The guns and bombs they used to kill the archduke, meanwhile, were supplied by the infamous “ Colonel Apis,” head of Serbian military intelligence. The archduke was heir to the throne of the tottering Austro-Hungarian empire his killers-a motley band of amateurish students-were Serbian nationalists (or possibly Yugoslav nationalists historians remain divided on the topic) who wanted to turn Austrian-controlled Bosnia into a part of a new Slav state. It’s hard to think of another event in the troubled 20th century that had quite the shattering impact of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.