Altogether, the German war lords felt sure that England
had so many troubles of her own that she would never dare to enter a
general European war.

Meanwhile, the Serbians, unhappy over the loss of Bosnia and
Herzegovina to Austria, were busily stirring up the people of these
provinces to revolt. The military leaders who really ruled Austria,
were in favor of crushing these attempted uprisings with an iron hand.

One of the leaders of this party, a man who was greatly hated by the
Bosnians, was the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of the emperor and
heir to the throne. He finally announced that he was going in person
to Sarajevo (sae rae ye'vo) in Bosnia to look into the situation
himself. The people of the city warned him not to come, saying
that his life would be in danger, as he was so hated. Being a
headstrong man of violent temper, he refused to listen to this advice,
but insisted on going. His devoted wife, after doing her best to
dissuade him, finally refused to let him go without her.

When it was known that he was really coming, the Bosnian
revolutionists laid their plans. They found out just where his
carriage was to pass, and at almost every street corner, they had some
assassin with bomb or pistol. One bomb was thrown at him, but it
exploded too soon, and he escaped. Bursting with indignation, he was
threatening the mayor for his lax policing, when a second assassin, a
nineteen year old boy, stepped up with a pistol and shot to death the
archduke and his wife.

Many people have referred to this incident as the cause of the great
European war. As you have been shown, however, this was simply the
spark that exploded the magazine. With the whole situation as highly
charged as it was, any other little spark would have been enough to
set the war a-going.

The Austrian government sent word to Serbia that the crime had been
traced to Serbian plotters, some of them in the employ of the
government. It demanded that Serbia apologize; also that she hunt out
and punish the plotters at once. And because Austria did not trust the
Serbians to hold an honest investigation, she demanded that her
officers should sit in the Serbian courts as judges.

Imagine a Japanese killed in San Francisco, and think what the United
States would say if the Tokio government insisted that a Japanese
judge be sent to California to try the case because Japan could not
trust America to give her justice! The Serbians, of course, were in n