The Assassination Of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Explained

World War I was brewing long before 1914. Per History, imperial ambitions fueled by the Industrial Revolution drove the great powers of Europe into competition for resources and military superiority. One nation's fears and suspicions of another would compel them to join alliances designed to check each other's potential aggression. The rise of nationalism during the Victorian era only further fueled tensions on the continent.

If any one event launched the war, however, it was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. The Austro-Hungarian empire's instability and position within the tangled alliances of the day made such a high-profile murder ripe fodder for the warmongers in Europe. They dreamed of a battle that would grow their empires. Instead, four years of butchery re-drew Europe's borders and cost several monarchs their crowns, including those of Austria and Hungary.

Like the war itself, the circumstances that made Archduke Ferdinand's death so consequential stretch back long before the assassination. Let's try and untangle the events and timeline of that fateful act.

The throne Franz Ferdinand was to inherit had long been troubled. According to History Hit, the Austrian Empire was a multinational entity comprised of the territory of 14 modern states. The data from the 1910 census of the empire (per The World of the Habsburgs) indicates at least 10 languages had significant usage. Such a nation inevitably struggled to forge a unified identity and had a particular vulnerability to the tide of nationalism that began in the 19th century.

Nationalist sentiment had already forced a significant compromise upon the empire well before Franz Ferdinand became heir. In 1867, it was reorganized into the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary (per Britannica). But this arrangement left most of the empire's nationalities denied the privileges and authority granted to the German Austrians and the Hungarians, an inequality Emperor Franz Joseph recognized but failed to fully comprehend or alleviate. The Slavic peoples in the southern "states" particularly resented being ruled by Hungary, and the latter's Magyarization policy exacerbated tensions at home and abroad.

In the late 19th century, the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were highly coveted. The Ottoman Empire officially held them, Austria-Hungary and Serbia both wanted them, and the largely Slavic populations within them held dreams of independence. As a temporary measure to maintain peace against ambition, the Congress of Berlin in 1878 made the provinces protectorates of Austria-Hungary while leaving them within the Ottoman Empire (per History).

By 1908, however, the Ottoman Empire was shaken by the Young Turk Revolution, and Austria's rival in the Balkans, Russia, was still hobbled by its own revolution and its loss in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905. Seizing an opportunity to expand its territory, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. While an effort was made to come to an understanding about the annexation beforehand (per Britannica), it managed to upset Russia, Serbia, and Slavic movements throughout all of Europe. War might have broken out in 1909 — with Germany pledging to support even a war of aggression by Austria to retain its new territories — except that Russia reluctantly accepted the annexation when its ally France proved noncommittal about involving itself in a conflict over the Balkans.

Opposition to the annexation didn't only come from beyond Austria's borders. Though he had no personal sympathy for the Serbs, Franz Ferdinand believed that annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina would only worsen the ongoing tensions with the Slavic peoples of the empire (via History). But his opposition went unheeded.

In everything from his marriage to his plans to reform Austria-Hungary upon succession, Franz Ferdinand ran up against his uncle Franz Joseph and the members of his court and government. "He was prepared to rock a lot of boats," said historian Gary B. Cohen (via PBS), boats that weren't eager to be shaken. It wasn't only the aging emperor who resisted his heir's proposals either.

The one opportunity that Franz Ferdinand had before his death to enact some tangible influence on policy was in the army. According to The Irish Times, he achieved promotion to inspector general in 1896. In that position, he pushed for an army more dedicated to defense at home than interventions abroad. This put him in fierce opposition with chief of the Austrian General Staff Conrad von Hötzendorf, who advocated for taking the fight to Serbia well before 1914. The Irish Times notes the great irony that it was Ferdinand's assassination that gave Hötzendorf his wish.

The Austro-Hungarian army prepared to run a number of military exercises in the province of Bosnia during the summer of 1914 (per History). As heir apparent and inspector general of the army, Franz Ferdinand was to review the exercises. Though the event was set to take place in June, preparations began well ahead of time, and neither the government nor the press was inclined toward secrecy about it. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Ferdinand's visit was first announced in March. Not only that, but the local newspapers in Bosnia also detailed the archduke's travel itinerary for June 28. If anyone had designs on harming Ferdinand, they had all the information they needed.

