Nikola Samardžić

The Independence of Serbia and the Outbreak of the First World War

The First World War began in South-Eastern Europe, originated from a local conflict, while the

contemporaries were unable to predict the scope and dynamics of a domino effect that threatened

to link the events. In political and economic context of imperialism and the Second Industrial

Revolution, Southeast Europe has been an obstacle to the interests of Germany, Austria and Russia,

impatient to reach the supreme power level in international order. Invisibly to the contemporaries,

a general struggle to establish a new distribution of forces was leading to a path of self-destruction.

Partly Ottoman, partly Habsburg and, once, partly Venetian province, the Balkans have since long

been the subject of bad-tempered attitudes of European powers. The World war disaster has

emerged in international relations context reflected by the Balkans wrong mirror which distorted

contours almost symbolized the general disorder. Almost the entire century international relations

were disturbed only in conflicts that managed to remain local, even when first rate participant

powers have been involved. In a broad historical context, economic, technological, cultural and

urban development at the turn of the centuries was not followed by identical progress in

democracy or international relations. The tragic stream of impetuous decisions was revealing and

increasing complexity of mutual misunderstandings, and was clear enough a tendency to resolve

disputes by force in an increasingly complex, thus sensitive structure of international relations

further disrupted by aligning along inconsistent and ruthless alliances. The Balkan Wars 1912-1913

indicated the general deadlock, while the future futility, in fatal collapse, could not be perceived. In

the meantime, the second degree forces as Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia were beginning to

considered war as acceptable surrogate to diplomacy which accounted, with its crawling activities,

during the previous decades, for less meaningful and effective.

The conflict of Austria-Hungary and Serbia that contributed to the outbreak of the First World War

took place at the peak of a composite political crisis that took place on a periphery of the major

political and economic systems. Up to 1867 Serbia established full control over the cities by

expulsion of the Turkish crew. That same year, the Habsburg monarchy established a new

constitutional order. The new dynamics of international relations emerged due to the retraction of

Britain and Russia in European continental relations trapped in the Eastern Question paradigm.

Thus even small, local incidents acquired general significance. The layout of Balkans urge

malignancy was still just an exotic decoration

of the historical mainstream which sometimes tended to conceal big decisions and interests.

Interpretations of the Sarajevo assassination from 1914 are not accidentally extended to the entire

width of the contemporary historical stage.

Having gained the full independence in 1878, Serbia wasn't able however to leave the shadow of the

Eastern question. The Great Eastern Crisis of 1875-1878 has significantly altered the international

relations. After the political success of the previous decade and the effectual independence gained

in 1867, after 1878 Serbia also began to be considered as a rating actor of regional instability. That

wasn't concealed even by Serbian allies. Britain was engaged again in European politics,

temporarily absentee of. Dizraeli tightened the relationship with Russia, while Gladstone

contributed to its emancipation when Russia was recognized with the status of the Christians'

patron in the Ottoman Empire. Dizraeli held that Russian success in the war against Turkey

threaten the British interests. The treaty of Berlin in 1878 has announced new problems, while

European policy has become considerably more complex, with influences that have emanated from

the geographical periphery as from Russia and Britain.

Changes in political character of independent Serbia can be further explained by the Russian official

anti-German and anti-Semitic policy. From 1876 Russia actively suppressed Austrian influences in

Serbia, and France has joined such policy after 1903. The Pan-Slavic movement was fed by

discontents originating from the Russian diplomatic defeat at the Congress of Berlin. Supporting

the Pan-Slavic movement and similar feelings tsar Alexander II encouraged the aspirations that

have undermined the long-term fundaments of the regime based on the previous international

order, which Russia rejected refusing to comply with the Berlin Treaty.

The emergence of new states in the second half of the nineteenth century has further complicated

the international relations. Unification of Italy and Germany contributed to the new imperial

rivalries . New peripheral states, whose independence was recognized in 1878, encouraged the

nationalisms whose crisis potentials have provoked international order deprived of effective

regulatory mechanisms in that matter. Nationalisms have grown primarily in the areas of

metastatic feudalism, and perhaps due to the failure of the mid century liberal revolutions. The new

Balkan states international recognition confirmed the abandonment of the legitimacy principles,

previously in 1848. In 1878 the actual state of order was confirmed, and the legitimist reaction era

was definitely closed. Autonomist movements in Bosnia and Herzegovina had their origins in deep

and specific national and social stratification, somewhat calmed and improved thanks to the

institutional changes brought by the Austro-Hungarian occupation.

