On this day in 1903 the King and Queen of Serbia, Alexander and Draga, were assassinated by Serbian military officers who opposed the close relations of the monarch with the Austrian government. The officers saw the Austro-Hungarian Empire as the major barrier to a greater Serbia and the freeing of Serbs who were part of the Empire. The assassination would move Serbia closer to the Russian Empire which viewed itself as the protector of the Serbs. As Russia and Serbia increased cooperation, the Austro-Hungarian Empire became more dependent on the German Empire for assistance in maintaining its power in the Balkans. The result was a precipitous decline in the flexibility of the various European powers in case of a crisis. That would prove tragic in 1914 when the same Serbian officers provided guns bombs and other assistance to a group of Serbian radicals who wanted to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne during his visit to Sarajevo, the capitol of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It would be one of these amateur terrorists, Gavrilo Princip, who was responsible for the assassinations of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie and precipitate the start of WWI.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 09:31:54 +0000
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