Young Bosnia was a separatist and revolutionary movement active in the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary before World War I. Its members were predominantly young male students, primarily Serbs, but it also included Bosnian Muslims and Croats. There were two key ideologies promoted amongst the members of the group—the Yugoslavist and the Pan-Serb. Philosophically, Young Bosnia was inspired by a variety of ideas, movements, theorists, and events, such as German romanticism, anarchism, Russian revolutionary socialism, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the Battle of Kosovo.

World War I or the First World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting took place throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. One of the deadliest wars in history, it resulted in an estimated 9 million soldiers dead and 23 million wounded, plus up to 8 million civilian deaths from numerous causes including genocide. The movement of large numbers of troops and civilians during the war was a major factor in spreading the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.