Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from

Aaron Manky, listener discretion advised.

Oscar Poterex Rain as the Austro-Hungarian Governor-General of Bosnia did not

get off to a good start. Oscar was a career military officer with

graying, close-cropped hair and a thick mustache, and he was appointed

Governor-General in 1911. He had arrived in Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital city, and

been shocked to find it a hotbed of Serb nationalism and anti-Hapsburg

sentiment. In response, Oscar enacted a plan of oppression. He suspended the

parliament and censored the press and called in additional troops.

Surprisingly, none of that did much to endure the people of Sarajevo to their

Habsburg rulers. Despite the tension in September 1913, Oscar Poterex

invited the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the Archduke-France

Ferdinand, to visit the following year. You might think that such a visit in

such a context would call for heightened security, but the planning for the

Archduke's visit was surprisingly laxodasical, even as hindsight would reveal

negligent. Poterex had refused to allow additional soldiers into the city, and

much of the security fell to the 60 police officers from the city's forces

scheduled to be on duty that day, the 28th of June 1914. The chief of police

was horrified. He tried to tell Poterex that more security was needed.

Poterex scoffed, telling the chief of police, you see phantoms everywhere. He

dismissed the chief's advice that the Archduke's route be kept private, and

instead Poterex allowed it to be published ahead of the visit. He ignored

...