The government now had a legitimate grievance against Belgrade, one that might persuade other powers to stand aside and let the Habsburgs deal militarily with their unruly neighbour.

However, with the assassination, a golden opportunity existed to resolve the issue permanently. Despite their best efforts Serbia kept growing in size and power. The conflict was an intractable one and, from the Austrian point of view, highly problematic. Austria believed (rightly) that the Serb government had designs on its territory and was fermenting discontent among its south Slav subjects the new Serbian government believed (rightly) that excessive Austrian influence would place limits on its independence. Ever since the May Coup of 1903, which had seen the murder of pro-Austrian King Alexander Obrenović and the installation of the pro-Russian Peter Karađorđević, relations between the Habsburg monarchy and Serbia had been fraught. The key issue for them was that the assassination was a golden opportunity to settle scores with Serbia. While they had no proof of this, the absence of evidence was beside the point as far as Austria’s leaders were concerned. No one actually went to war in August 1914 for love or hatred of Franz Ferdinand rather the assassination enabled the leaders of two countries that desired to alter the balance of power in Europe in their favour to implement schemes for achieving this.įor Austria-Hungary, the assassination of the Habsburg archduke by a young and fanatical Serbian nationalist inevitably made the rulers in Vienna suspect that the authorities in Belgrade were somehow behind this act of terrorism. There was a direct connection between the assassination and the ensuing conflict, but it was a hazy one. A little over a month later Europe was ablaze. On 28 June 1914 Gavrilo Princip shot and killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.

Franz ferdinand archduke