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 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