Ache for Gavrilo

So, the other day I got up early as always, went for a haircut, visited Tesco, and wandered home where I stood around making mince, with lots of whatevers thrown in, all well within my capabilities.  However,  I had to be clever with it.  

After lunch that day, instead of taking it easy, I rushed out to finish weeding the front, a job I failed to finish a couple of weeks ago.  As I pulled and packed into the black plastic bag I realised this may be a mistake.  I cut down the other bush, aching somewhat, and pulled what major weeds I could see just to make things appear better than they are.

I ached, and dumped the bag illegally into the black bag wheelie and retired upstairs.

Yesterday, aching and finding it difficult to walk without letting my neighbours know I was aching, I dumped the recycling ready for Friday collection.  Then I found myself thinking I had done a better job than I realised when it became clear that he landlords man had been and weeded all around, including those areas I dared not touch!  If only I had known he was coming!

This annoyed me much more today as when I rose I could not walk at all.  Stiff and aching I forced myself about by clinging on to anything that did not move.  Thus I came to realise I would not make Sunday, where I was down for intercessions, and informed the leader that I would not make it.  

Naturally he, and later the vicar, prayed for healing and so after an hour or so I could feel improvement already, much earlier than expected.  

But I will still avoid the long walk to Kirk on Sunday.

How awful that something that once took an hour, leaving the job done well, leaves me crippled for days.  What happened here?   

On 28th June 1914 Gavrilo Princip shot the Archduke Ferdinand and his loving wife.  A simple act you might think, one many have accomplished in a wide variety of nations, but it is not the act which counts, though it did to the Archduke and his wife, it was the consequences.

Sin has consequences, Princip was set upon by the crowd, jailed and suffered greatly dying in April 1918 in prison from TB.  The proud Austrians, more proud than militarily capable, demanded absurd  reparations from Serbia, though they were not involved but a senior secret police officer was, and so Austria made the mistake of invading Serbia.

The Russians, would not be ready for war until 1917 and the leading men were not as efficient as they ought to be, made clear their support for Slavic Serbia.  But this alarmed the Germans, who's officer corps were more than ready for war, and likewise the French who were also, they thought, ready for war.  

The United Kingdom stood aloof from all this, more worried about rebellion in Ireland than European adventures.

The Russians part mobilised, the Germans took the hint and mobilised and sped towards France via Belgium, The Russians mobilised fully, The Belgians wee army stoutly defended in a David and Goliath struggle, and France began wasting thousands of their men attacking German machine guns.  France lost more men in 1914 then the UK lost in the whole of the second world war!  By August 4th the British Army was sending divisions across the channel to participate in what most political leaders and men in the street thought would be a short war.  'Home by Christmas' was the cry!  

The UK war cabinet was shocked when Lord Kitchener, for it was he in charge of the army, informed them that the war would last at least three years and we need another 100,000 men.

One little shot fired to give Serbia freedom from the Austro-Hungarian domination produced around 10 million dead soldiers, untold misery, a changed world, and leaves an effect upon us to this day.

Think carefully before you fire a gun. 

John Osborn Brown - Belah Viaduct 1859