How Did World War I Begin? The Shot in Sarajevo Explained

Where did World War I start? A wrong turn in Sarajevo

World War I started in Sarajevo, with a wrong turn. On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot beside the Latin Bridge. The gunman was Gavrilo Princip, aged 19. Exactly one month later, on 28 July 1914, the war began.

If you have ever missed a turn because nobody told you the route had changed, you already understand the key moment of that morning. The archduke’s driver, Leopold Lojka, was never told that the route back from the town hall had been changed. He turned right at the Latin Bridge. Governor Potiorek told him to stop. The car halted directly in front of Princip. Princip stepped onto the running board and fired from close range.

The shot in Sarajevo: how the morning unfolded

The date was no accident. 28 June is Vidovdan, St. Vitus’s Day, when Serbs remember the 1389 Battle of Kosovo. Six assassins waited along the route: Princip, Čabrinović, Čubrilović, Popović, Grabež and Mehmedbašić. Danilo Ilić coordinated them. Five of the six were under 20.

The first attempt failed. Around 10:10 in the morning, Nedeljko Čabrinović threw a bomb at the archduke’s car. It bounced off the folded roof and exploded at the vehicle behind. Between 16 and 20 people were wounded. Čabrinović swallowed cyanide and jumped into the Miljacka river. He survived both.

The second attempt did not fail. Princip’s weapon was a Belgian-made FN Model 1910 pistol in .380 ACP. Count Harrach recorded the archduke’s last words: “Sophie, Sophie! Don’t die! Live for our children!” Sophie was already dead when the car reached the governor’s residence. Franz Ferdinand died about 10 minutes later. By 11:30, neither was alive.

Princip was too young to be executed. Because he was under 20 he could not receive the death penalty, so he received 20 years in prison. He died of tuberculosis in Terezín on 28 April 1918. His right arm had been amputated. He weighed about 40 kilograms.

From one murder to a world war: the July Crisis

One shooting does not make a world war. An alliance system does. By 1914 Europe stood in two blocs. On one side was the Triple Alliance of 1882. On the other was the Triple Entente, built from the Franco-Russian alliance of 1894, the Entente Cordiale of 1904 and the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907. Behind them lay the Anglo-German naval arms race of 1898-1912, imperialism, nationalism and the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

The chain ran like this. On 5-6 July 1914, Germany gave Austria-Hungary a “blank cheque” of support. On 23 July, Austria-Hungary sent Serbia a 10-point ultimatum with a 48-hour deadline. On 25 July, Serbia accepted most of it. It rejected point 6, which demanded that Austrian officials take part in the investigation.

That was enough. On 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and shelled Belgrade. Russia ordered general mobilisation on 30 July. Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August and on France on 3 August. When Germany invaded Belgium, Britain entered the war on 4 August. In one week, a Balkan quarrel became a European war.

Who was to blame is still argued. The Fritz Fischer thesis holds that Germany’s ruling class deliberately sought a foreign war to cover up domestic problems. Historians such as Christopher Clark spread the responsibility across several capitals, including the Balkan policy of the Franco-Russian alliance. This remains a debate, not a settled fact.

World War I dates and years

World War I lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. That is about 4 years and 3 months. Nobody called it “World War I” at the time. Until the Second World War it was “the Great War” or “the World War”. American newspapers called it “the European War” until 1917. The first person known to write “first world war” was the German biologist Ernst Haeckel, in September 1914.

Where was World War I fought? A map in words

Germany’s Schlieffen Plan sent about 80 percent of the army west to beat France first, then turn on Russia. The advance stopped at the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914. The Western Front then froze into a trench line running from the English Channel to Switzerland.

The map was far wider than France. Belgrade was shelled on the first day. Russian Black Sea ports were bombarded in October 1914. Gallipoli was fought on Ottoman soil in 1915. Mustafa Kemal fought the Russians at Bitlis and Muş in eastern Anatolia in 1916. The Somme, in northern France, saw the first tanks in September 1916. Around 70 million military personnel were mobilised in total, 60 million of them Europeans. The Allies fielded 42,979,930 men and the Central Powers 25,248,321.

