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
Princess Sophie of Hohenberg Princess Sophie of Hohenberg Princess Sophie of Hohenberg ("Sophie Marie Franziska Antonia Ignatia Alberta von Hohenberg"; – ) was the only daughter of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, both of whom were assassinated at Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Their assassination triggered the First World War, thus Sophie and her two brothers are sometimes described as the first orphans of the First World War. Princess Sophie was born on 24 July 1901 at Konopiště chateau, in Austria-Hungary, (now the Czech Republic), fifty kilometres south-east of Prague. This chateau, situated in Bohemia, was