The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
The morning of June 28th 1914 will be a day that forever changed the world as it is known. While traveling in a motorcade through Sarajevo, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated by a Serbian Black Hand Nationalist.( Goff, R) The Archduke had ignored warnings of a possible assassination plot and decided to go anyway.( Strokes bury, J.L) The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was known as the lethal spark that ignited World War I. Bosnia and Herzegovina were provinces just south of Austria, which had, until 1878, been governed by the Turks. (Gilbert, M.) The Treaty of Berlin, in 1878, settled the situation of lands lost by the Turks following their devastating war with Russia. On October 6, 1908, Austria took Serbia straight into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (Goff, R) The Annexation would remove any hopes the Serbs might have had of getting back the provinces. Several Bosnian-Serbs felt a strong nationalistic desire to have their province joined with other Serbian contacts. (McDonald, L.) Several Serbians clearly shared the same desire. When Franz Ferdinand was assigned head of the army, he went to Bosnia to represent the Emperor at the Grand Maneuvers. (Straubing, H.E.) This was the first time the Archduke had an official visit to Bosnia.( Kann, R.A.) Before Ferdinand went to Bosnia the Serbian, Minister had doubt the logic of the trip, saying the country was in a very chaotic condition and the Serbian part of the population might organize a plot against the Archduke.( Gilbert, M.) The also Minister thought if the Archduke went he should definitely leave his wife at home, because Bosnia was no place for a woman in its current distressed state.( Gilbert, M.) The archduke was chosen as a target by the Black Hand because they feared that he would continue and even increase the discrimination of Serbs living within the empire after he took the throne.
