The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Road to World War I

The year is 1916. A soldier in the Indian army is fighting for the British Empire in Palestine, getting shot at by Germans and Ottomans, all because a Bosnian Serb shot an important man from Austria-Hungary. This absolute mess was the reality of the First World War — a tangled web of alliances and declarations of war that pulled nearly every major power into one devastating conflict.

And it was all because of the death of one man: Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It is difficult to pin the insane complexity of the Great War on one simple act, and the reality is that there were many more factors at play, such as imperialism and nationalism, but there is no denying that the archduke’s assassination played a big role in igniting the European geopolitical powder keg of the early 20th century. The unbelievable circumstances of his death somehow snowballed into one of the deadliest wars in human history.

Franz Ferdinand’s Rise to the Throne

Born in 1863, Franz Ferdinand was raised in one of the most powerful families in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When Franz was just 11 years old, his cousin, Francis V, Duke of several things and Prince of several more, met an untimely fate and left him nearly all of his wealth. This boosted Franz into the high society of Austria-Hungary, instantly making him one of the wealthiest people in the entire empire.

But that wasn’t the only plot twist in Franz’s life. In 1889, another one of his cousins, Crown Prince Rudolf, took his own life, leaving Franz’s father first in line to the throne. But Franz’s father wouldn’t last much longer, passing away from typhoid fever in 1896.

When all was said and done, Franz was now the one in line for the throne. Not only was Franz thrust into one of the most powerful positions on earth at the time, he also subsequently found himself at the center of one of the most complex political situations the world has ever seen. The Russian Empire had just defeated the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War, and in the treaty signed afterward, Austria-Hungary was left in charge of Bosnia, which had previously been ruled by the Ottomans.

In the same treaty, Serbia was granted full autonomy, and soon became known as the Kingdom of Serbia. For the next few years, the Kingdom of Serbia was content with their borders and maintained decent relationships with their neighbors, but especially good relations with Austria-Hungary. But things changed in 1903, when a dramatic coup d’état saw the Royal Serbian Army storm the Serbian Royal Palace and shoot the king and queen a combined 48 times.

The new king they installed, Peter I, wanted to run things differently. The new Serbia shifted quickly into nationalism, and the military was riled up to build its power and reclaim territory that it believed it was owed, trying to create a Greater Serbia.

The Rise of Serbian Nationalism and the Black Hand

Several conflicts erupted in the following years, such as the Bosnian Crisis, which was a rebellion when Austria-Hungary announced official annexation of Bosnia, and both Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913, in which Serbia annexed Kosovo and Macedonia. All of this success encouraged radical Serbian nationalists, who began taking drastic measures to further their agenda. Revolutionary groups began popping up, such as Young Bosnia and Narodna Odbrana, whose goal was to end Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and restore it to Serbia, and they were no stranger to using violence to get what they wanted.

Between 1909 and 1914, there were numerous failed assassination attempts on Austro-Hungarian officials, as well as the attempted assassination of the Governor of Croatia. The most dangerous group, though, was the Black Hand, a society dedicated to the creation of Greater Serbia through the use of terrorism. In fact, the Black Hand’s other name was Unification or Death.

They were a seriously dangerous group, well connected with officials in the Serbian government, and known for their use of political murder. The idea of Greater Serbia was popular among the public at the time, especially after the successful expansion following the Balkan Wars. However, the Serbian government had chilled out a bit, not really intending to go to war again so soon, focusing more on fostering relations with Russia and consolidating power in the regions they had just annexed.

But the Black Hand was impatient, and they believed that the Prime Minister wasn’t doing enough to restore Serbia’s glory, so they began taking matters into their own hands. The Black Hand was separated into numerous cells of three to five men, who knew very little about the other cells. The flow of information was contained to ensure secrecy, all overseen by a central executive committee, led by a man named Dragutin Dimitrijević, better known by his nickname Apis.

Apis was a powerful man, not only in charge of the Black Hand, but also the Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence. Following the annexation of Bosnia, Apis began taking special notice of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who he believed to be a growing threat to Greater Serbia. This was because Ferdinand was possibly planning to incorporate a Slavic kingdom into his empire, which would pacify many Bosnians, Serbs, and Croatians who would no longer see a need to fight once they had a decent amount of representation in their country.

This would be disastrous for the Black Hand’s plans, as they could potentially lose contacts and allies in Bosnia as well as any revolutionary initiative. Apis wanted to act before this future could be realized, and so in 1914 he began recruiting to eliminate the archduke.

