Taking it GLOBAL

From a global perspective, the most historical significant event to have occured in Sarajevo - perhaps in the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina - happened on June 28, 1914.

It was a typical early summer day in Sarajevo - blistering hot with skies as clear as you've ever seen. As it was St. Vitus day, Orthodox Christians in the city were enjoying festivities commemorating the 1389 defeat of Serbia and Montenegro by the Ottoman Empire. The festivities also attracted large numbers of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, most of whom were still bitterly dissapointed that Bosnia and Herzegovina had not been granted independence and was instead shuffled from one Empire to the next.

Due to an unwise decision whose makers must surely have realized the significance of June 28, the Austrian Archduke and his pregnant wife Sofia were touring Sarajevo to celebrate their 14th wedding anniversary. They knew Bosnia and Herzegovina would be a largely hostile place but they also knew, rightly, that Bosnian aristocracy would be stumbling over thereselves to kiss the hand that feeds.

Elsewhere in the city, a group of Bosnian youth - including Orthodox Christian Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Muslims - were excitedly working on their plan to assassinate the Archduke. They spread out across the city - some with bombs, some with guns - to wait for their chance.



When the Archduke and his wife headed for Sarajevo's City Hall (foreground), they headed down the Obala Kulina Bana from Latinluk, the Christian district of Sarajevo (yellow arrow). Along there way one of the Muslims in the group of Bosnian youth assassins tossed a bomb at the motorcade, but missed.

The Archduke and his wife were hurried along in their carriage to City Hall, where they met with Bosnian leaders, and then turned around to head back the way they came.

Once they were back in Latinluk, they turned to enter the street off Latin bridge, not realizing it was the wrong way. As the driver tried to back up the carriage, Gavrilo Princip - a young Bosnian Serb whose journals revealed he dreamed of a united state for all South Slavs - took his chance.



The shots made little noise and the car sped off. Potiorek looked at the couple and, at first, thought that they were unhurt. In actuality, the Archduke had been hit in the neck and Sophie in the stomach. The Archduke opened his mouth and a stream of blood poured out. Sophie cried:

"For heaven's sake, what's happened to you?"

She was in shock and unaware that she too had been shot. She then lost consciousness. Franz Ferdinand turned to his wife with the words:

"Sophie dear, Sophie dear, don't die. Stay alive for our children."

He then keeled over whispering:

"Es ist nichts, Es ist nichts..." (It is nothing, It is nothing...)

They were both dead by 11:30 that morning.

Crowds gathered along the Obala Kulina Bana, looking at the place where the couple had been shot. Still today interested tourists visit the bridge and look out across the same view of Sarajevo that was the last Franz Ferdinand and Sofia ever saw.





It later came to light that Gavrilo Princip had been trained and armed by an organization operating out of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Although his journals clearly stated he was not interested in a Greater Serbia and was acting on behalf of all the South Slav peoples, the Austrian authorities held Serbia solely accountable for the murders.

Even when it was proven the Serbian government knew nothing of the plot to the assassinate the Archduke and his wife, Austria declared war. Europe broke apart along allied lines and within a few months the Great War - the largest and most devastating war the world had ever seen - began.

On that quiet streetcorner, in that quiet neighborhood in Sarajevo - a shot was fired that was heard around the world.