What if Gavrilo Princip had failed at assassinating Prince Franz Ferdinand?

[DetlefK]

The first attempt had failed. It was purely bad luck that gave the assassins a second try.

Without Franz Ferdinand's death, Austria would have had no reason for military repercussions against Serbia and WWI wouldn't have happened.

Europe:
- Without WWI, Britain and Germany would have stayed on a rather neutral note. (Emperor Wilhelm II was a descendant of Queen Victoria, but the British didn't like that the german navy grew so strong.)
- Germany wouldn't have been forced to pay reparations and hand over its african colonies to other countries. No breakdown of monarchy, no democracy, no rise of Nazis, no WWII. No WWII, no Cold War.
- Without WWI, no economic and military pressure on Russia, no immediate communist revolution, but likely at a later point, because czarist Russia was a very repressive regime. The conflict between Stalin and Trotsky over Lenin's succession would have played out differently, most likely Trotsky would have won because he was friends with Lenin and Stalin would have stayed a mid-level executive. As a result, communism would have been less nationalist and violent and more of an international grassroots movement for socialism.
- Without WWII, no moment of sobering up and getting rid of nationalism in Europe. No EU.
- No civil war and genocide in the Balkan, because no animosities from WWII.
- Without WWI and WWII many monarchies in Europe still intact, because less movements towards democracy.

America:
- Without a global war, the US would have stayed with the isolationist Monroe-doctrine. No real diplomatic ties between America and Europe.
- Without a Cold War, no need for US to meddle in South-America. No anti-US sentiment in south-american countries. Very close relationship over time. Possibly eventually some pan-american alliance similar to the EU.
- With a later russian revolution, rise of socialist/communist regimes in Cuba and South-America would have happened in a different way.

Asia:
- With a later russian revolution, rise of communist China, Korea, Vietnam... would have happened in a different way.
- Without WWII, Japan would still be a monarchy and would not have subjected itself to a massive modernization movement. No japanese high-tech, no japanese whaling, some of those japanese sex-fetishes wouldn't exist.

Africa:
- Without WWI and WWII, there would have been colonies for a longer time in Africa, possibly eventually followed by bloody wars of secession, in which the Europeans would have had the better weapons. Peaceful secessions unlikely because of high nationalism in Europe.
- European rivalries possibly fought as proxy wars in Africa.

Middle-East:
- Without WWI, no breakdown of the Osman Empire, no fragmentation of the arabic/islamic community. No islamic radicalization, because the Umma would essentially still be intact.
- Without islamic radicalization and the fragmentation, the middle-eastern countries would look totally different and would be cleanly split along Sunni/Shia.
- No Zionism, because no coordinated racism against Jews. No state of Israel, instead a huge jewish community in Europe.

Technology:
- Without WWI, no invention of modern warfare like tanks, small machine-guns, bunkers, weaponized gases...
- No mass-emigration of scientists from Germany. Germany would have been the center of research on nuclear and quantum-physics. But no nuclear bomb, because no need for it.
- Space programs much smaller and more primitive without the rocket research of the Nazis.
- No german Autobahn, because no Third Reich with a taste for prestige-objects.
- Less cultural exchange in Europe because more nationalism, because no lessons learned from WWII.
- Globalization on a much smaller scale, because less trade between US and Europe, because european factories not destroyed in WWII.



To sum up:
Technology would be more primitive in general. Less cultural inter-mixing, except with the colonies.
America would be a peaceful and prospering alliance of nations.
Europe would still be a bunch of monarchies fiercely vying for influence and prestige, but Germany would be an international center of nuclear technology and research in general. Trade would enforce peace. But communists from Russia and Asia would infiltrate Europe and seek to topple the monarchic regimes.
The Middle-East would be one large community of moderate Islam, with small-scale rivalries between Sunnis and Shiites.
Africa would be split up between european colony-powers and exploited for resources. Small-scale proxy-wars. Closer political and economic ties to Europe in general. Possibly infiltration by communist agents.
Russia would be home to a slightly more liberal interpretation of communism, fixated on spreading communism in Europe by propaganda.
Asia would be communist to a large degree.

What a different world we would live in if Franz Ferdinand's driver had not taken a wrong turn.

EDIT: I guess, it would be pretty steam-punk, at least for the first half of the 20 century.

[Lionel Mandrake]

1. If Gavrilo Princip had missed but still killed or injured Franz Ferdinand's wife,

it would still have been a serious matter and Austria would have reacted strongly, but would Germany have supported Austria?

[DetlefK]

2. Yes, I think so.

The German Empire was happy to jump into WWI because
1. the german emperor was prussian and they had a militaristic culture
2. the last major war before that was Germany-vs-France and it ended with a victory for Germany

[Lionel Mandrake]

3. I think I recall reading somewhere

that Kaiser Bill had second thoughts, but by then it was too late because the Russian army had been mobilized. This suggests that it was a close call, and that in a slightly different scenario the Great War might have been averted.

On the other hand, young men in the UK were no less eager to flex their muscles and get into the war quickly, since everyone knew it would be over by Christmas.

[Lionel Mandrake]

4. More consequences for Germany and other nations ...

No WW1 means no Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 means no exodus of scientists and other scholars from Germany to the UK and US. Germany would continue to be preeminent in science and scholarship, and US universities would continue to be second rate. Our best students would learn German and do postdoctoral work in Germany. Lise Meitner would receive the honor she deserved for the discovery of nuclear fission. If the "atomic bomb" were invented anywhere, it would be in Germany. Nuclear reactors would be invented there. Germany would be the greatest power in Europe. Kaiser Bill would be in charge long after 1918, and he might get involved in some other war, because that's what Prussians do.

[thucythucy]

5. Robert Massie asked the same question

in his book "Nicholas and Alexandra."

He speculates even further. At roughly the same time Ferdinand was murdered in Bosnia, Rasputin survived an assassination attempt while visiting his home town in western Siberia. (One of the women he had raped attacked him with a butcher knife and nearly disemboweled him). Massie asks, what if Ferdinand, a man who wanted to reform the creaky Austro-Hungarian Empire and bring it into the 20th century had survived, while Rasputin, whose influence was a major factor in bringing on the Russian Revolution had died?

Perhaps a revived Austro-Hungarian Empire, rejuvenated by moderate reforms?

Perhaps no Russian revolution, but rather the course Russia had been pursuing since the revolution of 1905--a slow but steady drift into a constitutional monarchy, with a Duma assuming more and more powers, and a weak-willed monarch freed from Rasputin's reactionary influence?

How different it all might have been.