The Assassination of the Archduke

On June 28, 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, was assassinated by a 19-year-old student, Gavrilo Princip, in Sarajevo (in the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina). Princip, a Serb living in Bosnia, was assisted in the preparations for the assassination by a Serbian revolutionary society that was trying to overthrow Austrian rule in Bosnia.

All of Europe awaited Austria-Hungary's response to the assassination. The chief of the Austrian general staff, General Franz Conrad von H ötzendorf, and the foreign minister, Count Leopold von Berchtold, both wanted to use the assassination as a pretext to absorb Serbia into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Before any action could be taken against Serbia, however, they had to secure German support, to deter Russian intervention. The kaiser promised to support the Austrian government in any action it took because he did not believe that Russia would intervene.