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 Joseph Franz of Austria Archduke Joseph Franz of Austria Archduke Joseph Franz Leopold of Austria (9 April 1799 – 30 June 1807) was the second son and seventh child of Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily, daughter of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and his wife Maria Carolina of Austria. He was their fourth child to die. Archduke Joseph Franz was born at the Hofburg Imperial Palace, where all of his older and younger siblings were born. He was the seventh child born to his parents: Marie Louise was born in 1791,