franz ferdinand archduke of austria killed by who

That morning, June 28, the archduke sent a telegram to his eldest son congratulating him on his latest exam results. While there, they attracted a crowd of onlookers, including Princip, but were apparently treated with warmth and politeness.įollowing a banquet with religious and political leaders, only one day of events remained before Ferdinand and Sophie were to return home. On a whim, the couple drove in one evening to check out Sarajevo’s bazaars. “Here our car burns, and down there they will throw bombs at us.” After arriving at a spa town a few miles outside of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s capital, Ferdinand attended two days of military exercises while Sophie visited schools and orphanages. “Our journey starts with an extremely promising omen,” he purportedly said when the axles on his car overheated. Having received multiple warnings to cancel the trip, the archduke knew that danger potentially awaited them. To this day, it remains unclear whether the Serbian government participated in the scheme.įerdinand and Sophie departed their estate for Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 23. After practicing with their pistols in a Belgrade park, the three men journeyed back to Bosnia-Herzegovina, receiving help from Black Hand associates to smuggle their weapons across the border. In May, Gavrilo Princip, Trifko Grabez and Nedeljko Cabrinovic traveled to the Serbian capital of Belgrade, where they received six handheld bombs, four semi-automatic pistols and cyanide suicide capsules from members of the so-called Black Hand, a terrorist group with close ties to the Serbian army. Upon learning of Ferdinand’s upcoming visit, the Young Bosnians, a secret revolutionary society of peasant students, began plotting to assassinate him. Formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s population was roughly 40 percent Serb, 30 percent Muslim and 20 percent Croat, with various other ethnicities making up the remainder. Austria-Hungary had just annexed these provinces a few years earlier against the wishes of neighboring Serbia, which likewise coveted them.įerdinand believed the Serbs to be “pigs,” “thieves,” “murderers” and “scoundrels.” Yet he had opposed annexation for fear that it would make an already turbulent political situation even worse. In that capacity, he agreed to attend a series of June 1914 military exercises in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ferdinand remained Franz Josef’s heir and inspector general of the army.

Franz ferdinand archduke of austria killed by who