Relations of Austria-Hungary and Serbia from 1867 to 1914 have gradually decayed, to the

detriment of both sides, and the mutual positive historical experience, as noted in peace treaties

concluded by Austria and Turkey in Karlowitz (1699), Passarowitz (1718) or Belgrade (1739), was

becoming irrelevant. These contracts were not only early documents of international law, but also a

stimulus for the economic development and cross-border cooperation, while discerning interest-

reciprocity of a new Habsburg order in Southeastern Europe and the Serbian national revolution.

The last decades of the nineteenth century also rejected the legacy of romanticism that associated

distant folk groups and historical epochs, while adopting the intransigence paradigm of Slavic and

Germanic world. Balkan nations were seeking international support by emphasizing all their ethnic

peculiarities and fatal historic injustice. Their ethnic and territorial interests were usually mutually

exclusive in disputed territories and areas of infinitely complex ethnic relations, no matter whether

these relations, in the near or distant historical perspective, were real or imaginary. Ethnic issues

have become a topic of political, scientific and pseudo-scientific campaigns and manipulation.

European forces have been trying to manage ethnic conflicts, neglecting the general destructive

effect due to their insidious substance. The Ottoman Empire staggered to recover from the

economic recession and the occasional peripheral disintegration. Balkan national movements

revealed the misunderstanding, even the non-acceptance, of modernization and substantial

democratization. International crisis and the authoritarian forces influences have contributed to

such confusion. Russian anti-Semitic attitude during the Berlin conference negotiations in 1878

disputed the memory of tolerance once realized within the Ottoman system, at its peaks, that was

provisionally keeping in balance Balkan ethnic and religious communities. Internationally

recognized independence included the new Balkan states in active state of international policy, and

their mutual conflicts, regardless of their contents, suggested their behavioral patterns even to

supreme European powers (the “Balkanization”). Not by chance that in the period of 1878-1914 the

Balkans have acquire features of peoples, time and space characterized by the undermost passions

and worst political traits. These images have been projected both into the past and the future.

The July 1914 crisis that emerged after the Sarajevo assassination, revealed that Austria-Hungary,

Germany and Russia have accepted the war as an acceptable alternate response to the challenges of

international relations and domestic politics. Simultaneously, Serbia defended, at all costs, its

international independence, the national revolution’s most precious value and a basis for further

expansion. The price subsequently paid was disastrous, but also rapidly resulted pointless as being

blurred in general European suffering, and even ideologically and ethically distorted during the

later

remembrance, especially the pathetic manipulative discourse of ethnic-obsessed exclusivity. The

Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, whose contribution to Serbia was also emotional, and mostly deprived

of rational and credible benefits, fostered her self-confidence and turned less cautious. Belgrade

was indisposed to negotiate with Vienna. Moreover, irresponsible elements amidst the Serbian

authorities, who have struggled to destabilize the Austrian administration in Bosnia and

Herzegovina, were not under the full control of the political government. Otherwise Russia has

encouraged the formation of the Balkan League and apparently profited over Serbian military

success.

Although ongoing modernization process, with all its challenges, implied adjusting relations with

neighbors, these priorities were considered mostly in enlightenment of rigidly defined national,

and, exceptionally, Yugoslav issues. Even the new the economic opportunities have provoked

resistance. Modernization has become a national challenge in terms of threat to the traditional

social and political order. Europeanization was slowed and partially disrupted while confronting

the nee of a dense transformation of peasant society captured by a curse of a narrow, humble

estate, and inherited normative of a daily life. Serbia remained on the sidelines of the Second

industrial revolution and urban development progress. The long term success of the military-

political strike from 1903, and that wasn’t just another violent overthrow, could also be interpreted

by the state of social passivity hidden under the turbulent surface of political passion and

retaliation. Parliamentary dynamics has become one of the symbols of political irresponsibility and

the new Karađorđević dynasty return was welcomed in expectation of the family’s known

authoritarian and impulsive mentality, as well as pro-Austrian policy course final abandon.

Technical essence of the coup was the imposition of military authority to the civil and likely

democratic government. In that sense the coup has justified its expectations, and the latter

reflections have continued until the end of the twentieth century, regardless of the national

framework and political order. The "golden age of Serbian democracy" from 1903 to 1914 was

becoming a myth in attempts of covering the responsibility of, both, the civil and military

authorities, not for causing the First World War, and that was also a manipulation, but for induction

of political radicalization, general public distress and massive human disaster.

