets.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 16, 2014July 17th 1914. In the Reichstag the Social Democrats hold the majority but this means little in Kaiser Wilhelm’s world.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 17, 2014Anyway the Social Democrats now too embrace the coming conflict. It would achieve nothing for them to do otherwise.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 17, 2014Why is the army so powerful here? A taste for war seeps from the old military caste of Prussia through its continuing power in the Reich.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 17, 2014A giant electric sign high over the streets: ‘Shokolade’. Chocolate rains down on Berlin’s cafes and hotels tonight. This is a rich city.
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 17, 2014July 18th 1914. Germany will fight for the overseas empire to which she feels entitled, taken from Britain and France, ‘A Place in the Sun’
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 18, 2014Are we entitled to the lands & lives of others? Dreams of exotic plunder lead us towards our own deaths. pic.twitter.com/nfPoGMlqk7
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 18, 2014Helmuth Von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff, in 1912: ‘I consider war to be unavoidable, and the sooner the better.’
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 18, 2014Kaiser Wilhelm II: ‘To employ suitable, and, if necessary, violent means ruthlessly is my duty, my fair privilege.’
— WILDWORKS (@WILD_WORKS) July 18, 2014