Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. That adage applies to governments as well as to people. A case in point is the ultimatum that Austria gave Serbia on July 23, 1914. Austrian officials were counting on Serbia to reject their demands, which would give Vienna the opportunity it was seeking to wage a swift and victorious war against its upstart neighbor. The Austrians were right on the first count, but horrifically wrong on the second. The result would be the Great War that changed the course of the twentieth century.
The immediate reason for Austria's ultimatum was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, Bosnia on June 28, 1914 by the Bosnian Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. Austrian officials suspected, quite rightly and understandably, that the Serbian government either orchestrated the assassination or (as was actually the case) knew who had. But the deeper reason was the contest for power in the Balkans.
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