Political and social militarization was an important process in Serbian history of the twentieth

century. The essence of that militarization was in hidden expectations, in each subsequent

generation, of a forthcoming and fair social revolution. Even a pattern established during the

Serbian revolution at the beginning of the nineteenth century has been confirmed, reflected in a

peasant revolt against the intolerable state of degeneration of provincial Ottoman rule and,

simultaneously, the alienation of the decadent Levantine city civilization. Balkans wars and First

World War, in Serbian case, have mobilized the poor and backward peasant society again in

attempt to decompose, both, Ottoman and Habsburg empires as historic relics and obstacles to

national unification, and that intention was accomplished but with terrible casualties and

destruction. On another level, the course of events exceeded, on the scale of consequences, all initial

impulses, remained inability of Austria-Hungary and Serbia to understand and rationally accept

their eventual mutual interests. Political radicalization took place in a more obvious contrast of

current importance and abilities of Serbia related to the original state of order that led to its

internationally recognized independence in 1878. Serbia was further emancipated in relation to

regional impacts after the May assassination and liquidation of the dynasty Obrenović, but the

attributes of the new state of independence, based on the approximation to Russia and France and

anti-Austrian course, have emerged in dualism between civil and military authorities. Tying the

Serbian national interest to Russia and France, distant forces and whose real intentions, in terms of

encouraging an anti-German counterweight, were stripped in latter war disaster. If the

independence from 1878. was conditional and internationally supervised, and that was by the spirit

and contents of Berlin conference and the supporting documents, the international conditions have

significantly changed during the 1906-1909 Customs war and Annexation crisis 1908-1909.

Anyway, in the meantime, general changes were confirmed in a new era of international relations,

economics, technology, culture, etc. And while each local crisis was becoming internationalized to

the ultimate limits, Austria-Hungary and Serbia have lost their ability to rationally define those

common interests in Southeast Europe that could be mutually shared and compatible. During the

Balkan Wars 1912-1913 Serbia has finally tried to offer a final solution to the Kosovo myth closing,

simultaneously, already archaic Eastern question within the Balkan alliance. The new role of Serbia

maybe corresponded to its current military and social potentials, but not to its political capacities,

and has become a pretext to the continuing tightening in international relations.

The fatal confrontation between Serbia and Austria-Hungary has appeared in a broad historical

drama that obviously exceeded the role and importance of both sides. Serbia came under the

influence of the Franco-Russian alliance which, during the Balkan wars, was given a new role in

deployment of the total of the eager and estranged European forces. Serbia has become its own and

international hostage, a victim of interests formulated far from the actual reach of a small, poor,

local and peripheral state. Political and spiritual mover of Serbia was a call for national unity, while

the progressive and negligible minority in politics and culture offered a vision of South Slav

community assembling similar close and equal nations. Serbia was managed by elites which, in

their provincial confusion, translated French or Russian influences and distorted national heritage

into irresponsible political adventure. France required immediate pressure on Germany in case of

war, and investing in the Russian railway was foreseen to facilitate the movement of Russian

troops. Relations between Russia and Serbia were also intensified. The Balkan Alliance from 1912

was truly directed against both Turkey and Austria. During the political crisis in 1914 Russia

appeared in Serbia as a mainstay for the both sides, for the civil and military authorities. Prime

minister Nikola Pašić was supported though in the conflict with the army, since Russia intervened

after his resignation, and the king Petar I Karađorđević entrusted him the mandate once again.

On the wave of its national unification and national movement whose ideology was also offering

universal liberal messages, Italy became an important factor in Southeastern Europe after centuries

of withdrawal. And whereas until recently Italy was one of the priorities of the Habsburg foreign

policy, Germany and Austria-Hungary supported Italy in the war against Turkey around Tripoli.

Germany was thinking about the division of Turkish Asia Minor. Albanian question then again

separated Italy from Austria-Hungary. The Balkan wars have made Austria Hungary additionally

uncertain due to lack of confidence in support of Germany in the case if the Balkan crisis continues

to escalate, especially in connection with the Russian influence. Vienna was also confronting the

challenges of Romanian nationalism, bolstered by the outcome of the Balkan wars. Bucharest has

requested a change of Romanians status in Transylvania under Hungarian rule, while Budapest was

not willing to significant concessions. The Romanian issue contributed to a new political paradigm

that was also applied to the position and behavior of Serbia.