Recruiting the Assassins and Crossing the Border

There is a lot of mystery regarding the planning of the assassination. For example, it is not known how the Serbian Prime Minister knew about the plot at all, and it is likely that Apis did not even consult the other leaders of the Black Hand. What is known is who was selected for the mission: Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Čabrinović, and Trifko Grabež, three young men that were members of the Young Bosnia group.

After agreeing to do the job, the three received arms training from members of the Serbian military, which included the use of both firearms and grenades, though because ammunition was so expensive, the training was minimal, consisting of firing a few shots in a park outside of Belgrade. On May 26th, 1914, the Black Hand’s main weapons contact arrived with the gear for the mission, and the three assassins were given Browning FN Model 1910 pistols, six hand grenades, and cyanide pills. Along with this was a stack of money and a special card that would grant the three access to a well-known safehouse where they could then sneak across the border.

It was around this time that the Serbian Prime Minister caught wind of the plot, or at least part of it, and ordered Apis to call it off. Apis apparently made at least some superficial attempt to catch up to his three hitmen, but once they had already crossed the border he apparently could not stop them. Now in Bosnia, the young men needed a way to get to the capital, Sarajevo.

This was made simple with the help of a Serbian Border Guard, who, after seeing their special Black Hand card, gave them paperwork that would help them steal the identity of three customs officials. Under their newly assumed identities, they were able to purchase discount train tickets to Sarajevo. On the way, they stopped in the city of Tuzla, where they stashed their weapons with a member of the Narodna Odbrana.

After boarding the train from Tuzla to Sarajevo on June 3rd, one of the craziest coincidences of this whole story emerged — one of the assassins, Nedeljko Čabrinović, was the son of a Sarajevo policeman, and one of his father’s friends from the same police force was seated right next to them on the train. Čabrinović struck up a conversation with him and was able to casually obtain information regarding the archduke’s upcoming visit, the most important of which was the exact time of their target’s arrival — the morning of June 28th, 1914. The other two were upset with him for standing out so much, but in the end he managed not to draw any suspicion.

The assassins now had a little more than three weeks in Sarajevo to prepare for the moment that would change history.

Preparations in Sarajevo and the Morning of June 28th

After arriving in the capital, the three assassins headed to their respective hideouts. Princip met up with and stayed with a man named Ilić, a prominent Black Hand member who was in on the plot and would be the group leader in Sarajevo. Grabež and Čabrinović both stayed with their families.

There was little to no contact for most of June as the group laid low, and only Ilić knew that there were three additional assassins already in Bosnia: Vaso Čubrilović, Cvjetko Popović, and Mehmed Mehmedbašić. Ilić kept the groups’ identities a secret from each other to avoid damage in case someone was captured by the police or betrayed the cause. On June 14th, Ilić made his way back to Tuzla and picked up the stashed weapons.

He smuggled them back into Sarajevo in a box of sugar, and then hid them underneath his mother’s sofa. Around this time, their job was made a lot easier when Ferdinand’s trip was planned in detail and published in the newspapers, down to the arrival times and streets. This was hoping to draw crowds to see such an important figure, but it would ultimately be his downfall.

On June 27th, the two assassin trios finally met each other and were given their pistols, grenades, and cyanide pills. The next morning, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were en route, taking an early morning train before they planned to drive through the capital for a busy day of public speeches and meetings. When Ferdinand arrived at the train station, there were six cars waiting for him.

Ferdinand and his wife Sophie sat in the third car, while the other five were filled with police officers and local government officials. The first fiasco of the day occurred while everyone was getting in the vehicles, when three local police officers mistakenly sat down in the first car, taking the place of three special security officers who were then accidentally left behind at the train station. Despite Ferdinand’s worries that there might be some danger awaiting him in Sarajevo, the local government declined the military’s request to station troops along the route, thinking that it might offend the city’s population by showing a lack of trust.

So, without the military, security was left in the hands of the local police, which only had a few dozen officers on duty and essentially no formal plan for the archduke’s protection.

The Failed Attempts and Čabrinović’s Grenade

After their first scheduled stop to inspect the military barracks, the motorcade began driving down Appel Quay, where, among a large crowd of spectators, were the six assassins poised to strike. Ilić had positioned them at different points along the side of the road and given them a brief pep talk about courage before the cars arrived. At about 10:00 AM, the motorcade passed the first assassin, Mehmedbašić, who was standing in front of the Mostar Café and armed with a grenade.

But, despite his months of planning for this exact moment, the first assassin froze up and failed to act. Next to him was the second assassin, Čubrilović, who had a pistol and a grenade. But whatever had gotten into the first assassin’s nerves must have also struck the second, and he too froze up, unable to follow through with the plan.

