Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, and this angered the Serbs (as well as Russia).
In the late 1800's, as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, the major European powers got together and decided what to do about it. The result was the Treaty of Berlin, which, among other things, gave Austria-Hungary control over Bosnia, even though it was technically still ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The treaty also officially made Serbia an independent nation (although Serbia already was largely independent, and had been for a while).
The Ottoman Empire continued to collapse; it couldn't control the territory it ruled. In 1908, there was a revolution, and the Sultan was overthrown by a group commonly called the Young Turks. Right afterward, Bulgaria took advantage of the situation and declared their independence. Austria-Hungary took advantage of both of these events, and announced that they were formally annexing Bosnia.
Most countries were upset with this, and Austria-Hungary's move was condemned by them. Serbia in particular was upset because they had hoped to eventually take control of Bosnia. The Bosnian people have a similar culture, language, and history to Serbia (and they are both related to the Russian people as well, so Russia tends to be very friendly towards Serbia especially), and it seemed natural for Bosnia and Serbia to join as a single country. Austria-Hungary taking control of it would make that far more difficult, as Austria-Hungary was a very large and powerful country.
This "Bosnian Crisis" was one of the many factors that led to World War I breaking out in 1914. Although Russia and Serbia were very upset about the annexation, they didn't do much about it at the time. When World War I was about to start, Russia decided to actually do something rather than let Austria-Hungary attack Serbia in retaliation for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
Chat with our AI personalities