Archduke’s Assassins and Fatal History of Sarajevo

Sarajevo is one of those unfortunate places whose past is impossible to forget. From the trial-and-error shot (well, not exactly) to the successful assassination of Archduke Ferdinand (which started the Great War) to the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, this Bosnian city has played a significant role in world history.
Are you familiar with the story? At least, you should be – So, continue reading. This is the history of Sarajevo, the history of Europe, that affected the whole world.

It’s a late June evening, and Sarajevo’s historic old town, Baščaršija, is still full of life.
The terraces of the street-side restaurants are crowded with people enjoying a beer or a coffee.
From a five-hundred-year-old mosque, worshippers stream out after evening prayer, and some of them might sit down for a drink as well.
The atmosphere is relaxed, and the streets are lively.

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If you prefer to read in Finnish, continue here / Jos luet mieluummin suomeksi, jatka tänne: Sarajevon historia ravisteli Eurooppaa

1.

The History of Sarajevo Changed the World

Poor Sarajevo is not one of those cities whose tourism officials were handed an easy start in their careers.
They could have, had the city’s history gone a different way, but the word Sarajevo still echoes war.

Baščaršija, the historic bazaar in the center of Sarajevo, is a vibrant, multicultural testament to the centuries-long Ottoman influence in Europe. The 1984 Winter Olympics were a success and fondly remembered. The Olympic venues still exist, though now in a rather dilapidated state.
Almost immediately beyond the small, shallow Miljacka River that cuts through the city, rise dramatically the Dinaric Alps, mountains that instantly stir a hiker’s imagination. Also, at least for a tourist, Sarajevo is still affordable.

Sarajevo’s history is intriguing and runs deep. Due to its religious diversity, the city is often referred to as “the Jerusalem of Europe.” Its 500-year-old Jewish cemetery is the second-largest in Europe, right after Prague’s.
History is visible everywhere in the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and even a casual visitor can’t avoid bumping into it.
Yet, for many people, the word Sarajevo still reminds them of war and destruction.

World War started in this city, and Sarajevo’s nearly four-year-long siege during the Bosnian War shocked and angered those watching the news night after night.
From the surrounding mountains, the city was an easy target for shelling. Even today, hiking there is only allowed along clearly marked, mine-cleared paths.
The city’s multicultural identity, and that of the whole country, suffered heavily during those years, even if it had been tested before.

2.

Bombs and Young Bosnians

We’ve descended from the mountains surrounding Sarajevo back to the heart of the city. Together with our friend Jukka, who lives in Sarajevo, we stand by a surprisingly narrow stone bridge, just a stone’s throw from the heart of Baščaršija. Only one traffic lane can fit across it.

This is the Latin Bridge, the place where, on June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was shot dead along with his wife in their car. They were also the first shots of the Great War.
Behind the assassination and its conspiracy were the Young Bosnians, a group of radical Bosnian Serbs seeking to break Bosnia away from Austria, which had annexed the region in 1908.

The conspirators were armed and trained by The Black Hand. It was a secret terrorist organization run by officers of the Serbian military intelligence service, whose goal was the creation of a Greater Serbia.
The Archduke, ironically, supported granting Bosnia greater autonomy to weaken Serbia’s influence, which made him an enemy of the Black Hand. Franz Ferdinand had come to Sarajevo to open the new premises of the National Museum – an opportunity the conspirators found too good to miss.

By coincidence, the date was Vidovdan (St. Vitus Day) – the day when Ottomans defeated Serbia, in 1389, at the Battle of Kosovo Polje. For the conspirators, it was a symbolic nationalist spark that further fueled the plot.

3.

Misfortune Saved the Archiduke’s – and the 1st Assassin’s Life

The Archduke’s motorcade traveled through the city toward the town hall for an official reception.
Even before the fatal shots, one of the conspirators, Nedeljko Čabrinović, threw a bomb at the car, but it bounced off and exploded under the following vehicle, injuring several people.

In a tragically comic twist, Čabrinović swallowed a cyanide capsule and jumped into the Miljacka River, trying to drown himself.
When we visited Sarajevo, it was June. The river was already very shallow, as it had been in late July 1914, when the water level was only 13 centimeters (5,1 inches).
To make matters worse for the poor assassin, the cyanide provided by the Black Hand had expired and caused nothing more than vomiting.
The police quickly fished the nauseated would-be killer from the river, where the angry crowd beat him up before the officers managed to drag him away.

4.

Assassination That Changed the World

From today’s perspective, it seems strange that Franz Ferdinand was not immediately taken to safety after the first attack.
Instead, he continued to the town hall, listening to the mayor’s welcoming speech in his bloodstained ceremonial uniform.
The agitated Archduke interrupted the speech to remark that it wasn’t very pleasant to be pelted with bombs when one comes to visit a city.

After the speech, he decided to visit the wounded in the hospital.
He was never meant to be on the Latin Bridge at that fatal moment, but due to a communication error, the motorcade took the wrong route.

