In five minutes
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph I and heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, but he never ruled. On 28 June 1914 he and his wife, Sophie, were shot dead in Sarajevo, the main city of Bosnia, which Austria-Hungary had administered since 1878. That killing is usually seen as the spark for the July Crisis, which pulled the great powers of Europe into the First World War within about five weeks.
Two questions explain the story: who he was, and why a single murder could start a war on this scale. The answer to the second lies in the tangle of alliances, rivalries and mistakes that had built up in Europe for years. Our parent guide, World War I (1914–1918): Causes, Course and Consequences, sets out the wider picture.
Who he was
Franz Ferdinand was born on 18 December 1863 in Graz, in the Habsburg duchy of Styria. His father was Archduke Karl Ludwig, the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph. Like many men of his class, he was raised for a military life and built his career in the army. In 1913 he was appointed Inspector General of the Armed Forces, a post that gave him a say in the readiness of the whole military.
He was also a keen hunter. He is often described as a stubborn man, and his relationship with his uncle the emperor was often strained.
His path to the throne changed in 1889. Crown Prince Rudolf, the emperor's only son, died at Mayerling that January, and Franz Ferdinand moved up the line of succession. His father, Karl Ludwig, was still alive, so the change was not immediate. When Karl Ludwig died in 1896, Franz Ferdinand became heir presumptive, the man who would succeed unless a closer heir was born.
In 1900 he married Sophie Chotek, a lady-in-waiting from a Bohemian noble family who held the rank of countess. The emperor opposed the match. The marriage went ahead only on condition that Sophie would not share his rank and that their children would not inherit the throne. A union of this kind is called morganatic. The couple had three children: Sophie, Maximilian and Ernst.
Franz Ferdinand is often described as wanting more self-government for the empire's Slavic peoples, perhaps by reshaping Austria-Hungary into a state with three main parts. He never had the power to carry such a plan through. Hungarian politicians, ministers and the emperor himself opposed any loss of their influence, and the reforms never happened.
The causes: a crowded and tense Europe
By 1914 Europe was split into two loose camps. Germany and Austria-Hungary were allied, and Italy was formally part of that Triple Alliance, although it stayed out of the war at the start. France, Russia and Britain were linked by the Triple Entente. These alliances were meant to deter attacks, but they also meant that a quarrel between two states could draw in several others.
Three forces raised the stakes. Militarism meant that the great powers built large armies and navies and drew up detailed mobilisation plans, which were hard to stop once started. Nationalism was strong among the Slavic peoples of the Balkans and within Austria-Hungary itself. Imperial rivalry, especially over the Balkans, made each power alert to its rivals' moves. Our explainer on what militarism is and how it led to WWI covers the first of these in more depth.
Austria-Hungary was a multinational state with many languages, and its leaders worried about the loyalty of its Slavic subjects. Serbia's growing influence in the Balkans seemed to threaten that balance, which is why Vienna saw Serbia as a danger.
Bosnia was the sharpest point of conflict. Austria-Hungary had occupied and administered the province since 1878, then annexed it outright in 1908. Many Serbs resented that move. Some of the young men who planned the attack had links to a Serbian secret society called the Black Hand, which helped supply the weapons.
What happened in Sarajevo
The archduke and Sophie travelled to Sarajevo to attend army manoeuvres in Bosnia. The date, 28 June, was Vidovdan, St Vitus Day, which marks the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. For many Serbs it was a day of national memory.
That morning, Nedeljko Čabrinović threw a bomb at the open car. It struck the folded-back cover, bounced into the street and exploded under the car behind, wounding several people. The archduke was unhurt. The visit went on to a reception at City Hall, and afterwards he decided to visit the wounded in hospital.
The change of route proved fatal. The lead car turned into Franz Joseph Street, the archduke's car followed, and the driver had to stop close to the Latin Bridge over the Miljacka river. Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb linked to a nationalist movement called Young Bosnia, was standing nearby. He fired two shots at close range. Franz Ferdinand was hit in the neck and Sophie in the abdomen, and both died within minutes.
Consequences: from murder to war
Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the plot. In early July, Germany assured its ally of its support, a promise historians often call the blank cheque. Vienna then drew up an ultimatum, delivered on 23 July. It contained ten demands and a 48-hour deadline. Serbia accepted most of them but not all, and on 28 July Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
Then the alliance system began to work. Russia moved to mobilise in support of Serbia. Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August and on France on 3 August. When German troops marched into neutral Belgium, Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August. What had begun as a crisis between two countries had become a war between the great powers.
Gavrilo Princip was too young to face execution and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He died in custody in 1918. The war ended with an armistice in November 1918, and the Habsburg monarchy broke apart in the same autumn.
What exams ask
Exam questions often ask why a single assassination led to a continent-wide war. A strong answer separates the trigger from the underlying causes. The trigger was the murder in Sarajevo. The underlying causes were militarism, the alliance system, imperial rivalry and nationalism. Be ready to set out the sequence: the blank cheque, the ultimatum of 23 July, the declaration of war on Serbia on 28 July, and the chain of declarations that followed in early August.
Avoid writing that the archduke's death alone caused the war. It is more accurate to say that the murder gave Austria-Hungary the pretext it wanted to act against Serbia, and that the alliance system turned a regional crisis into a general war.
Read next
- The Sarajevo Assassination (28 June 1914): a closer look at the events of that day.
- Gavrilo Princip: The Assassin of Sarajevo: the young man who fired the shots and what happened to him.
- What Is Militarism? How It Led to WWI: how arms races and war plans raised the stakes.
