a vague warning to Vienna that the archduke
would be in danger when he visited Sarajevo.
The amateur assassins almost bungled their
task. On the morning of 28 June, the first attempt
failed and the bomb thrown by one of the six con-
spirators exploded under the car following the
archduke. Incredibly the archduke, his wife and
the governor of Bosnia drove through the open
streets again the same afternoon. When the
archduke’s chauffeur hesitated which way to go, by
mere chance one of the conspirators, Gavrilo
Princip, found himself opposite the archduke’s
stationary car. He aimed two shots at the archduke
and the governor of Bosnia; they mortally
wounded Franz Ferdinand and his wife.
The government of Serbia did not want war in
1914, for the country had not yet recovered from
the exertions of the Balkan wars. But the gov-
ernment could not control the army nor prevent
the secret societies from fomenting and aiding
anti-Habsburg movements in Bosnia and Herze-
govina. The assassination of the archduke was
unwelcome news to the government, for the king
and his government would now be called to
account for allowing anarchical political condi-
tions which gave the terrorists their base and
power.
In Vienna, the Dual Monarchy’s foreign minister,
Count Berchtold, before those fateful shots at
Sarajevo had given no serious thought to war. He
did not judge the internal state of the Habsburg
Monarchy as so desperate. Serbia and Russia would
surely be restrained by firm Austro-Hungarian
diplomacy backed by imperial Germany. The
Habsburgs could continue to rely upon the divi-
sions and mutual antagonisms of their Slav sub-
jects. The Slovenes were Catholics and loyal to the
Crown. The Croats were Catholics too, and union
with the Greek Orthodox Serbs was opposed by
the majority of them. Nor were the Serbs in favour
of any general union of southern Slavs, ‘Yugo-
slavia’, which would place them in the minority of
such a new state. They dreamt of a ‘Greater
Serbia’, but this would have placed the Croats in a
minority. The idea of ‘Yugoslavia’ had won the
adherence of only a minority of students and
intellectuals. The majority of the southern Slavs
had no thought of leaving the Habsburg
Monarchy in 1914.
Every Austro-Hungarian minister since 1909
realised that the threat to the existence of the
Habsburg Empire was due not to the challenge
of any of the small Balkan states such as Serbia,
but to Russia utilising Balkan discontents against
the Dual Monarchy. That is why the misunder-
standing and dispute between Russia and Austria-
Hungary – the so-called Bosnian crisis – was such
a significant milestone on the road to war.
Russia had been forced to back down when
faced with Germany’s determined support of
Austria-Hungary. In this way, the changed status
of two provinces in the Balkans – which made no
real difference to the map of Europe – led to dis-
astrous consequences out of all proportion to the
issues involved. Henceforth, the good Austro-
Russian understanding, designed to prevent
the two powers from becoming so entangled in
local Balkan conflicts that thereby they could be
dragged into hostility with each other, was
broken by crises that threatened the peace of
Europe. Rivalry, suspicion and intrigue in the
Balkans replaced the cooperation of former years.
The final crisis was occasioned by the assassina-
tion of the archduke.
In Vienna, news of the assassination entirely
changed the attitude of Berchtold and the
majority of the Monarchy’s ministers. A diplo-
matic offensive was no longer thought enough.
Habsburg prestige was now so seriously involved
that, unless Serbia was ‘punished’, the empire’s
role as a great power would be at an end. Serbia
could not be allowed to get away with this last
and most serious provocation by sheltering
behind Russia. If the Monarchy could prove that
Russian protection could not save Serbia from its
wrath, the lesson would not be lost on the other
Balkan states and Austria-Hungary’s international
position of power would be reasserted. Berchtold
concluded that Serbia’s hostility must be broken
and that only Serbian submission to the will of
the Monarchy should be allowed to save it from
war and conquest.
There were three obstacles. The Austro-
Hungarian army was not ready for war: it would
need more than a month to prepare. The chief of
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