Assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand

Assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand On 28th June 1914, Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated by the Serbian Gavrilo Prinzip. The archduke and his wife were shot, while they were driving around Sarajevo, Bosnia in a car. Prinzip and is friends had been trained and equipped by the black hand, a Serbian nationalist group of terrorists who wanted the Serbians living in Austria-Hungary to be united with them.

There had already been lots of tension between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, mainly because of territorial disputes with the Balkans. By the time Franz-Ferdinand was assassinated, Austria-Hungary already wanted war with Serbia and now they had a good excuse. Austria-Hungary gave Serbia a very harsh ultimatum, of which the fulfillment was the only way to avoid war. The ultimatum consisted of ten points, one of which involved Austria-Hungarian troops marching into Serbia without any resistance and investigating in major Serbian cities. Serbia tried to avoid war by fulfilling eight of the ten points of the ultimatum, but they weren’t ready to accept all of it, thus Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on the 28th of July 1914. This triggered the chain reaction, which led to the First World War.

 The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand probably was a rather small cause, compared to the other causes that led to the First World War, but its role shouldn’t be underestimated. Over the years up to 1914, after lots of different crises and broken agreements, the tension between Europe’s empires had climaxed. The assassination was the tiny bit of provocation needed, to trigger the First World War. However, you could argue that Austria-Hungary just used Franz-Ferdinand’s assassination as an excuse and would be going to war anyways. There are different facts that support this point. First, Franz-Ferdinand wasn’t a very popular figure in Austria-Hungary therefore it is improbable that the whole country would have gone to war if it hadn’t had other goals. Second, if Austria-Hungary would have wanted to avoid war, they could have given Serbia a less harsh ultimatum. Their unfulfillable ultimatum indicates that they wanted the war.





Bibliography: John Keegan- The First World War