Causes of World War I corrective." British Diplomat Arthur Nicolson wrote in May 1914, “Since I have been at the Foreign Office I have not seen such calm waters.” On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead, by two gun shots in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, 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 assassination is significant because it was perceived by Austria-Hungary as an existential challenge
Danilo Ilić Mehmedbašić, and Cvjetko Popović to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, which it that led directly to World War I. He and Gavrilo Princip were close friends. On Sunday, 28 June 1914, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie von Chotkow were assassinated by Gavrilo Princip. Princip and Nedeljko Čabrinović were captured and interrogated by the police. They held out, but Ilić, who was picked up on a routine check, eventually broke down under pressure and named his fellow conspirators. Muhamed Mehmedbašić managed to escape to Serbia but Veljko Čubrilović, Vaso Čubrilović, Cvjetko Popović and Miško Jovanović as well as Danilo Ilić were