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
Archduke Franz Salvator of Austria Archduke Franz Salvator of Austria Archduke Franz Salvator of Austria, in Italian Francesco Salvatore Maria Giuseppe Ferdinando Carlo Leopoldo Antonio di Padova Giovanni Battista Gennaro Lodovico Gonzaga Raniero Benedetto Bernardo, in German Franz Salvator Maria Joseph Ferdinand Karl Leopold Anton von Padua Johann Baptist Januarius Aloys Gonzaga Rainer Benedikt Bernhard (Altmünster, 21 August 1866 – Vienna, 20 April 1939), was a member of the Tuscan branch of the House of Habsburg. He was a son of Archduke Karl Salvator, Prince of Tuscany and his wife Princess Maria Immaculata of Bourbon-Two-Sicilies. He was a cavalry general in the Imperial and Royal