On a summer morning in Sarajevo almost a hundred years ago, a teenager took a pistol out of his pocket and fired not just the opening rounds of the First World War but the starting gun for modern history. By killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the assassin, Gavrilo Princip, started an unstoppable cycle of events that would define the twentieth century. Tim Butcher retraces Princip's journey from his home village, through the mountains of the northern Balkans to the great plain city of Belgrade and ultimately Sarajevo, and illuminates our understanding - of both the person and the place that shaped him. On his journey Tim makes discoveries about Princip that have eluded historians for a hundred years, meets relatives still living in the village and draws on his own experiences there as a reporter during the war of the 1990s. As he tracks down the ghosts of past wars, Tim also faces his own memories of his first experience of war. In telling the story of this young man who changed the world forever, Tim unravels this complex part of the world and its conflicts, and shows how the events that were sparked that day in June 1914 have echoes that can still be heard today. Part whodunit, part travelogue, part history, The Trigger is a rich and timely work that uses the drama of Princip's story to tease out the First World War's origins and other key events born of his homeland. Enlightening, accessible and important u it is a unique way in to a man and his country.
