![]() The Black Hand had several assassins positioned along the route. On JFranz Ferdinand and his wife were in the third car of a motorcade traveling through Sarajevo to the Town Hall. These assassins were members of a terrorist group called the Black Hand. With help from the neighboring country of Serbia, assassins were recruited and trained to kill the Archduke as he traveled through the streets of Sarajevo. When Archduke Ferdinand announced his trip to Sarajevo, Bosnian nationalists (people who wanted Bosnia to be its own country) saw their opportunity to strike at the Austrian Empire. Serbia was an ally with the powerful Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary was allied with Germany. The country of Serbia, just south of the Austria-Hungary border also wanted the freedom of the Bosnians. Many of the Bosnians wanted to have their own country and not be under the rule of Austria-Hungary. In the southern portion of Austria-Hungary was a region called Bosnia. He was married to Sophie, the Duchess of Hohenberg. His uncle, Franz Joseph, was the current emperor of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. After his cousin and father died, he became the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. The Archduke and his wife were shot while riding in their carĪrchduke Franz Ferdinand was born in the city of Graz on December 18, 1863. Franz Ferdinand’s demonstration of power in the form of a military parade thus not only ended with his own death but triggered off a war that was to cost ten million human beings their lives.Gavrilo Princip killing Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo The particular constellation of alliances between European states led to the outbreak of the First World War. ![]() ![]() The war propaganda machine was set in motion throughout the Danube Monarchy and Serbia was given a sharp ultimatum, which it failed to comply with. Bloodstains on Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s uniform still bear witness to the deed.Īlthough no proof could be found for the Serbian government having been party to planning the assassination, it seemed probable that this had been the case. ![]() While on their way to the hospital where the adjutant was being treated, Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were shot by Gavrilo Princip, who had been trained as an assassin in Serbia. Various groups of assassins lay in wait for Franz Ferdinand, and even before noon a bomb injured the Archduke’s adjutant. The date, St Vitus’ Day or ‘Vidovdan’, was and is a particularly sensitive one, being the anniversary of the fateful battle of Kosovo between the Serbs and Ottomans – and thus a Serbian day of mourning. On 28 June 1914, Franz Ferdinand represented the Emperor at manoeuvres and at a parade in the Bosnian town of Sarajevo. His friendliness towards the southern Slavs caused Serbia to see him as a threat to their own expansionist plans. He was particularly concerned about the developments in the Balkans. His distinctive characteristics were his clericalist-conservative general attitudes, pronounced anti-Semitic views, and antipathy to Hungary. Two days earlier, the heir to the Austrian throne Franz Ferdinand had been shot in Sarajevo.īorn in 1863, Franz Joseph’s nephew Franz Ferdinand had come into line for the throne after Crown Prince Rudolf’s suicide and became official heir after the death of his own father Karl Ludwig in 1896. ![]() ‘Assassination in Sarajevo – heir to the throne murdered with his wife’ ran the headlines on the title-page of the Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung of 30 June 1914. ![]()
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