Three decades later, in 1908, Austria-Hungary provoked the Bosnian Crisis by formally annexing the occupied zone, establishing the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the joint control of Austria and Hungary.

The resulting Treaty of Berlin caused Bosnia and Herzegovina to nominally remain under sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire,[1] but was de facto ceded to Austria-Hungary, which also obtained the right to garrison the Sanjak of Novi Pazar.

Nevertheless, in order to assure the maintenance of the new political state of affairs, as well as freedom and security of communications, Austria-Hungary reserves the right of keeping garrisons and having military and commercial roads in the whole of this part of the ancient vilayet of Bosnia.

[6] The Ottoman army in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time consisted of roughly 40,000 troops with 77 cannons, that, when combined with local militias, totalled around 93,000 men.

[7] The Austro-Hungarian troops were occasionally met with ferocious opposition from elements of both Muslim and Orthodox populations there, and significant battles occurred near Čitluk, Stolac, Livno and Klobuk.

However, a state of relative stability was reached soon enough and Austro-Hungarian authorities were able to embark on a number of social and administrative reforms which intended to make Bosnia and Herzegovina into a "model colony".

[13] [verification needed] On the one hand, these policies attempted to insulate Bosnia and Herzegovina from its irredentist neighbours (Eastern Orthodox Serbia, Catholic Croatia, and the Muslim Ottoman Empire) and to marginalize the already circulating ideas of Serbian and Croatian nationhood among Bosnia's Orthodox and Catholic communities, respectively.

[14] The idea of a unified South Slavic state (typically expected to be spearheaded by independent Kingdom of Serbia) became a popular political ideology in the region at this time, including Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The newspaper supported Kállay's policy, whose goal was to strengthen Austro-Hungarian rule in occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[19] Austro-Hungarian authorities signed a treaty with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople by which the Emperor gained control over the Serbian Orthodox Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina in exchange for annual reimbursement.

The notable groups became known by the names of their official newspapers, the Srpska riječ (Serbian Word), the Petar Kočić's Narod i Otadžbina (the People and Fatherland) and the Lazar Dimitrijević's Dan (the Day).

[20] As a relative majority, the Serbs were a dominant political factor, and as such they demanded Bosnia and Herzegovina's autonomy from the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary.

Serb peasants demanded to be liberated from feudal relations, while on the other hand, they wanted to maintain cooperation with the Muslim People's Organisation in achieving national aspirations.

[22] In order to suppress national aspirations, the Austrian-Hungarian authorities tried to limit the activity of the Franciscans in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Any activity that would emphasise a common interest of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina and those in the Triune Kingdom was suppressed from the start.

The fundamental reason for this Croatian political division was disagreement between the Franciscan Bosnian Province and the Archbishop's Chancery on the organisation of parishes within the archdiocese.

[27] In its program, the HNZ advocated the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary[28] and its unification with the rest of the Croatian lands.

[27] In relations with the Serbs, the HNZ stood for strict reciprocity, rejecting the idea of Bosnia and Herzegovina's unification with any other country or its autonomy.

Pilar believed that the HNZ's goals could only be achieved if Croats gained support from the Muslim population, and at the same time, he criticised Štadler for his Catholic propaganda.

It also promoted Christian morals, and unlike the HNZ, the HKU advocated the abolition of the serf system as they had no relations with the Muslims.

[31] The main reason for the uprising in 1882 was the unresolved agrarian issue, taxes and the imposed military obligation on the local population.

In the period January-February, the rebels led by Stojan Kovačević and Salih-Salko Forto tried to attack Foča and Trnovo (south and southeast of Sarajevo).

However, their units, poorly armed and operating separately, were unable to achieve success in the fight against superior enemy forces.

Even though Bosnia and Herzegovina was still part of the Ottoman Empire, at least formally, the Austrian-Hungarian authorities had factual control over the country.

On 7 September 1908, the SNO and the MNO demanded that Bosnia and Herzegovina accept the constitution as part of the Ottoman Empire.

[36] In the 1910 Constitution, the Emperor proclaimed Bosnia and Herzegovina to be a unique administrative territory under the responsible leadership of the joint finance minister.

[35] The Diet also had no impact on the administrative-political institutions, the National Council and the municipal councils and it didn't have the right to participate in every decision-making; the Diet could participate only in decisions that mattered Bosnia and Herzegovina exclusively, while decisions on armed forces, commercial and traffic connections, customs and similar matters, were made by the parliaments in Vienna and Budapest.

[37] The Austrian-Hungarian authorities left the Ottoman division of Bosnia and Herzegovina untouched, they only changed the names of divisional units.

[36] The region, which had been Islamised in the 15th and 16th centuries, largely retained its minority-Muslim population (which dropped from 38.7% in 1879 to 32.2% in 1910[12]), as Austria-Hungary's December Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion and the authorities made no active attempts at conversion.

[39] The occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina led to great reforms of the Catholic Church in that country, after centuries in the Ottoman Empire.