Thursday, September 25, 2008

UK: Pistol That Started WWI To Go On Display

A pistol used to assassinate the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, sparking the First World War, is to go on display for the first time in the UK.

The gun and a homemade grenade are being unveiled at the Imperial War Museum to mark the 90th anniversary of the end of a war which claimed 21 million lives.

The Archduke's assassination in Sarajevo in June 1914 started a domino effect of allied nation disputes which led to the First World War.

Other pieces in the In Memoriam: Remembering the Great War exhibition include the Victoria Cross awarded to poet and soldier Wilfred Owen and a wreath tossed into the carriage carrying Prime Minister Lloyd George after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.


Here's a picture of the pistol, a Browning 1910 in .380ACP, according to Wikipedia:



Also, this is the first I've heard that Wilfred Owen received the Victoria Cross. I think that is in error; Owen received the Military Cross posthumously, according to Wikipedia and other biographies I've read.

No comments: