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
Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Austria Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Austria Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Austria, later known as Ferdinand Burg (Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Johann Maria; Vienna, 27 December 1868 – Munich, 12 March 1915) He was the third son of Archduke Charles Louis of Austria and Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination at Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 launched World War I, was his elder brother. He was a major-general in the Austrian Army. Like his brother, in 1909 he concluded an unequal marriage with Bertha Czuber (1879–1979), daughter of Emanuel Czuber. Unlike his brother, he did so without