![]() The bombing throws the rest of the day’s plans into disarray. The cyanide is past its sell-by date, and the river is just four inches deep. To avoid capture, Cabrinovic drains a vial of cyanide and throws himself into a nearby river-but his suicide bid fails. ![]() Although several officers in that car are hurt, Franz Ferdinand remains uninjured. It bounces off the limo and into the road, where it explodes under the next vehicle in the motorcade. But the grenade is an old one, with a 10-second fuse. The first to strike is Nedeljko Cabrinovic, who lobs a hand grenade toward Franz Ferdinand’s open touring car. Their opportunity comes when it is announced that Franz Ferdinand will be making a state visit to the provincial capital, Sarajevo.Īrmed with bombs and pistols supplied by Serbian military intelligence, seven conspirators position themselves at intervals along the archduke’s route. A handful of young Bosnian-born Serbs decide to strike a blow for the integration of their people into a Greater Serbia by assassinating the heir to the Austrian throne. It is the summer of 1914, and Bosnia has just become part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The "X" marks the spot where Princip stood to fire into the Archduke's open limo. Moritz Schiller's delicatessen on Franz Joseph Street, Sarajevo, shortly after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. For the most part, it goes something like this: It’s a compelling story, and one that is told in serious books and on multiple websites. It’s an account that, while respectful of the significance of Franz Ferdinand’s death, hooks pupils’ attention by stressing a tiny, awe-inspiring detail: that if Princip had not stopped to eat a sandwich where he did, he would never have been in the right place to spot his target. More specifically, though, we’re talking the version of events that’s being taught in many schools today. We’re talking the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, of course-the murder that set the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire on a collision course with Serbia, and Europe down the slippery slope that led to the outbreak of the First World War a month after Princip pulled the trigger on June 28, 1914. Yet it might never have happened–we’re now told– had Gavrilo Princip not got hungry for a sandwich. 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.It was the great flash point of the 20th century, an act that set off a chain reaction of calamity: two World Wars, 80 million deaths, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the atomic bomb. 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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