In another time, the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand would have provoked outrage but not war. Coming after two decades of tension within Europe and particularly the Balkans, however, the murder of the Austrian royal became a flashpoint in history.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand generated a wave of anti-Serbian sentiment within the Austro-Hungarian empire. It provided Austrian military leaders, who had long fancied a war of suppression against the troublesome Serbs, with the perfect excuse for one.

Backed by Germany and its strutting, cock-sure Kaiser, Wilhelm II, Austria-Hungary’s aggression catapulted Europe into crisis, threats and war.

Franz Ferdinand

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the nephew of the Austro-Hungarian emperor, Franz Joseph. When the emperor’s only son committed suicide in 1889, Ferdinand became heir to the imperial throne.

Educated in history and the classics, Franz Ferdinand was intelligent, well-informed and more worldly than most. In the 1890s, he had completed a ‘grand tour’ across three continents that included a lengthy stay in Australia.

Ferdinand could also be strong-willed to the point of stubbornness. One example of this was his determination to marry a non-royal, Sophie Chotek, against the advice of his family and political leaders. The marriage was approved but was morganatic, meaning that Ferdinand’s children could not succeed him as emperor.

Liberal views

Ferdinand’s politics were surprisingly liberal, at least in relation to conservatives in the Austrian court.

The Archduke believed that if the empire was to endure, concessions to the empire’s ethnic groups might need to be considered. He also considered the growth of revolutionary movements in the Balkans a byproduct of Austro-Hungarian heavy-handedness.

These views put him at odds with his uncle, the emperor, and Vienna’s conservative political and military elite. It also made Ferdinand’s eventual fate more of a tragedy, since he was one of the few men broad-minded enough to save the ailing empire.

A failed assassination attempt

On June 28th 1914, Ferdinand and his wife were touring Sarajevo, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now the capital of Bosnia.

While in Sarajevo, the royal couple was targeted by a small band of Serbian nationalists, outraged by Austria’s takeover of Bosnia-Herzegovina. No strangers to political violence, a faction of this group plotted to assassinate the archduke in the streets of the city.

At 10.10am, they launched their first attempt. Cabrinovic, a Serbian youth, threw a small bomb towards the open-topped car carrying Ferdinand and his wife – but the bomb bounced harmlessly off the rear of the car and detonated beneath the vehicle following, destroying it and wounding more than a dozen people.

Cabrinovic fled, swallowing a suicide pill and jumping into a nearby river. He could not even get that right, vomiting up the pill and landing in water that was barely ankle-deep. Cabrinovic was soon captured. His collaborators watched as the royal car sped away before slinking away into Sarajevo’s backstreets, thinking their plan had failed.

Princip’s fortune

They would have been right but for some fortuitous luck. Franz Ferdinand interrupted his schedule and ordered a call at the hospital, to check on those wounded in the earlier attack.

After leaving the hospital, his car drove down the wrong street and ended up outside a sandwich shop. One of the assassins, Gavrilo Princip, emerged from the shop, having just bought his lunch.

Spotting the royal car, Princip drew two pistols and fired. His first shot struck the archduke’s wife, Sophie, in the stomach; the second hit Ferdinand’s throat. Again, the car sped away to seek medical help, arriving at the governor’s residence minutes later. Sophie died before she could be removed from the car. Her husband was hauled inside but died on a chaise lounge shortly after.

Austrian outrage

The murder of the heir to the Dual Monarchy triggered a flood of anti-Serb protests and violence in many Austro-Hungarian cities, including Sarajevo itself. Serbian stores and buildings were vandalised and some suspected Serb nationalists were beaten up.

Across Europe, there was widespread shock at the murder. There were also hundreds of messages of support for Vienna and some urging that she should take tough action against the terrorists.

Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were buried in a family castle in Austria, after a private funeral attended by no foreign royals or dignitaries, not even the German Kaiser or Emperor Franz Joseph himself.

Vienna’s ultimatum

The immediate response of the Austro-Hungarian regime was to demand an inquiry into the assassination and those involved, to be conducted on Serbian soil by Austrian authorities. The Serbian government rejected this, declaring that Serbian officials had no involvement whatsoever in the killings and that “the matter did not concern the Serbian government”.

This precipitated the ‘July crisis’: a month of ultimatums, threats and bickering, during which European leaders weighed up the cause for war and peace.

Gavrilo Princip and all but one of his associates were captured, interrogated by Austro-Hungarian authorities and placed on trial. Some were put to death – but since contemporary laws prohibited the execution of anyone under 20, most of the conspirators were given 20-year prison sentences.

Princip was spared because of his age but he suffered terribly in jail, contracting tuberculosis and later having an arm amputated. He died in April 1918, six months before the end of the war he had helped instigate.

A historian’s view:

“The assassination at Sarajevo was certainly the crucial precedent of the European war that its conspirators had sought, but was not the historical cause. Nearly sixty years later Vaso Cubrilovic, who as a historian had taught forty years at the University of Belgrade, insisted that the seven young men were not responsible. ‘The outbreak of the war had nothing to do with individuals. The war had deep roots, including the disruptive effects of rapid industrialisation in old feudal societies … The assassination acted as a lever, prying the various powers into predictable paths.”

J. Bowyer Bell

1. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was an Austrian royal, a nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph and the heir to his throne.

2. The Archduke was intelligent, worldly and liberal-minded, which set him at odds with his conservative family.

3. In June 1914 Ferdinand was touring Sarajevo, Bosnia when he fell victim to a terrorist gang of Serbian nationalists.

4. The assassins were young, nervous and clumsy but one, Princip, stumbled across the duke’s car.

5. Both Ferdinand and his wife were shot in their open-topped car and died within an hour, while Princip and his collaborators were soon arrested. The murder caused outrage around the world.

Title: “Assassination in Sarajevo”

Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Steve Thompson

Publisher: Alpha History

URL: https://alphahistory.com/worldwar1/assassination-in-sarajevo/

Date published: August 20, 2017

Date accessed: September 03, 2020

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