Detail of Cram's 1903 Railway Map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire showing the Tyrol and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
The 1878 Treaty of Berlin that ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 affirmed Turkey's significant losses in the war including the establishment of Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, and Bulgaria. It also assigned 'administration' of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary.When the Young Turks came to power in 1908, they restored the Turkish constitution of 1876 and promised legal and electoral reforms. Slavs of Bosnia-Herzegovina asked to be represented in the Turkish parliament in Constantinople. Fearful of losing the province, Austria-Hungary responded by annexing it. In response to the annexation, Serbia mobilized its army, but could not obtain the backing of Russia, its fellow Slavic nation, in forcing Austria-Hungary to reverse its action. Russia acquiesced, something that, in 1914, it would feel it could not do again.Austria-Hungary's act thwarted Serbia's hope to bring the province under its own control. Within two days of the annexation Serbian government and government officials founded Narodna Odbrana — National Defense — to promote Serbian interests and to work against Austria-Hungary in the province. The organization delivered propaganda, spies, and weapons to Bosnia.Both legal and underground organizations that worked more or less closely with Serbia were founded to promote independence from Austria-Hungary, or union with Serbia.The people of Bosnia-Herzegovina were largely ethnic Serbs and Croats, and religiously mostly Serb-Orthodox, Moslem, and Roman Catholic.Sarajevo, site of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, was the capital of the province.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is a region in Austria-Hungary.
