The society formed with the aim of uniting all of the territories with a South Slavic majority not then ruled by either Serbia or Montenegro. It took inspiration primarily from the unification of Italy in 1859–1870 but also from the unification of Germany in 1871. Through its connections to the June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, carried out by the members of the youth movement Young Bosnia, the Black Hand is often viewed as instrumental in starting World War I (1914–1918) by precipitating the July Crisis of 1914, which eventually led to Austria-Hungary's invasion of the Kingdom of Serbia in August 1914.