On the narrow bridge, the mistake was noticed; the cars stopped and began to reverse.
By coincidence, one of the conspirators, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, happened to be standing nearby.
He seized the opportunity, jumped onto the running board of the car, and fired two fatal shots at the Archduke and his wife.

In Vienna, the news of the murder didn’t even cause people to rise from their café chairs. It was received mostly with indifference. The citizens saw no reason for outrage, let alone war.
In Bosnia, however, anti-Serb riots broke out, incited and even organized by the Austrian governor-general Potiorek, who had failed to protect the Archduke.
Princip later claimed he had aimed for Potiorek, not the Duchess, but at half a meter’s distance, one can’t aim too precisely.

5.

The Sarajevo Shooting’s Escalation into the Great War

Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić depicted the persecution of Serbs in Bosnia in his novel *The Bridge on the Drina.
Andrić himself had been a member of the Young Bosnians and was imprisoned after the assassination.

Austria-Hungary seized the event as a perfect excuse to crush its regional rival, Serbia, and issued an 11-point ultimatum. Serbia accepted ten of the demands, but the one it rejected was enough for Austria to declare war. Because of Europe’s tangled web of mutual defense treaties, soon everyone was at war with someone, and the Great War had begun.

Austria’s initial attack on Serbia went, to put it mildly, disastrously. All the conspirators were captured and punished, with sentences ranging from a few years in prison to death.
As a minor, Princip received 20 years in prison and later died of tuberculosis behind bars.
Serbia, in turn, arrested the leaders of the Black Hand in 1917 and sentenced them to death after a show trial.

6.

WWII in Bosnia – Ustaša Cruelties

During WWII, Sarajevo, as well as the whole of Bosnia, was part of the Italian and German puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia. This state was ruled by the fascist Croatian Ustaša Movement. 

In Sarajevo and other parts of Bosnia, the Ustaša committed horrible atrocities against Muslim Bosniaks, Serbs, Jews, and Roma people, as well as against Communist partisans and their supporters. The Ustaša’s cruelty astonished even SS officers. Partisans were led by the future leader of Yugoslavia, Marshal Tito.

The Ustaša regime came to an end together with its supporter, Nazi Germany. Its troops, along with their families and supporters, withdrew in front of advancing Tito’s partisans and the Red Army towards Austria and Italy. They tried to surrender to the British troops, who refused and repatriated the troops and civilians back to the area of today’s Slovenia. There, they meet cruel reprisals by Tito’s forces.

Serbs never forgot the crimes of the Ustaša regime, and they were convenient material for the propaganda in the Bosnian war fifty years later. In Croatia, in turn, the Ustaša is popular among the far right even today.

7.

Sarajevo in the 1990s:
Sniper Alley – Siege and Survival

Seventy years after the tragic assassination, Sarajevo’s history took a brighter turn when the city hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics. But only eight years after the Olympic flame was extinguished, Sarajevo was once again in flames.
As Yugoslavia disintegrated, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence.

The Yugoslav People’s Army and Bosnian Serbs – following the Black Hand’s ideology – sought to prevent it.
When they couldn’t capture Sarajevo, they surrounded it and began shelling the city.
The siege lasted four years.

Walking with Jukka, we approach the infamous Sniper Alley, the road from downtown to the airport where snipers once targeted civilians during the siege.
Women and children were not spared, and the surrounding hills and high-rises offered perfect shooting positions.

Like people in all besieged cities, Sarajevans found ways to survive.
They dug a narrow tunnel from the city center to the edge of the airport, through which people were smuggled out and weapons brought in.
Today, the tunnel is a museum.

The time of the siege was terrible, and even today, new horrific details are discovered. It’s been recently revealed that rich individuals from other countries, such as Italy, Britain, Germany, and Russia, paid Serb troops so they could snipe civilians from the surrounding mountains. 
The BBC published an article on the topic on November 12, 2025: Italy investigates claims of tourists paying to shoot civilians in Bosnia in 1990s.

8.

Where Are You Going Now, Sarajevo?

Sarajevo is leaving its past behind fast. Life now flows through its streets like in any other lively European city of half a million people, and most of the war damage has long been repaired.
For travelers, Sarajevo is a pleasant destination, especially in the warmer months. A couple of days go by easily, and there’s plenty to explore: old town, caravan serais, churches and museums, quite vibrant city life, delicious food…

Still, the war left its mark.
Residential areas remain divided along ethnic lines.
Muslims and Croats who fled Serb neighborhoods haven’t returned, and vice versa.

It’s thirty degrees and sunny. We decide to stop at a terrace for a few beers and glasses of wine. Except it’s easier said than done; the terrace where Jukka has enjoyed his drinks only a couple of years before has stopped selling alcohol for religious reasons.
Sarajevo, the city where a synagogue, a mosque, a Catholic church, and an Orthodox church once stood on the same block, isn’t quite what it used to be.