Asian Art

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. They were shot at close range while being driven through the provincial capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, formally annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. The incident was one of the key events that led to World War I. Princip was part of a group of six Bosnian assassins together with Muhamed Mehmedbašić, Vaso Čubrilović, Nedeljko Čabrinović, Cvjetko Popović and Trifko Grabež coordinated by Danilo Ilić; all but one were Bosnian Serbs and members of a revolutionary movement later known as Young Bosnia. The political objective of the assassination was to free Bosnia and Herzegovina of Austro-Hungarian rule and establish a common South Slav ("Yugoslav") state. The assassination precipitated the July Crisis, which led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia and the start of World War I. The assassination team was helped by the Black Hand, a Serbian secret nationalist group; support came from Dragutin Dimitrijević, chief of the military intelligence section of the Serbian general staff, as well as from Major Vojislav Tankosić and Rade Malobabić, a Serbian intelligence agent. Tankosić provided bombs and pistols to the assassins and trained them in their use. The assassins were given access to the same clandestine network of safe-houses and agents that Malobabić used for the infiltration of weapons and operatives into Austria-Hungary. The assassins and key members of the clandestine network were tried in Sarajevo in October 1914. In total twenty-five people were indicted. Five of the six assassins were under 20 years old at the time of the assassination, the exception being Mehmedbašić who was 26 or 27. While the group was dominated by Bosnian Serbs, four were Bosnian Croats, one was a Bosnian Muslim and all of them were Austro-Hungarian citizens; none were from Serbia. Princip was found guilty of murder and high treason, but being too young to be executed, was sentenced to 20 years in jail. The four other attackers also received jail terms.

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See also

• ▸Hohhot
• ▸Beamish Museum
• ▸European dragon

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.