The Sarajevo Assassination

JUN 28 1914 · 12:00

Police seize a bystander moments after the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, Sarajevo, 28 June 1914. Place: Corner of Franz Josef Street and the Appel Quay, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Figures: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive · Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, his wife · Gavrilo Princip, 19, Bosnian Serb · the Young Bosnia cell · Leopold Lojka, the chauffeur who takes the wrong turn Wrong Turn at Franz Josef Street The Archduke's motorcade is already a survivor by mid-morning. At 10:10 a hand grenade thrown by Nedeljko Čabrinović bounces off the folded canvas roof of the Gräf & Stift and detonates under the car behind, wounding two officers. The cortege accelerates to the Town Hall, where Franz Ferdinand reads his planned speech with the bomber's congratulatory telegram visibly in his hand. He then insists on visiting the wounded officers at the Sarajevo Garrison Hospital. The route is changed; the chauffeur Lojka is not told. At the corner of Franz Josef Street, Lojka turns right, as planned for the original itinerary. Governor Potiorek shouts that it is the wrong way. Lojka stops to reverse. Gavrilo Princip, standing five feet from the running board outside Schiller's delicatessen, fires twice with a Browning 1910. Sophie is hit in the abdomen; Franz Ferdinand in the jugular. Both die within the hour. The Cascade Princip is a member of Young Bosnia, armed and trained by elements of the Serbian Black Hand under Colonel Apis. The Austro-Hungarian response is calibrated to be rejected: a 23 July ultimatum to Belgrade demanding, among other things, Austrian participation in the Serbian investigation. Serbia accepts nine of ten points. Vienna declares war on 28 July. What follows is the first full demonstration that the Westphalian alliance system, designed to keep equilibrium by automatic counter-mobilization, can no longer be stopped once it begins (see [[august-1914-mobilization]]). Five years to the day after the murders, the same dynasty's defeat will be sealed in the Hall of Mirrors (see [[treaty-of-versailles-1919]]). Video: A TimeGhost production with Indy Neidell walking through the 28 June 1914 motorcade route, the wrong turn at Franz Josef Street, and Gavrilo Princip's two shots.