Under international crisis pressure and its own constitutional and political uncertainty, Austria-

Hungary was giving increasingly less importance to the differences between internal and external

policies. Foreign policy has become a reason for being. In negotiations with Bucharest in late 1913

interfered Russia supporting Romania. Austria-Hungary otherwise considered Russia partly

responsible for the Balkan wars. Foreign pressures on Austria-Hungary have become serious in

particular dealing with Serbia, which has doubled its territory and population, and gained valuable

military experience. The defeat of Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War has reduced its ability to

restrain Serbia and Romania. The Russian threat, in the spring of 1914, Vienna was considering in

the context of potential conflicts that could escalate along a large area from the Baltic to the Black

Sea.

The general militarization, 1912, from Britain to Russia, made war more certain. The Balkan wars

were only peripheral escalation of military leadership pressures to civil authorities. In international

policy, since 1912, imperialism focused on the Balkans, temporary and seemingly neglecting

primary interests in Asia or Africa. Russia has sharpened the Straits issue, Italy reminded on

Venetian historical rights in the Aegean Sea, Germany further committed to the Middle East and

Asia Minor. After Austrian annexation in 1908 Bosnia and Herzegovina became the focal point of

South Slavic propaganda and a substantial stronghold of Yugoslav unity. Bosnia and Herzegovina,

however, has remained, for Franz Josef personally, the solely gain of his long and famous rule.

Along with imperialism, nationalism contributed to the outbreak of the First World War due to the

impossibility of a satisfactory solution of each national issue, but also to the power of manipulation

and tempting ideology based on pseudoscientific chauvinist and racist reflections of the previous

decades. Nationalism otherwise united and strengthened Germany, Britain, Russia and France, as

the nation state inventing and shaping process, as a political project, was successfully fulfilled

during the past two centuries. On the other side, nationalism was crashing both Austria-Hungary

and Turkey. Russia has encouraged nationalist aspirations in Galicia and Bukovina. Among the

South Slavs, the growing influence of the clergy was supporting the nationalist streams explicitly

prone to obstruction of Yugoslav unity. Pan-Slavism, under Russian pressure, caused further

suspicion. And that is also why Austro-Hungarian policy was as much focused on Serbia.

Austrian cultural and enlightening effort in Bosnia and Herzegovina, moreover, contributed to the

profounder self-confidence of Serbian and Croatian nationalism. Bosnian nationalism was rapidly

losing a historic space under the Austro-Hungarian administration's pressure, and through the

dynamics of their own divisions that have occurred in the process of disintegration of the Ottoman

system and belated feudalism. Yugoslav unity could be an alternative to the near and to the distant

past. Several Serbian and Croatian politicians even openly supported Yugoslav idea. And regardless

of their sincerity and true intentions, Yugoslav integration basically disrupted German further

southeastern drive. In Croatia, the Yugoslav issue contributed to contributed to the escalation of

political and ethnic relations, with the clergy who increasingly interfered. The Balkan wars further

stimulated feelings of Yugoslav unity, but also opposing attitudes. Serbian politics has become a

double challenge for Austria-Hungary, increasingly concerned for the security and future of the

monarchy.

The growing level of independence of Serbia in international relations has not been followed,

however, by democratic evolution. Dynastic divisions that have burdened institutional, particularly

parliamentary development during the nineteenth century, suddenly disappeared in the

assassination of 1903. The assassins have become actors of Serbian politics and political culture

contributing to the deterioration in relations with neighbors, primarily with Austria-Hungary and

Turkey. The dualism between civil and military authorities lasted continuously from 1903 to 1917,

from the May Coup to the Thessaloniki process when conspirators of 1903 and 1914 vere removed

after another plot, exposing Serbia further to foreign interests and manipulations. Serbia has sent a

clear message when at the head of the military intelligence department was appointed General

Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis, in 1912, one of the most responsible for the 1903 coup, despite the

international isolation and, above all, disgust in regard to the incredible and superfluous cruelty of

conspirators and assassins. Through the network of informants and associates Apis was poisoning

students and youth with nationalism and was probably one of the most responsible for the murder

of Franz Ferdinand in 1914. In preparation of the assassination and the assassins participated

majors Tankosić and Ciganović. The escalation of international relations has contributed that

personal liability of conspirators becomes the responsibility of Serbian government. (The Apis cult

of personality was noticeable even in educational system of Serbia during the socialist period, and

the climax, in public and popular science, has reached during the eighties, while the military-

political and intellectual circles were preparing a military coup and the violent breakup of

