Program Information

The suffering of Sarajevo in Bosnia during the 1990s recalls the events of another time, 1914, in which through Sarajevo the world was led to war.

A Moment in Time is a brief, exciting and compelling journey into the past. Created to excite and enlighten the public about the past, its relevance to the present and its impact on the future, A Moment In Time is a captivating historical narrative that is currently broadcast worldwide.

Transcript

Lead: The suffering of Sarajevo in Bosnia during the 1990s recalls the events of another time, 1914, in which through Sarajevo the world was led to war.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Before World War I, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were separate countries. Many Serbs desired to bring together all ethnic Serbs into one state. This struck at the interests of Austria-Hungary. If the Serbs were allowed to carve out their own little country from the hip of the Empire, Austria's future was in serious doubt. In 1908, Vienna formally absorbed the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, each with large Serbian ethnic populations.

Seeing they were blocked by Austria, in 1912 and then again in 1913, the Serbs reached south for Turkish territory in two Balkan Wars, both of which they won. By the first half of 1914, the hopes for a Greater Serbia were being fed by these victories and Austria-Hungary was very worried indeed.

Into this highly charged atmosphere the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his wife Sophie visited the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia. Around midday on June 28, 1914, Ferdinand and Sophie were assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a teen-aged member of a revolutionary group closely connected to the ultra-nationalist Serbian movement known as the Black Hand.

Austria suspected official Serbian involvement and deliberately presented the Serbs with an ultimatum they could not accept. Russia came to the rescue of Serbia. Germany came to the aid of Austria-Hungary. France and England mobilized their troops and within a month the world had stumbled over itself into the greatest war in history up to that time. Jason Vuic provided research assistance for this series of programs on the Balkans. The Producer of A Moment in Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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