The motorcade continued down the street and passed the third assassin, Čabrinović, who became the first to act. He stepped through a break in the crowd, took aim, and threw his grenade right at the archduke’s car. Unfortunately for him, his throw was just a little off, and the grenade bounced off the convertible cover and fell into the street behind Ferdinand, who continued to drive forward.

By the time the grenade exploded, it was underneath car number four, which it disabled on the spot. It also injured 15 to 20 people, but the archduke was not one of them. Knowing that an entire crowd had just witnessed his act, Čabrinović swallowed his cyanide pill, turned around, and jumped into the river next to the street, determined until the very end.

Unfortunately for him once again, the cyanide in the pills was old, and no longer strong enough to kill, only to induce some vomiting. And his luck really was not with him that day, because on top of all of this, the Miljacka River was all but dried up due to the hot summer, and was only 13 centimeters deep — about 5 inches. After smacking face first into what was essentially a muddy puddle, the police dragged Čabrinović back up to the street, where he was severely beaten by the crowd before being arrested and taken into custody.

Princip’s Fatal Shots at the Latin Bridge

After the explosion, the motorcade picked up the pace and sped off to their next destination, leaving the bombed car behind. The five remaining vehicles sped past the crowds. The other three assassins failed to act, either unable to improvise in the new situation or simply frozen like the first two had been.

In the end, only one of the six assassins had even attempted to carry out the plan. It was an utter failure. Having narrowly escaped the danger, Ferdinand and Sophie arrived at the Town Hall, still shaken up from the ordeal.

Ferdinand even interrupted the Mayor’s speech: “Mr. Mayor, I came here on a visit and I am greeted with bombs. It is outrageous.”

After giving a brief speech, Ferdinand and Sophie decided to postpone the rest of the plans for the day and instead go to a local hospital to visit those wounded by the grenade blast. Governor-General Oskar Potiorek pointed out that the best route to the hospital would once again be along Appel Quay, as it would be wise to avoid the city center in case any other assassins were waiting for them. But this idea never made it to the drivers, and the motorcade turned off of Appel Quay near the Latin Bridge at about 10:45 AM.

When Governor Potiorek, who was riding in the same car as the archduke and the duchess, saw that the cars had taken the wrong turn, he called out for them to stop, causing his driver to slam on the brakes. The car was coming to a stop, and the driver threw it in reverse and accidentally stalled the engine. By some cosmic coincidence, the vehicle rolled to a stop right in front of Schiller’s delicatessen, where one of the assassins, Gavrilo Princip, was standing.

Some sources say he was eating a sandwich at said deli, and while this cannot be confirmed, what is known for sure is what he did next: pulling out his pistol, Princip stepped right up to the edge of the car and at point-blank range fired two shots. One struck the archduke in the neck, the other hit the duchess in the abdomen. Princip then tried to turn the gun on himself but was tackled by police before he could pull the trigger.

The driver began speeding to the Governor’s house to treat their wounds, but it was far too late. The duchess died en route, and the archduke just ten minutes after her.

The Aftermath and the July Crisis

Eventually, every assassin was apprehended, as well as many of the conspirators that aided them with weapons supplies or helped them enter the country. Many claimed to be unwilling participants, though the three original recruits all took full responsibility for their actions, turning their trial into an opportunity to publicly talk about the danger Ferdinand supposedly posed to Serbia. Despite this, they later expressed regret for their participation, saying that they would not have done so if they knew it would spark such a massive war.

Spared the death penalty because of their relatively young age, the three were sentenced to 20 years in prison. And although they later received a letter from the imperial couple’s children forgiving them for what they did, their actions had lit the European fuse, and there was no turning back. Immediately after the assassination, anti-Serb riots broke out in the region.

Across Sarajevo and even in Zagreb, Serbian businesses were looted and razed, and on the first day of riots two Serbs lost their lives. Thousands of Serbs were arrested on the basis of nationality, and hundreds of these would go on to die in prison. Meanwhile, the Austro-Hungarian government was determined to find everyone responsible for Ferdinand’s murder.

To this day there is still some debate about who was responsible. Was it the Black Hand acting on their own, on rogue terms, or was it fully sanctioned by the Serbian military and/or government? It is not exactly clear.

At the time, though, this was not much of a concern to Austria-Hungary, who simply saw all of Serbia as a threat. On July 24th, 1914, Austria-Hungary sent a formal letter to Serbia with several steep demands. These demands included the dissolution of Serbian nationalist societies like Narodna Odbrana, the arrest and extradition of all remaining conspirators on Serbian soil, the permission for Austro-Hungarian officials to open their own investigation within Serbia, and much more.

If Serbia did not agree to these demands within 48 hours, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador would be recalled and diplomatic relations would be officially severed. Serbia responded by accepting a few of the points and rejecting others, as well as mobilizing its army. The next day, Serbian soldiers landed on the Austro-Hungarian side of the Danube River, where Austrian soldiers fired their rifles in the air as a warning.

