To my peoples was made plural. After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, diplomatic relations between Austria-Hungary and Serbia became strained. After weeks of discussions, government and army leaders of the Empire decided to risk war with Serbia, hoping for a short and victorious campaign. Emperor Franz Joseph signed the declaration of war in his Imperial Villa in Bad Ischl on July 28. The document was distributed all over the empire and was widely published on the morning of the next day. At this time, several
July Crisis July Crisis The July Crisis was a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914 that was the penultimate cause of World War I. The crisis began on June 28, 1914, when Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. A complex web of alliances, coupled with miscalculations by many leaders that war was in their best interests or that a general war would not occur, resulted in a general outbreak of hostilities among every major European nation in early August 1914. Austria-Hungary