Revolutionary movement Young Bosnia made good use of the available details of the trip to plot Franz Ferdinand's assassination. Word of their plot did not escape notice in neighboring Serbia, where prime minister Nikola Pašić feared both the consequences for Serbia of a successful assassination and the consequences for himself for publicly revealing the conspiracy. Instead, he passed along an indirect, opaque message to the Austrian government that never reached Franz Ferdinand's ears.

Almost from the beginning, Franz Ferdinand's visit to Bosnia seemed destined for misfortune. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the ongoing tensions caused by Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina meant that anti-Austrian sentiment was high in the province. Warnings about potential violence were indirect and ignored. And the date set for Ferdinand's visit, June 28, happened to be St. Vitus Day. On that day in 1389, Serbia fell to the Ottoman Empire, and the holiday has been marked by the Serbian people since as a remembrance of sacrifice and resistance ⁠— and there was a strong Serbian element in Bosnia.

June 28 was also an unhappy anniversary for Franz Ferdinand himself. On that day in 1900, he paid for his marriage to Countess Sophia Chotek by signing away his children's inheritance. The oath of renunciation demanded by Emperor Franz Joseph took Ferdinand and Sophia's children out of the line of succession and denied Sophia the same rank as her husband. In most public functions, protocol dictated that she be consequently separated from Ferdinand.

Protocol was not so strict away from the Austrian capital of Vienna, however. Suzanne Lynch in The Irish Times speculates that this may have given the trip an appeal to the ducal couple, in spite of the danger: Sophia would be able to accompany her husband on the trip and be at his side for it.

The initial failure of Young Bosnia's dreams of political assassination left its remaining members despondent after Nedeljko Cabrinovic's arrest. Legend has it that Gavrilo Princip, after learning of the missed chance, retreated to Moritz Schiller's delicatessen to comfort himself with a sandwich. Mike Dash, writing for the Smithsonian, dispels the legend but confirms that Princip was in the vicinity of Schiller's. The deli was on the original route designed for Franz Ferdinand's motorcade.

From a position near Schiller's, Princip and Ferdinand should never have crossed paths after the first assassination attempt. Per History, after reaching city hall, Ferdinand decided to visit the hospital where those wounded by Cabrinovic's bomb were being cared for. He and Sophia set out again along what should have been a new route, but poor communication sent the motorcade down the originally intended path. As they worked to turn around, the archduke's car directly entered Princip's line of fire.

Luck might have been on Ferdinand's side one more time that day. In another Smithsonian article, Dash writes that the crowd was so dense that Princip couldn't make use of the bomb he had on him, leaving him only his gun. Princip later testified that he didn't aim or even turn his head, only firing toward the archduke's car. His blind shots managed to catch Ferdinand in the throat and Sophia in the stomach. Both died within minutes of the attack.

While Gavrilo Princip undeniably took Franz Ferdinand's wife, just how wide the conspiracy against the archduke stretched remains less certain. Princip and his men insisted that the plan was theirs, but they had received support from the Black Hand of neighboring Serbia, per Paul Miller-Melamed in The Washington Post. The Austro-Hungarian government wanted to know if their rival power had been complicit in the assassination (via The Irish Times).

The Black Hand was no secret society. Its leader was also the head of military intelligence for Serbia, Dragutin Dimitrijevic, and it operated in public view. Prime Minister Nikola Pašić's unheeded warning to the Austrian government shows he had at least some knowledge of the plot. When Austria finally issued a response to the murder, it plainly accused Serbia of abetting the actions of groups like the Black Hand.

Miller-Melamed argues for a smaller conspiracy. Dimitrijevic, better known as Apis, was no friend to Pašić. He and the Black Hand attempted a military takeover of the government in 1914 that was only foiled by international efforts. Austria's own intelligence agencies suggested that the Black Hand was a more immediate threat to Serbia itself than the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Apis may not have wanted the assassination to succeed at all, hoping only that the attempt would anger Austria enough to lobby for Pašić's ouster. The risk eventually led Apis to call off the effort — but not in time to stop it.