Yugoslavia.) The Black Hand organization ("Unification or Death") was the driving force of the

military opposition that forced King Peter I, in the spring of 1914, to overthrow the government,

although prime minister Pašić enjoyed a major support in the Assembly. France and the Russian

intervention then returned weakened Pašić, and Peter I withdrew ceding the power to the Crown

Prince Alexander Karađorđević as regent. Both in internal and foreign policy Serbia was losing the

self-control. Duality of power particularly contributed to the confrontation with Austria-Hungary.

The attack on Serbia in 1914 was also conceived in order to postpone important constituent

changes in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose future was thought of as very uncertain.

Resistance to political changes were evident in both Russia and Germany as well. Franz Ferdinand

was not by chance planning to approach Russia seeking support for the Habsburg dynastic future.

Even among the Habsburg relatives very unpopular, he was, probably, one of the last and weak

factors of peace.

First World War began as the Habsburg civil and military leadership decided to punish Serbia for

the assassination and refusal to fully cooperate fully in the investigation of those responsible. On

both sides, in public opinion, arose a mutual hostility. The loudest were the forces of political

extremism, cultural intolerance and race hatred. Berlin had no influence on Vienna to decide on

military intervention, but nevertheless subsequently ceded a support, 5th and 6th of July. German

decision was very important. The decision did not relate only to Serbia, although it expressed

noticeable solidarity with the Habsburgs permeated by personal feelings. Ultimatum which agreed

at a secret meeting of the Joint Ministerial Council in Vienna on July 19, and was, as expected,

unacceptable to Serbia. War was foreseen to last for short, and a conflict with Russia, with German

support, should have been avoided.

Serbian government was informed about the conspiracy and the military involvement, with Apis as

mostly responsible for the Sarajevo assassination, but remained incapable and powerless to stop

the flow of events. Public opinion was enthusiastic in approving the assassination, thereby

contributing to the government weakness and irresponsibility of further decisions. Pašić was

unable to raise the question of the military circles conspiracy. Emphasizing the necessity of foreign

investigation, Austro-Hungarian ultimatum pointed in essence of Serbian political crisis. Serbia did

not intend to accept the ultimatum that the disputed its sovereignty, regardless of the real

capacities, as the government remained helpless to manage the army and confront the militant

public opinion. It is unclear whether Russia was trying to do foster the Serbian government's

seemingly rigid attitude. Pašić, with his associates, was convinced in Russian aid. France

harmonized the foreign policy with Russia, warning Vienna, and probably failed to convince Russia

to mediate with the Serbian in sense of a general pacification. French supports has offered Serbia an

additional self confidence. Pasic could not agree on Austrian investigation in the midst of electoral

campaign. If he was not able to assess all the complexity of international relations, and immediate

consequences, and if in that sense he did not differ from the contemporary statesmen, a stake of

Serbia in July crisis was however beyond the edges of all its human and material capacities.

Russia began to prepare for war on 25th of July. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July

1914. Neither one nor the other party still were not ready to negotiate, or in any way closer to the

exit from the political crisis by peaceful means. Berlin in some moments restrained Vienna, but the

support of Germany remained firm and principled. It was becoming clear that the conflict will far

overcome the initial impulses.

Cataclysm in the First World War was the consequence of political irresponsibility elites unready or

unable to adapt the Serbian interests and destiny to the realities of international relations and the

possibilities of an undeveloped and predominantly agrarian society. The militarization of Serbian

politics was one of the outcomes of institutional weakness, while influential politicians and

important public personalities supported or even encouraged the aggressive foreign policy.

Simultaneously, the economic and cultural development of the Serbian community in Bosnia and

Herzegovina under Austro-Hungarian occupation, then the annexation, was seriously disturbing the

violent expansionist tendencies in official and secrets circles of Serbian policies. If in a need of a

very specific example, and relatively well known, the intentional deceptions of Serbian Bosnian

writer Petar Kočić who vividly portrayed the Habsburg administration's bureaucratic cruelty,

seemed to have revived the very similar popular memories of the Austrian rule in Belgrade and

Serbia during the eighteenth century.

