Why Did the Assassination in Sarajevo Lead to the Outbreak of War in 1914?

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Matthew Dobson        10/05/2007        History

                Mr Wright

Unit 2 - Assessment

Why Did the Assassination in Sarajevo Lead to the Outbreak of War in 1914?

According to Source A only, three of the consequences of the assassination in Sarajevo were that firstly it gave Austro-Hungary the opportunity it had been looking for to bully Serbia into submission. It also led to Russia joining in the war to protect Serbia from Austro-Hungarian attack. The last thing it did was it involved Germany, who immediately prepared to invade Belgium and France.

        

On the day of 28th June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne visited Sarajevo, in Bosnia to watch his troops on manoeuvres and to promote better relations with the Bosnians. This was a publicly announced event, which had been planned for weeks and published in several newspapers. He arrived by train in the morning wearing the royal colours of Austria, light blue military uniform with black trousers and a big black hat. This was one of the many mistakes he made that day as the Bosnian (Serbian) people wanted to leave Austria and join Serbia. It also happened to be ‘National Slavs Day,’ one of the days the Serbs and Bosnians would feel a large resent for the Austrians who ruled them.

        The Archduke was then driven along the main road in an open-topped car before thousands of cheering, and not cheering, Bosnians. However, the Black Hand Gang, a Serbian terrorist group who wanted freedom from Austro-Hungary, had planned an assassination on the Archduke. The group who decided to kill the Archduke were made from Serbian nationalists who were prepared to die for their cause.

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        As the Archduke was driven down the main road the first of the assassins struck, he through a grenade at the Archduke’s car then drank the cyanide each of them had been given. However, neither the cyanide nor the grenade had the desired effect: the grenade, although it went towards the Archduke’s car, was deflected by the Archduke himself and hit the car behind, wounding some of the bystanders and the people in the car. The cyanide, which all the members of the Black Hand Gang had sworn to take, was old and was not strong enough to kill, only ...

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