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
Emanuel Cvjetićanin Cvjetićanin and others. He would attend the Theresian Military Academy, and later the family would move to Udbina in Lika. During the Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which lasted from 1878 to 1882, Cvjetićanin was the main organizer of the gendarmerie in Sarajevo. He received numerous decorations, including the Order of Maria Theresa, with which he received the title of baron, the "Knight's Cross", and the Military Merit Cross. He was the first adjutant of Emperor Franz Josef I and was in a second car behind of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo when Gavrilo Princip assassinated him. King