On June 28, the nephew to Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph and next in line to the throne was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Bosnia. In the confrontation between Austria-Hungary and Serbia that followed, Russia backed Serbia. In July, Berlin gave its infamous “blank check” to Vienna — assuring Austria-Hungary that it would receive, as the kaiser put it, “Germany’s full support” in its retaliation against Serbia, even if this caused “serious European complications.”