During the years preceding the war, events in Southeast Europe were accelerated within the

unfortunate chronicle of irrational feelings and actions. Irresponsible personalities in Serbian

politics and military challenged the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina without

hesitation of violence, devoid of consciousness of collective consequences, that actually

subsequently occurred. Serbia was apparently missing time and prudence in a need to consider the

winning Balkan Wars in enlightenment of casualties, losses and short term, both in ethnic and

international relations. In July crisis of 1914 Serbia and Austro-Hungary revealed the absence of

good faith. The idea of the Austro-Hungarian Empire survival had additionally burdened the Vienna

and also Berlin, thus preventing a subtle adjustment to the realities. In the whirlwind of

international and regional relations official and public Serbia has ignored or even despised the long

term importance of relatively rapid modernization of Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austro-

Hungarian rule. That process, although was taking took place in political and ruling framework

considered as hostile, was revealing possibilities of a broad regional prosperity, particularly in

relation to the previous period of Ottoman disintegration, and especially was encouraging the

Serbian and Croatian capacities, including the influence from the neighborhood. The question is

however whether such paradox could be recognized at all. Afterwards, the Yugoslav idea was

realized with massive human and political sacrifice. The Yugoslav project genome, although the

European integration forerunner, was infected from the very beginnings with fatal legacy of

militarism and clericalism, and first evidences were hidden in the deepest roots of the Sarajevo

assassination and its lowing interpretations, of the assassination, whereas the immediate political

responses could not be restrained by a general European irresponsibility. At the very ends of the

First World War, remains difficult, even impossible to identify the real winners. Its most precious

gain, paid by hundreds of thousands of lives and superhuman sufferings, Serbia has lost the

Yugoslav community, along with the Yugoslav utopian dream, until the end of the twentieth

century, while the Yugoslav collapse buried likewise the moral capacities as the most precious

inheritance her brave ancestors have left in asset of.

Long and complex process of, both, institutional building and international relations deterioration,

has fulfilled the history of the Habsburg-Serbian relations that led to the beginnings of the First

World War in 1914. One of the initial points of the process was the Habsburg Monarchy

reconstruction in 1867, that emphasized national particularities over subversive messages spotted

between the lines of previous liberal movements. The next step was the internationally recognized

independence of Serbia and Montenegro at the Berlin Congress in 1878, decisions that have

confirmed the real state of Balkan autonomies. However, as Balkan nations tended, over time, to

seek support for their national particularities in relations with remote powers and interests, as

with Russia, Britain or France, or remained attached to the Ottoman Empire, they were gradually

pulled in the complexities of international relations that led to a full-scale conflict. And the

character of the future conflict contemporaries were not able to clearly predict. After 1878 Serbia

was exposed to strong internal resistance to various economic opportunities that were challenging

the traditional political and social relations, and the modernizations and europeization processes

have remained slow and laborious, especially in domain of the small peasant society conversion

into modern and mostly urban strata. The coup from 1903 was essentially a beginning of the

politics militarization that directed the positioning of Serbia throughout the twentieth. regardless of

the state framework and political system. And that's when Austria-Hungary definitely lost its

potentially valued partner in Southeastern Europe, considered as important in the area of its

strategic interests. Serbian political militarization and radicalization was, however, in contrast to its

conditional and supervised independence status. The Customs (or Pig) war 1906-1909, and The

Bosnian Crisis of 1908–1909, also known as the Annexation crisis, or the First Balkan Crisis,

contributed to the more aggressive relation of Austria-Hungary and Serbia in regard to the region.

The Balkans were thus becoming even more troublesome subjects of international relations that

were beyond the powers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia, as consequently has been

testified by the Austro-Hungarian disintegration and the Serbian military and demographic collapse

during the First World War. Paradoxically, the modernizing and enlightened Habsburg

administration in Bosnia and Herzegovina contributed both to the cultural ascent and the rise of

particular nationalisms. Serbia's attitude to the late Habsburgs, especially military and radical

political circles, even threatened to undo the results of the Bosnian Serbian community in a very

significant cultural and the economic development between 1878 and 1914.

The logic of an era, concluded with the decisions from 1878, became obsolete in international crisis

that preceded the outbreak of the First World War. The official irresponsibility of, both, Serbia and

Austria-Hungary, also characterized of all other participants involved. Although, at the very

beginnings, the war has not been supposed to take so many human and material losses. Not by

accident, Sarajevo has remained a symbol and a victim of the processes that preceded the First

World War, and throughout the 20 century, becoming, at the end, one of its mostly tragic and

eloquent symbols.