Causes of World War I corrective." British Diplomat Arthur Nicolson wrote in May 1914, “Since I have been at the Foreign Office I have not seen such calm waters.” On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead, by two gun shots in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six assassins (five Serbs and one Bosniak) coordinated by Danilo Ilić, a Bosnian Serb and a member of the Black Hand secret society. The assassination is significant because it was perceived by Austria-Hungary as an existential challenge
Anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina because of their ethnicity, and, as Slovene author Velikonja describes, an ominous harbinger of things to come. Anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo The anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo consisted of large-scale anti-Serb violence in Sarajevo on 28 and 29 June 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Encouraged by the Austro-Hungarian government, the violent demonstrations assumed the characteristics of a pogrom, leading to ethnic divisions unprecedented in the city's history. Two Serbs were killed on the first day of the demonstrations, and many were attacked, while numerous houses, shops and institutions owned by Serbs were