The Balkan Peninsula is located between the three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea in the south and the Dardanelles Strait in the east, which is an extremely important Eurasian land bridge. Since the 19th century, Russia has wanted to open up the passage of the Mediterranean, the Austro-Hungarian Empire attempted to expand south to the Adriatic Sea, Britain and France needed to protect the sea passage to India and the Far East, so the Balkan Peninsula became a region where the great powers were chasing deer, known as the "European powder depot", and the fuse of the First World War was triggered in the Balkan Peninsula.
At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of nationalists seized power in Serbia, and with the support of Russia, they pursued anti-Austro-Hungarian policies that were gradually seen as a threat by Austria-Hungary. After the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, it wanted to annex neighboring Serbia. Serbia was an ambitious small country that wanted to merge Bosnia and Herzegovina to form a "Greater Serbia", and the contradictions with austria-Hungary gradually became irreconcilable.
28 June 1914 was a special day for Archduke Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, both as a wedding anniversary and later as a death day. To celebrate, Archduke Ferdinand and his wife visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had been annexed six years earlier, and before that visit, Ferdinand held talks with The German Emperor Wilhelm II, who considered Tsarist Russia to be in difficulty and temporarily unable to intervene in the Balkans. Wilhelm II suggested that serbia should be used at this time, and if Russia intervened, Germany would come to the aid of Austria-Hungary, and Ferdinand, who was at ease, visited Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia.
June 28 is Ferdinand's wedding anniversary, but it is a day of national shame for Serbs. On June 28, 1389, the combined Serbs and Bosnian forces were defeated by turkey, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire chose this day for military exercises, and Archduke Ferdinand visited the exercises and visited Sarajevo, which was extremely challenging to the Serbs. The Serbian nationalists were indignant and prepared to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, and the Serbian government reported the news to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but the Austro-Hungarian authorities ignored it.
When Ferdinand's visit to Sarajevo began, the city government made the welcome ceremony very lively, with Archduke Ferdinand sitting in an open-top car waving to people on the side of the road, while a group of Assassins from Serbia were waiting with bombs and pistols. The army was in the field, and Archduke Ferdinand did not want to associate the visit with the army, resulting in loopholes in the defense measures, so that there were only some scattered gendarmes, and many people speculated that the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not value Ferdinand's life.
As the convertible reached the Appel pier, the first assassin dropped a bomb, which exploded behind the convertible, leaving the Ferdinands unscathed. The convoy was forced to change its route and go directly to the museum, and when it reached an intersection called the Latin Bridge, the car suddenly broke down and stopped, and the 17-year-old who was lurking there suddenly fired two shots in a row, one hitting Archduke Ferdinand in the neck and one hitting Ferdinand's wife, Sophia, in the abdomen, and 15 minutes later, the Ferdinands died one after another.
The Assassin, a Serbian middle school student named Principe, was only 17 years old at the time, and a series of accidental factors brought him to him, and he also became a national hero of Serbia for assassinating Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. He was later sentenced to 20 years in prison for intentional injury, had his arm removed for health problems during his imprisonment, and died of tuberculosis in 1918. What appears to be normal death is in fact inevitable due to starvation, servitude and harsh medical conditions.
The death of Archduke Ferdinand triggered a chain reaction, and the day after the assassination, a large-scale parade was held in Serbia to celebrate, and the Serbs in Austria-Hungary also hoped to return to Serbia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was unstable. The Habsburg dynasty of austria-Hungary was not a nationalist regime, the Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, and Serbs in the territory were fighting for independence, even the Hungarians were not very reliable, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire urgently needed to divert internal contradictions, so it issued an ultimatum to Serbia.
In the Ten Articles of the Ultimatum, Serbia rejected articles 5 and 6 as a violation of Serbian sovereignty, and Austria-Hungary refused all mediation and declared war on Serbia. When Archduke Ferdinand was killed, Kaiser Wilhelm II was on a yacht and demanded the elimination of Serbia during a meeting with the Austro-Hungarian envoys, and if war broke out, Germany would stand with austria-Hungary. At the same time, Germany also warned Russia that if Russia sent troops to support Serbia, Germany would not hesitate to fight a war! With the assurances of Wilhelm II, Austria-Hungary dared to refuse mediation and declare war on Serbia.
On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary officially declared war on Serbia, marking the beginning of World War I. On July 30, Russia announced an increase of 900,000 active troops and a recruitment of 4 million reserve troops, which Russia wanted to use to scare Germany and Austria-Hungary, but Germany could not afford to delay the war, and on August 1 Germany declared war on Russia, which was obviously counterproductive. On August 2, the Germans entered Luxembourg; on August 3, Germany declared war on France; on August 4, Germany declared war on Belgium and Britain declared war on Germany; on August 5, austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, and World War I broke out in full swing.
Finally, enjoy watching foreigners pay a little attention to their rivalry!