How the Ottoman Empire entered the war

If you are travelling in Turkey, this part of the story sits closest to the ground under your feet. The Ottoman Empire signed a secret alliance with Germany on 1 August 1914. On 10-11 August the German warships Goeben and Breslau passed through the Straits. On 16 August they joined the Ottoman navy as Yavuz Sultan Selim and Midilli.

The step into war came on 29 October 1914. Enver Pasha had ordered Admiral Souchon on 22 October to find the Russian fleet and attack without a declaration of war. The fleet shelled Sevastopol, Odessa, Yalta and Novorossiysk. Russia declared war on the Ottomans on 1 November. Britain and France followed on 5 November. The formal Ottoman declaration came on 14 November 1914.

Gallipoli and Mustafa Kemal

The naval campaign at the Dardanelles ran from 19 February to 18 March 1915. The land campaign ran from 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916. Ottoman casualties are given as 255,268, with 56,643 dead. Allied casualties are given as the same figure, 255,268, with 56,938 dead.

Mustafa Kemal was appointed commander of the 19th Division on 20 January 1915. On 25 April he stopped the landing force at Conkbayırı. He was promoted to colonel on 1 June 1915. On 8-9 August he became Anafartalar Group Commander. On 10 August he won at Conkbayırı with a bayonet charge. He left the Gallipoli front on 10 December 1915.

His war continued in the east. On 14 January 1916 he was posted to the 16th Corps in Edirne. The corps was moved to Diyarbakır and took up its Eastern Front post on 15 March 1916. He became a brigadier general, a pasha, on 1 April 1916. On 7-8 August 1916 he retook Bitlis and Muş from the Russians.

World War I tanks

The tank first went into battle on 15 September 1916 at Flers-Courcelette, on the Somme. Of the 49 Mark I tanks sent to the Somme, 32 managed to start the attack. Only 9 reached the German lines. Germany built just 20 A7V tanks in the entire war.

Timeline

1. 1882 Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy
2. 1894 Franco-Russian alliance
3. 1904 Entente Cordiale between Britain and France
4. 1907 Anglo-Russian agreement; the Triple Entente is complete
5. 28 June 1914 Franz Ferdinand and Sophie are killed in Sarajevo
6. 5-6 July 1914 Germany’s “blank cheque” to Austria
7. 23 July 1914 Austria-Hungary’s 48-hour ultimatum to Serbia
8. 28 July 1914 Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia; the war begins
9. 1 August 1914 Germany declares war on Russia; secret Ottoman-German alliance signed
10. 3-4 August 1914 Germany declares war on France and invades Belgium; Britain enters the war
11. 10-16 August 1914 Goeben and Breslau enter the Straits and become Yavuz and Midilli
12. September 1914 First Battle of the Marne; the Western Front turns into trenches
13. 29 October 1914 The Ottoman fleet shells Russian Black Sea ports
14. 14 November 1914 Formal Ottoman declaration of war
15. 18 March 1915 The Allied naval campaign at the Dardanelles ends
16. 25 April 1915 Gallipoli landings; Mustafa Kemal stops the enemy at Conkbayırı
17. 8-10 August 1915 Mustafa Kemal becomes Anafartalar Group Commander; victory at Conkbayırı
18. 9 January 1916 The Gallipoli land campaign ends
19. 7-8 August 1916 Mustafa Kemal retakes Bitlis and Muş
20. 15 September 1916 Flers-Courcelette; first use of the tank
21. April 1917 The United States enters the war
22. March 1918 Brest-Litovsk; Russia leaves the war
23. 28 April 1918 Gavrilo Princip dies in Terezín
24. 30 October 1918 Armistice of Mudros
25. 11 November 1918 Germany signs the armistice; the war ends
26. 28 June 1919 Treaty of Versailles signed

