Serbia’s 1903 Coup Rewired Europe

Replacing Serbia’s pro‑Austrian Obrenović dynasty with the pro‑Russian Karađorđevićs in 1903 shifted Belgrade’s strategy toward Yugoslavism and enabled the Black Hand network that assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. That single, little‑remembered coup helped turn a manageable imperial problem into the July Crisis and WWI. Small domestic regime changes in peripheral states can reset alliance structures and trigger global shocks. — It warns policymakers to track seemingly minor coups and ideological pivots in small states as potential catalysts for great‑power crises today.