In 1913 Archduke Franz Ferdinand was appointed Inspector General of the Austro-Hungarian Army. A promoter of naval expansion and military modernization, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was popular with the armed forces and in the summer of 1914 General Oskar Potiorek, Governor of the Austrian provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina, invited the archduke to watch his troops on maneuvers. When Potieoek made it clear that his wife, Dutchess Sophie would also be made welcome, Franz Ferdinand agreed to make the visit.

Franz Ferdinand knew that the journey would be dangerous. A large number of people living in Bosnia-Herzegovina were unhappy with Austro-Hungarian rule and favoured union with Serbia. In 1910 a Serb, Bogdan Zerajic, had attempted to assassinate General Varesanin, the Austrian governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina, when he was opening parliament in Sarajevo.

Zerajic was a member of the Black Hand (Unity or Death) who wanted Bosnia-Herzegovina to leave the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The leader of the group was Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, the chief of the Intelligence Department of the Serbian General Staff. Dimitrijevic considered Franz Ferdinand a serious threat to a union between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. He was worried that Ferdinand's plans to grant concessions to the South Slavs would make an independent Serbian state more difficult to achieve.