Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were in Bosnia to observe military maneuvers of the Austro Hungarian
CHAPTS THE POWDER KEG Surrounded by the citizens of Sarajevo Bosnia a young man named Gavrilo Princip stood along a road waiting for a motorcade to pass by It was June 28 1914 and the crowd had gathered to see Archduke Franz Ferdinand heir to the throne of the Austro Hungarian Empire Unlike most of the other people in the crowd Princip was not there to cheer the leader He had a different purpose and he had a pistol in his pocket In addition to Princip five other young assassins stood along the vehicle's path each armed with a gun a grenade or both These men along with a few other conspirators had spent months planning for this day Franz Ferdinand was everything these young radicals hated He was a royalist and an elitist furthermore he represented the interests of Austria Hungary To the frustration
of Bosnian Serbs such as Princip and the other assassins Austria Hungary had annexed the province of Bosnia from the THE BALKANS The Balkan Peninsula is a region in southeastern Europe bordered by the Adriatic Sea to the west the Aegean Sea to the south and the Black Sea to the east The region is commonly known as the Balkans Today it includes the nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina Montenegro and Serbia But for the decades leading up to World War I these areas were controlled by various imperial powers including Austria Hungary and the Ottoman Empire Ottoman Empire in 1908 Though the archduke's path through Sarajevo had been published in newspapers months ago Princip did not know whether he would have a shot at Franz Ferdinand that day There had already been one unsuccessful attempt on the archduke s life earlier that morning But the other assassins had missed their chances one managed to throw a bomb but it damaged a car behind the archduke causing no casualties After that local security forces quickly whisked the statesman inside the town hall and planned an escape route Franz Ferdinand's security team changed the archduke's route out of the ci At first they drove out of town quickly making it difficult for any would be gunmen to take aim But one of the drivers did not know about the alternate route After crossing a bridge the confused driver came to a stop right in front of Gavrilo Princip who found himself within a few feet of the man he had come to
Princip raised his pistol The archduke's driver saw the gun and tried to back up the car The engine stalled and the car did not move A man tried to shield the archduke and his wife but he was on the other side of the car Princip had a clear line of sight and he fired twice The first bullet hit Franz Ferdinand in the second shot the neck The hit archduke's wife Sophie in the abdomen Both died DIPLOMATIC MISSTEPS LEAD US TO CONFLICT The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand set in motion a flurry of diplomatic actions across Europe Believing Serbia was responsible for Franz Ferdinand's uniform was covered in blood after the
