I - The War Starts

Summary

1. Sarajevo

Sarajevo, capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina, lay on the peripheries of the Habsburg Empire and was not remarkable in any way except for its population of many cultures and religions, and its variegated architecture. Its modern districts held a central position and were built according to imperial standards. It was a city of the administrative and business nouveaux, with a cosmopolitan class of state officials, representatives of many nations, but dominated by native speakers of German, loyal to the House of Habsburg and the Roman Catholic religion. The new town with its cafés and restaurants, theatre and cinema, fashionable shops, elegant streets and promenade, was encircled by squalid and impoverished districts, with no running water or sewerage, cluttered up with cheap tenement houses, shacks and shanties, more reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire. Herds of animals roamed the streets, women covered up from head to toe in traditional Muslim apparel shuffled along, and child beggars, many of them disabled, loitered on street corners, while the menfolk, clad in loose-fitting woollen trousers, spent their days in the cafés, drinking Turkish coffee. The landmarks of each district were their places of worship. Muslim mosques were the predominant edifices, often in close proximity to Orthodox Christian churches used by the Serbs, and Roman Catholic churches which served the Croats.