Things were tense, and Austria checked with Germany to make sure that their alliance was still active, which Germany confirmed. At the same time, Serbia checked with Russia to see if their alliance was still on, which it was.

The Dominoes Fall: From Regional Crisis to World War

On July 28th, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. And thanks to a network of alliances and agreements from the previous century or so, the dominoes started falling quickly. In August, Germany joined Austria, declaring war on Russia and France, who declared war in return.

Germany then invaded Belgium to go around France’s main defenses, which then pulled the United Kingdom into the war. Then Japan, not letting the opportunity slip past, also declared war on Germany. A month later, the Ottoman Empire seized its chance as well and announced its siding with Germany by surprise attacking Russian ports in the Black Sea.

One country after another joined the war, including Bulgaria, then Italy, Portugal, Romania, Greece, and finally the United States. In the end, even China declared war on Germany. It was the war to end all wars, one of the largest conflicts in the history of mankind.

The First World War would lead to the deaths of more than 20 million people, redraw the borders of Europe, and even lend a hand in sparking the Russian Revolution. Its subpar finale and inadequate treaties would then ultimately lead to its own, deadlier sequel. It is easy to say that if Princip had not pulled the trigger that day, none of this would have happened.

It seems that if the archduke had never been killed, the brutal years of muddy trench warfare, the horrifying use of chemical weapons, and unending days of deafening artillery barrages could have all been avoided. But that is an oversimplification. Tensions between the major powers had been rising for decades.

Balkan nationalism was undermining Austro-Hungarian authority across their empire; the Franco-Prussian War had seen the humiliating defeat of France and the loss of some of their territory. The United Kingdom was concerned about one nation offsetting the balance of power in Europe, and Germany felt left out as the rest of Europe pillaged Africa and Southeast Asia. Some historians pin the blame entirely on Austria, who they claim simply used the assassination as an excuse to crush Serbia.

Others pin it entirely on Serbia, while many believe that it was simply bound to happen at one point or another. Resources, nationalism, revenge, and much more were all at play, and it is probably safe to say that even if the archduke had not been assassinated on that fateful day, something else would have inevitably pulled Europe into the flames.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did the Black Hand target Archduke Franz Ferdinand specifically?

Black Hand leader Dragutin Dimitrijević, also known as Apis, believed that Ferdinand posed a unique threat to the goal of Greater Serbia. Ferdinand was reportedly planning to incorporate a Slavic kingdom into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which would give Bosnian Serbs political representation and strip away any revolutionary motivation to fight for unification with Serbia. Apis wanted to act before that future could be realized.

How did Franz Ferdinand come to be heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne?

Ferdinand’s path to succession was shaped by a series of deaths in his family. In 1889, his cousin Crown Prince Rudolf took his own life, making Ferdinand’s father first in line. When his father died from typhoid fever in 1896, Franz Ferdinand became heir. He had not been born into that position, but circumstances thrust him into one of the most powerful roles of his era.

What went wrong during the first assassination attempt on June 28, 1914?

Of the six assassins stationed along Appel Quay, four failed to act at all when the motorcade passed. Nedeljko Čabrinović threw his grenade but it bounced off the convertible cover and exploded under the fourth car, injuring fifteen to twenty bystanders but leaving Ferdinand unharmed. Čabrinović then swallowed his cyanide pill and jumped into the Miljacka River, but the outdated poison only caused vomiting and the near-dry river was only thirteen centimeters deep, so he was dragged out and arrested.

How did Gavrilo Princip manage to shoot the archduke after the failed first attempt?

Princip got his opportunity entirely by accident. After the failed grenade attack, the motorcade changed its route to visit the hospital, but the drivers were not informed and turned off Appel Quay near the Latin Bridge. When Governor Potiorek called out the wrong turn, the driver braked and accidentally stalled the engine — stopping the car directly in front of Schiller’s delicatessen where Princip happened to be standing. He stepped to the edge of the car and fired two shots at point-blank range.

What were the immediate consequences of the assassination for Austria-Hungary and Serbia?

Anti-Serb riots broke out across Sarajevo and Zagreb within hours, with Serbian businesses looted and razed and two Serbs killed on the first day. On July 24, 1914, Austria-Hungary delivered a formal ultimatum demanding that Serbia dissolve nationalist societies like Narodna Odbrana, extradite remaining conspirators, and permit Austro-Hungarian officials to conduct their own investigation on Serbian soil. Serbia’s partial refusal and subsequent army mobilization set off the chain of alliance declarations that became World War I.