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
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand president Heinz Fischer was the guest of honour. The World War I commemorations were boycotted by Serb nationalists and dignitaries, who, along with Bosnian Serbs, view "Princip as a hero." On the 100th anniversary of the assassination, a statue of Gavrilo Princip was erected in East Sarajevo. This was followed by another statue in Belgrade, which was erected in June 2015. Serbian history textbooks deny that Serbia or Princip were responsible for starting World War I, laying blame on the Central Powers instead. Milorad Dodik acknowledged that Bosnia is "still divided", but maintained that Princip was a "freedom fighter" and