As in many similar cases, the Habsburg "civilizing mission" was accompanied by ruthless violence against those who resisted the new foreign occupiers. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914 led to increased persecution of the Orthodox population. Border villages were burnt down, and people were publicly executed. The infrastructure slowly collapsed, food shortages and news of military defeats left the Habsburg population beleaguered and they quickly left at the end of 1918. The tragic violence, however, is described alongside accounts of daily life in the Trebinje garrison complex. By personalizing historical events, the narrative reveals the perspective of people who found themselves in the small city: the ordinary soldier, the condemned "insurgent," the career officer, the cook, the shepherdess, the hotelier, or the journalist. The author has focussed on the experience of several soldiers by a close reading of their diaries and memoirs.