Franz Ferdinand

Background

Franz Ferdinand Karl Ludwig Joseph was born on December 18, 1863, in Graz, Austria. He was the oldest child of Archduke Carl Ludwig and Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Ludwig’s second wife. Ferdinand had private tutoring throughout his early education. He was enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army and advanced quickly. Until he was appointed a major general in 1896, he had five promotions. He led the Austro-Hungarian Empire and worked to keep the Habsburg dynasty in power. There were many different ethnic groups in the empire, and Ferdinand favored giving Serbia more autonomy because he was concerned that the suffering of the Slavs would trigger violence in the area. He also opposed overtly nationalist movements that would represent a challenge to the empire.

Crown Prince Rudolf, Ferdinand’s cousin, killed himself in his hunting cabin in Mayerling in 1889. As a result, Karl Ludwig, his father, who died from typhoid fever in 1896, became the first in line for the crown after which Ferdinand prepared to take the crown. Despite this responsibility, he found time for travel and other interests, including his 1892 to 1893 circumnavigation of the globe. Countess Sophie Maria Josephine Albina Chotek von Chotkova und Wognin was the first woman Ferdinand fell in love with and in 1899, after much discussion, they were wed. They wed on the condition that Sophie agreed that she and her children would not inherit any of her husband’s titles, privileges, or property. The couple had four children, one of whom died due to a miscarriage.

The governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina, on Austrian territory, General Oskar Potiorek, invited Ferdinand to Sarajevo in 1914 to examine the troops and on June 28, 1914, Ferdinand and his wife made the journey. Unbeknownst to them, Ferdinand’s assassination during that visit had been arranged by the Black Hand, a Serbian revolutionary organization. On June 28, 1914, a member of the organization threw a grenade at the couple as they were walking from the train station to the City Hall. The grenade instead struck the car behind them, critically injuring two occupants, when the driver accelerated after spotting something speeding through the air. Ferdinand and Sophie decided to visit those injured by the grenade at the hospital after meeting with Potiorek at City Hall. However, their driver took a false turn and sped straight past Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Black Hand, who pulled out a gun as the automobile slowly reversed out of the roadway and fired several shots into the vehicle, striking Sophie in the stomach and Franz Ferdinand in the neck. Before reaching the hospital, they both died. In the Austrian royal residence Artstetten Castle, Ferdinand was interred next to his wife. The vehicle in which they were assassinated is on exhibit, together with Ferdinand’s bloody uniform, at the Museum of Military History in Vienna, Austria.