![]() ![]() The imperial security guards urged the Archduke to leave town immediately, fearing more attempts on his life. But now, with the assassination plot foiled, he contemplated suicide.įranz Ferdinand and Sophia leaving Sarajevo City Hall, June 28, 1914įranz Ferdinand and Sophia arrived at City Hall and endured a reception and speech by the mayor whom the Archduke blamed for the bomb thrower. He was determined to put the little that was left of his life to good use by killing the Archduke. He was a university student with tuberculosis. The youngest, 19-year-old Princip, walked to Schiller’s Delicatessen off Appel Quay on Franz Joseph Street. Cabrinovic sprawled out in shallow water and vomited. Two passengers in that car were wounded.Īs Franz Ferdinand and Sophia’s car sped off to City Hall, Cabrinovic downed his suicide vial and jumped into the river to drown. The grenade bounced innocuously off the convertible cover and landed on the street, exploding under the next car in the procession. But the assassin had failed to take into account the ten-second fuse. It was a direct hit, striking the car’s folded back convertible cover right next to Archduke. The motorcade approached the third assassin, Nedjelko Cabrinovic, who hurled his hand grenade at the Archduke’s car. He would later claim he felt people were watching him. The Archduke’s car approached the first assassin, who got cold feet and didn’t fire. Spread out along the road were six assassins of the Black Hand, each armed with a pistol, a grenade, and a vial of cyanide. The parade route was advertised in the paper, and crowds lined the sidewalks to see the imperial couple. Six cars processed toward City Hall along the Appel Quay, a riverside road through the center of town. The morning troop review itself went smoothly. He disliked bodyguards and tight security. But Franz Ferdinand waved off the danger. “There are assassins lying in wait for you,” the Archduke was told. ![]() Sarajevo seethed with Serbian nationalist resentment against the empire. The trip hundreds of miles from the imperial capital of Vienna would be an anniversary gift to Sophia.īut June 28 also held forebodings. June 28 was, in fact, the couple’s wedding anniversary. Because he would review the troops as an imperial Army officer, not the Crown Prince, Franz-Ferdinand believed his beloved Sophia could accompany him and share the public spotlight with him. Franz-Ferdinand saw in the invitation an opportunity to defy his uncle. As luck would have it, Ferdinand’s driver, who was by this point supposed to be taking an alternate route, went the original way, right where the assassin was waiting, setting off a chain of very unfortunate events for millions of people around the world.In 1914, the governor of Bosnia invited the Archduke to review Army troops in Sarajevo on June 28. A stubborn man, he chose to continue with his plan. It’s also worth noting that Franz Ferdinand was warned to stay put and wait for reinforcements, following an initial failed attempt at his life. As for his nephew’s hobby, the emperor considered it mass murder. The Austrian writer Karl Kraus described the archduke as someone who “was not one who would greet you… he felt no compulsion to reach out for the unexplored region which the Viennese call their heart.” Ouch.įranz Joseph, the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Franz Ferdinand’s uncle, was not a big fan of the hunting aficionado, considering him “silly and ineffectual,” writes History. Source: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Bildarchiv Austria, Inventarnr. What kind of man was Franz Ferdinand, if it’s not clear from the facts so far? Michael Freund, a German historian, called him “a man of uninspired energy, dark in appearance and emotion, who radiated an aura of strangeness and cast a shadow of violence and recklessness… a true personality amidst the amiable inanity that characterized Austrian society at this time.” He even went after porcupines and squirrels when he couldn’t attack the game that he wanted while visiting Yellowstone Park. He also killed other animals like deer-5,000 of them-as well as elephants, emus, kangaroos, koalas, monkeys, tigers and grizzly bears, especially during his trophy hunting World Tour of 1892–1893. While you may call what happened hunting, it was really more like clay pigeon shooting, with the servants supplying and reloading guns, as well as collecting the birds for the archduke. The large number in question consisted mostly of birds like pheasants and partridges, which would be released by the gamekeeper and others in the large posse accompanying the Austrian nobleman. Archduke Franz Ferdinand with his family, his gamekeepers, and his entire entourage. ![]()
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