Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, occurred on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo when they were mortally wounded by Gavrilo Princip. Princip was one of a group of six assassins (five Serbs and one Bosniak) coordinated by Danilo Ilić, a Bosnian Serb and a member of the Black Hand secret society. The political objective of the assassination was to break off Austria-Hungary's South Slav provinces so they could be combined into a Yugoslavia. The assassins' motives were consistent with the
Treaty of Versailles "Versailles Conference", only the actual signing of the treaty took place at the historic palace. Most of the negotiations were in Paris, with the "Big Four" meetings taking place generally at the Quai d'Orsay. On 28 June 1914 the Bosnian-Serb Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in the name of Serbian nationalism. This caused a diplomatic crisis, resulting in Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia and sparking the First World War. Due to a variety of reasons, within weeks the major powers of Europe—divided into two alliances known as the Central Powers and the