WORLD WAR I
WORLD WAR I

Author(s): Stjepan Matković
Subject(s): Military history, Political history, Government/Political systems, Military policy, Political behavior, Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Inter-Ethnic Relations, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: Hrvatski institut za povijest
Keywords: World War I; Political scene in Croatia before WW I; Yugoslav question; Yugoslav Committee; Finis Croatiae;
Summary/Abstract: Early in May 1914, when official news about Archduke Francis Ferdinand’s military manoeuvres in Bosnia appeared in the Croatian newspapers, no one could have guessed that the tragedy of World War I was imminent. Although tensions between Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Serbia had been growing since the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Balkan turmoil, few were predicting an escalation of the conflict in a domino effect. Assassination of the Crown Prince and his wife Sofia on June 28, 1914, in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, led to the outbreak of a war in which the political map of Europe would be redrawn. The struggle for European supremacy between two blocs of states brought to the fore major military and foreign policy is-sues, in which smaller nations without their independent states had to demonstrate their ability to survive. In Croatia, the political public unanimously condemned the terrorist act of the Yugoslav revolutionaries gathered in the organization Young Bosnia (Mlada Bosna). It was committed on Vidovdan, a significant religious holiday for the Eastern Orthodox Serbs commemorating the notorious defeat of medieval Serbia in a conflict with the Ottoman Empire in Kosovo and symbolizing hope in revenge. Further developments were expected, in which the Croats could not play a significant role due to the underrepresentation of the Croatian elite in the leading positions in Austro-Hungarian key institutions: the governments of both countries, various ministries from foreign affairs to public finances, and the army.

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