Oskar Potiorek was an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Army, who served as Governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1911 to 1914. He was a passenger in the car carrying Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg when they were assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Potiorek had failed to inform the driver of a change of route which led the royal car to take a wrong turn, stalling after trying to turn around, and ending up in front of Gavrilo Princip. In World War I, Potiorek commanded the Austro-Hungarian forces in the failed Serbian Campaign of 1914. He was removed from command, retiring from the army shortly afterward.
Oskar Potiorek in 1908
Latin Bridge, Sarajevo
Anti-Serb violence in Sarajevo
Mobilized Austro-Hungarian troops sent across Sarajevo for Serbia.
Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina fell under Austro-Hungarian rule in 1878, when the Congress of Berlin approved the occupation of the Bosnia Vilayet, which officially remained part of the Ottoman Empire. Three decades later, in 1908, Austria-Hungary provoked the Bosnian Crisis by formally annexing the occupied zone, establishing the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the joint control of Austria and Hungary.
Illustration of Hadži Lojo preaching insurrection before the gates of Sarajevo
Austro-Hungarian forces storming Sarajevo
Béni Kállay, the Austro-Hungarian minister of finance in charge for governing Bosnia and Herzegovina
Safvet-beg Bašagić was installed as the first parliamentary president of the Muslim National Organization.