Why did Serbia want to take over Bosnia?

Answer 1

When Yugoslavia was splitting because of religion and ethnic groups, Sebia didn't want this to happen. So, Serbia started war with the 2 largest countries Bosnia - Hercigovina and Croatia.

The root of Serbian reluctance to accept the breakage of Yugoslav along the borders of its constituents lies in the century and half old program of making a greater Serbia on the territory of most of their south-Slav neighbors (The Plan by Ilia Garasanin, Serbs everywhere program by Vuk Stefanovic, Homogenous Serbia program by Stevan Moljevic, policy of Heavenly Serbia mission advocated by Serbian orthodox church, etc.) and the permanent indoctrination by its intellectual, military, political and clerical elites of Serbian people and other south-Slav orthodox. This program never accepted Tito's regime intra-Yugoslav republic borders as natural and historically based, also it proclaimed that all Serbs should live in one state. Also, it proclaimed that Croatians and Bosnian-Muslims are nothing but different kinds of Serbs who under some historical circumstances switched over time to other confessions and thus lost their memory of their actual origin ("Catholic Serbs" and "Muslim Serbs"). The myth was amplified by 40 years old deliberate Propaganda of fear based on heavily increased the number of Serbs killed during WWII (especially those killed by so-called ustashe regime, Croatian Nazi puppet state) and constant stigmatization of Croats as genocidal, Kosovars as separatist, Bosnian-Muslims as historic traitors of Serbs, Macedonians as nothing but a "Vardar-Serbs", and so on. This all exploded several years after Josip Broz Tito died (just as Orson Wells predicted few years before) when Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts issued a proclamation on status of Serbian people, culture and language in Yugoslavia and with simultaneous rise of communist bureaucrat Slobodan Milosevic to the top ranks of Serbian communist party and Serbian state afterwards. The demands for keeping all Serbs in one state resurfaced, Yugoslav military reorganized its internal geographical governing model, mass meetings of first "pro-Yugoslavia" and little latter "pro-greater-Serbia" were organized throughout Yugoslavia, etc. And than came the fall of Berlin Wall and collapse of Soviet Union, giving raise to democratic tendencies within Yugoslavia. First parliamentary elections took place in 1990, after which Slovenia and Croatia went on referendum about their independence (both of them with over 90% positive results favoring independence). After that a talks of all six presidents of Yugoslav republics took place discussing future internal organization of Yugoslavia (federation, confederation of states, or full independence); Slovenian and Croatian presidents suggested confederative organization, which was refuted by Milosevic and his Montenegrin ally, while Macedonian and Bosnian presidents were restrained. Than Serbian nationalists (supported by Serbian politicians and until that time heavily serbianized Yugoslav military) started blocking roads in Croatia (so called "chump revolution") and quickly after that declared separation of bordering region of Croatia (they used part of historical name for military border, that is "vojna krajina") to form separate "republic" on territory of Croatia, called "Republika Srpska Krajina". That all spurred the intensity of conflict between Croatian police, Serb nationalists from Croatia, and in the end Yugoslav military backing those Serbian militants. Not long after that a full-blown war erupted in Croatia, and than using the same scenario (proclamation of first alliance of so called historical Serbian municipalities in Bosnia, which afterwards became "Republika Srbska") in Bosnia, with much bigger intensity and consequences. From 1991 to 1994 (and in Bosnia until 1995) Serbian military and paramilitaries expelled almost all non-Serbs from the territories they occupied (massive ethnic cleansing), using all kinds of atrocities, like mass rapes and murders, massacres of POWs and civilians, camps in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia and planned and executed even complete ethnocide (like the one in Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995; UN protected zone at the time) and all that in front of international UN peacekeepers. Until U.S. stepped in with its political decisiveness backed by its military power nothing changed on the ground; they first started turning their blind eye to unjust Britain-sponsored (and latter on imposed by the UN) arms embargo hurting predominantly initially mostly unarmed Croats and Bosnian-Muslims, after that they helped Croatia organize its military (by various paid for education programs held by retired U.S. military officers) and in the end by introducing no-fly-zone over Bosnia. Faith of Srebrenica aimed by the leaders of Bosnian Serbs for Bosnian town of Bihac (in western Bosnia, near the Croatian border) and the dream of ethnically cleansed great Serbia (on the territory of Croatia at least) was ended in spring and summer 1995 by two swift actions of until that time well trained and equipped Croatian military (operations Flash and Storm). Nevertheless, the dream of Greater Serbia never dropped from the agenda of Serbian elites in all countries in South-eastern Europe, and given the recent policy of equalization of guilt and relativization of causes of the 90' SEE wars sponsored silently by Britain and the court in Hague, there unfortunately should be more bad news on this story to expect in the future.

Answer 2

wanted Serbia and serbs living in balkans to be recognized as a race that can and does live side by side all other ethnic groups on the balkans...

Answer 3

Simple answer is. A-H wanted to expand east because she wanted to have direct links with Constantinople and further into the east where oil was.