Details you won’t find in guidebooks

• The sandwich never happened. The story that Princip ate a sandwich at Schiller’s delicatessen just before the shooting has no primary source. It is thought to come from the 2001 novel “Twelve Fingers”.
• The deli is now a museum. The building that housed Moritz Schiller’s delicatessen in 1914 is today the Museum of Sarajevo 1878-1918. It opened on 28 June 1953 as the “Museum of Young Bosnia and Gavrilo Princip”.
• The bridge changed names twice. In the Yugoslav era the Latin Bridge was “Princip Bridge”. It got its old name back in 1992. A relief showing Princip’s footprints was removed during the Bosnian War.
• The car was borrowed. The 1911 Gräf & Stift 28/32 PS open car belonged to Count Franz von Harrach, not to the archduke. Harrach gave it to Emperor Franz Joseph, who donated it to the museum.
• One pistol is missing. Four FN 1910 pistols, serial numbers 19074, 19075, 19120 and 19126, are linked to the assassination. Three are in the Vienna military museum. Number 19075 has never been found.
• “Tank” was a cover story. Factory workers were told they were building “mobile water tanks” for Mesopotamia. The name “Water Container” was rejected because its abbreviation would be “WC”. “Tank” became official in December 1915.

How the war ended

The last year turned on two outside events. In October 1917 the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, and the Brest-Litovsk peace of March 1918 took Russia out of the war. In April 1917 the United States had joined the Allied side after Germany returned to unrestricted submarine warfare.

The Ottoman Empire left first. On the evening of 30 October 1918, Navy Minister Rauf Bey and Admiral Calthorpe signed the Armistice of Mudros aboard HMS Agamemnon, anchored in Mudros harbour on the island of Lemnos. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated on 9 November. Germany accepted the armistice on 11 November 1918.

The cost is given in ranges. Between 15 and 22 million people died: 9-11 million soldiers and 6-13 million civilians. Around 21-23 million soldiers were wounded. The Ottoman Empire’s total loss of 2.8-3.3 million people came to 13-15 percent of its population.

World War I and World War II: how one led to the other

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the shot in Sarajevo, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Article 231, the “war guilt clause”, placed responsibility for the war on Germany. Alsace-Lorraine returned to France. The United States Senate never ratified the treaty.

Four empires fell: the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman. Poland, Finland, the Baltic states, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were founded. The League of Nations was created to keep the peace. Its failure to manage the instability of the interwar years contributed to the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

World War I museums: Kansas City, Vienna and Sarajevo

The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City is the first of the three. Its cornerstone was laid on 1 November 1921 before a crowd of 200,000, with five Allied commanders present. The 66-metre Liberty Memorial tower was opened by President Coolidge on 11 November 1926. Congress declared it the official national museum in 2004 and the official national memorial in 2014. As of 2025 the collection holds more than 350,000 objects.

In Vienna, the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum opened a World War I exhibition in 2014 with around 2,000 objects. The Sarajevo car stands there beside the archduke’s bloodstained uniform tunic and the chaise longue on which he died. In Sarajevo itself, you can stand at the corner where Princip fired and walk into the Museum of Sarajevo 1878-1918 in the old delicatessen building.

World War I movies

Lewis Milestone’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930) became the first film to win both Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars, at the ceremony on 5 November 1930.

FAQ

Sources

1. Wikipedia (TR) – I. Dünya Savaşı tr.wikipedia.org
2. Wikipedia – Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand en.wikipedia.org
3. Wikipedia – Museum of Sarajevo 1878–1918 en.wikipedia.org
4. Wikipedia – Gavrilo Princip en.wikipedia.org
5. ORF Wien – “Der Erste Weltkrieg” im HGM wien.orf.at
6. Wikipedia – Gräf & Stift en.wikipedia.org
7. Wikipedia – July Crisis en.wikipedia.org
8. Wikipedia – World War I en.wikipedia.org
9. Wikipedia – Causes of World War I en.wikipedia.org
10. Wikipedia – Ottoman entry into World War I en.wikipedia.org
11. Wikipedia (TR) – Çanakkale Savaşı tr.wikipedia.org
12. T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı – Atatürk Kronolojisi 1915 ktb.gov.tr
13. T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı – Atatürk Kronolojisi 1916 ktb.gov.tr
14. Wikipedia – Tanks in World War I en.wikipedia.org
15. Wikipedia – World War I casualties en.wikipedia.org
16. Wikipedia (TR) – Mondros Mütarekesi tr.wikipedia.org
17. Wikipedia – Treaty of Versailles en.wikipedia.org
18. Wikipedia – National World War I Museum and Memorial en.wikipedia.org

Image: Franz Ferdinand & Sophie Leave Sarajevo Guildhall.jpg — Unknown photographer (1914), CC0