The Target

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, rode into Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Austria had annexed Bosnia only six years earlier, and Serbian nationalists still saw the occupation as a wound that needed avenging.

The date made it worse. June 28 was Vidovdan, Serbia's most sacred national day. Parading the occupying heir through the Bosnian capital on that anniversary was a provocation almost designed to enrage.

A secret Serbian group, the Black Hand, had spread six young conspirators along the route. The plan was clumsy. It should have failed completely. That it did not is one of the strangest accidents in modern history.