ABSTRACT
The spa season was only beginning when the Sarajevo crisis broke out on 27 June 1914: the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife were assassinated during an official visit to Bosnia, which Aehrenthal had so cleverly annexed in 1908. The unusually hot summer augured well for spas and especially for Swiss mountain resorts where many people went to escape the heat. European newspapers published the usual lists of notable persons travelling to holiday destinations, the advertisements of 'Pleasure and health resorts', hotels and railway companies. A century of rubbing shoulders with other nations at spas showed its worth in 1914. Homburg hotel staff remained courteous and friendly, and the police behaved correctly. Soon money transfers began to reach Russians via Stockholm, and Homburg hoteliers panicked that their hotels would empty. After 1815, spas became the refuge for Count Fedor Rostopchin, the former governor general of Moscow.
