As historians and those who study events and causation, the genesis for World War One is frequently debated. Let's consider the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914 as a pivotal moment in European history, marking the beginning of World War I. However, the tensions that led to this event can be traced back several years.

At the turn of the 20th century, Europe was a complex web of alliances and power struggles. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a multinational state, ruled by a Habsburg monarch who had to balance the interests of various ethnic groups and regions. One of its biggest challenges was its relations with Serbia, a small but ambitious kingdom that had recently gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. Serbia saw itself as the leader of the Slavic peoples in the Balkans and felt that its territorial expansion was necessary to fulfill this role. The Serbs, who viewed Bosnia and Herzegovina as a Slavic homeland, were furious at what they saw as a blatant effort by the Austro-Hungarian Empire to exert its influence over the region. In the following years, the Serbian government became more aggressive in its demands for independence, support of militant groups, and destabilizing the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

However, Austro-Hungary viewed Serbia as a potential threat to its own territorial integrity, viewing Serbia as a hotbed of nationalist sentiment where many of their own subjects could turn to for support. This tension flared up in 1908, when Austro-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, two provinces that had been administered by the Ottoman Empire but were now under Austro-Hungarian control. Serbia, which had hoped to annex these territories, strongly condemned this move and saw it as a violation of their national rights. The tensions that led to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand were not a sudden burst of violence, but rather the culmination of decades of sociopolitical unrest, ethnic conflicts, and imperialistic ambitions. The wounds of nationalistic movements, ethnic nationalism, and imperialistic rivalries were deep, festering, and threatening to bleed Europe dry. The Balkans stood at the center of this powder keg, and the fuse for its explosion was lit with the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary in 1908.

The situation escalated when, in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand announced his plans to visit Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was seen as a deliberate provocation by many Serbians, who viewed the Archduke as a symbol of Austro-Hungarian power and oppression. A Serbian nationalist group, known as the Black Hand, saw the opportunity for an assassination attempt and provided weapons and training to a Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip. The Black Hand, a secret Serbian society dedicated to removing the empire from the Balkans and triggering a wider rebellion, saw a chance to strike at the empire with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Gavrilo Princip, an embittered and radicalized Bosnian Serb, became the willing hand that set the pull of the trigger, plunging the world into chaos.

On 28 June 1914, Princip succeeded in shooting the Archduke and his wife as they were traveling through Sarajevo, sparking a diplomatic crisis between Austro-Hungary and Serbia that would eventually draw in the other great powers of Europe into the First World War. The events of 28 June 1914, when Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, were the spark igniting the dry powder of growing tensions that threatened to engulf Europe in a devastating war. Austria-Hungary, using the assassination as a pretext, declared war on Serbia, and the cascade of alliances, mobilization of troops, and military actions that followed would soon engulf the globe in the most catastrophic conflict the world had ever witnessed. Not only did it claim millions of lives and leave countless others scarred for life, but it also fundamentally reshaped the balance of power and the course of world history. - Scott Lyons, Ed.

Secondary sources

Beckett, Ian F. The Great War: 1914-1918. London: Routledge, 2014.

Clark, Christopher. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. New York: HarperCollins, 2013.

Ferguson, Niall. The Pity of War: Explaining World War I. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

Hastings, Max. Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War. New York: Knopf, 2013.

Strachan, Hew. The First World War: Volume I: To Arms. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.