That photo was taken a couple of days before, and as you will see, they were wearing different clothes on the day in Sarajevo, but that is certainly them. I wanted to start with this picture here of a couple who are about to have what I think can only fairly be described as a very bad day. I wanted to begin by taking us back to the 28th of June 1914, which I think is the right place to begin, we should begin at the very beginning, the very best place to start, in the words of the famous song, especially since this is the first lecture in a long series on 1914, and of course it does all in a sense start - not everything, not all the back stories of 1914 start on the 28th of June, but certainly the sort of short history of the causes immediates, the immediate causes, “les causes prochaines”, as Pierre Renouvin called the, they do begin on the 28th of June, and there is a dramatic drama and identity to the events of that day, which I think repays revisiting them. It is indeed a matter of great pride to be succeeding Sir Richard as Regius Professor, though I want to reinforce his comment about the duties of the professorship – that are rather moderate and that is one of the key attractions of that post. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking Sir Richard Evans and Valerie Shrimplin for inviting me to present this lecture this evening, and I would like also to thank all of you for coming along, and I would like to thank, and also apologise to, the people who are standing outside, and one hopes perhaps watching this from home in the form of a podcast for the fact that they could not get in.
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