General Oskar Potiorek, Governor of the Austrian provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina, invited Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Inspector of the Austro-Hungarian Army, and his wife, Sophie von Chotkovato, to watch his troops on maneuvers in June, 1914.
Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, knew that the visit would be dangerous. A large number of people living in Bosnia-Herzegovina were unhappy with Austrian rule and favoured union with Serbia. Ferdinand was aware that in 1910 a Serb, Bogdan Zerajic, had attempted to assassinate General Varesanin, the Austrian governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina, when he was opening parliament in Sarajevo.
Zerajic was a member of the Black Hand (Unity or Death) group who wanted Bosnia-Herzegovina to leave the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The leader of the group was Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, the chief of the Intelligence Department of the Serbian General Staff. Dimitrijevic considered Franz Ferdinand a serious threat to a union between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. He was worried that Ferdinand's plans to grant concessions to the South Slavs would make an independent Serbian state more difficult to achieve. When it was announced that Franz Ferdinand was going to visit Bosnia in June 1914, Dimitrijevic began to make plans to assassinate him.
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