First World War Began in Restaurant in France? July 3, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary , trackback
***Dedicated to Ricardo who sent the photos and the story***
The Bibent is a plush restaurant in central Toulouse: on Trip Advisor it had got (at least as of this evening) a very respectable 178 Excellents out of 537. Of course, no place could go 150 years without picking up some history, in the same way that the undersoles of slippers pick up dirt. And the Bibent has had its share of adventures and traumas. This was the first restaurant in France that sold beer on tap, for example. It was the restaurant where Jean Jaure, Europe’s most likeable nineteenth-century socialist used to eat and drink. But all of this is as nothing to a claim made on the menu.
C’est auss au Bibent que trois étudiants serbes inscrits à la faculté de lettres et affiliés à la societé panslave La Main Noire, conçurent les plans de l’assassinat qui devait coûter la vie le 28 juin 1914 à Sarajevo, à l’archiduc d’Autriche, François Ferdinand. La Première Guerre Mondiale aurait-elle commence à la terrasse du Bibent?
It was, too, at the Bibent that three Serbian students, enrolled at the Literature Faculty and members of the Black Hand, Panslav society, put together their plans to assassinate the Archduke Franz Ferdinand who was killed 28 June 1914. Did the First World War begin on the terrace of the Bibent?
After dropping that bomb the menu returns to some pleasant nonsense about hoping that you will have a nice time in our restauant etc etc. But all the diner can see across the way are the three students speaking death to power. Suddenly Jean Jaure pushes his table away from him and begins to sing about the poppies of Flanders: the ladies with foxtale furs chorus ‘don’t do it’, ‘don’t do it…’ You’re in hell, you’ve walked into a musical.
Ok so much for the lyrical interlude. But seriously did it really happen?
Some facts. (i) There was an important Serb nationalist meeting in Toulouse in January of 1914 involving members of the Black Hand. (iii) Only three came to the meeting. (ii) The three discussed acts of terror including an attempt on Franz Ferdinand’s life.
Those present were Muhamed Mehmedbašić (a particularly incompetent recent recruit), Mustafa Golubić (who was from the same village); and Vladimir Gacinović, a Bosnian director of the Black Hand. Two others were supposed to show up from Paris but never actually did: they hadn’t been able to afford the train fare. In fact, the Bosnian delegation also had problems but MM got some money by freeing two of his father’s serfs. It is not exactly Al Quaeda is it?
There are also, though, problems with the Bibent’s versions of events.
(I) None of these three were resident in Toulouse or enrolled in the literature faculty. Golubić was a law student at Lausanne. Mehmedbašić was a cabinet maker.
(II) They met not at the Bibent but at the Hôtel St. Jérôme: or was this an old name for the Bibent?!
(III) Though the three talked about killing Franz Ferdinand they concentrated on the murder of General Potiorek (Austro-Hungarian Governor of Bosnia). In fact, Muhamed Mehmedbašić headed back to Serbia to kill Potiorek but then got cold feet and threw his gun and cyanide pill out of the window. (I can just about understand getting rid of a gun, but what self respecting spy ditches his suicide pill?)
The story at this point crumbles: can anyone speak for the defence or is this unalloyed cobblers? drbeachcombing at yahoo DOT com
