Assassination of Franz Ferdinand Anniversary: When World War One Started

On June 28, 1914, the heir to the throne of the Austo-Hungarian Empire was touring the newly acquired province of Bosnia with his wife Sophie.  The Archduke felt it was important to visit Slavic parts of the empire, but many of the local ethnic Serb population wanted nothing more than to separate from this foreign empire and join with the independent Kingdom of Serbia.

To this end, the Serbian terrorist organization called the Black Hand (which had support from the Serbian intelligence service), plotted a daring attack on this walking symbol of Austrian oppression.  In the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, the assassins launched their attack.  A bombing failed, but when the Archduke’s car turned down a street to get away from the first attempt, they drove right by a young teenaged Serb named Gavrilo Princip, who was armed with a handgun.

He fired his gun, striking both the Archduke and his wife.  Both died.  Princip was arrested and put in prison.  The Austrian government, who had long been bothered by the existence of Serbia, saw this as an opportunity to put intense pressure on their southern neighbor. Austria issued an ultimatum that would have made Serbia little more than a client state.  The Serbs refused, in part because they knew that their old ally and patron, Russia, was supporting them.  On the Austrian side, Germany supported the Austrians.  

The Serbs rejected the ultimatum, and on July 28, one month to the day after the death of the Archduke, Austrian troops invaded Serbia.  From that point, the web of alliances and enmities that had flowed through Europe for decades all moved into place. And so it began. Germany, Russia, and France lived up to their alliances, and within days of the attack on Serbia, a major war had broken out in Europe. The war would spread to include Belgium, Britain, Italy, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, Romania, Canada, the United States, and Japan.  

All because of one teenaged assassin with one handgun and two deaths.