The Assassination Of Franz Ferdinand

On the 28th June 1914, history was made in Belgrade when the Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, and his pregnant wife Sophie were fatally shot in their open-topped car. This , and a few other things, ultimately caused The First World War. Here’s how the story supposedly goes. On the evening of the 27th of June, seven terrorists went over there plans to kill the Archduke of the Austro-Hungary empire. They were known as ‘The Black Hand’. Each of them -but the mastermind behind it- were to take their place along the main road of the now published route of Ferdinand and Sophie’s open-topped car.

Their plan was impossible to fail as if one missed or got too scared, the next was able to do successfully kill him.

Gavrilo Princip was at the end of the road due to his bad shot. On the morning of 28th June 1914, each assassin was equipped with a bottle of cyanide and weapons given to them the night before: hand grenades, bombs, pistols and a map of the motorcade route were the weapons given to them.

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Their plan was to kill the Archduke and then kill themselves. Most of the men had nothing to live for as they were dying from tuberculosis; a disease which eats away at your lungs. Danilo Lilc was the brains behind all this although he didn’t want to murder anyone himself. Danilo waited in the crowd to see if his assassins succeeded. The six gang members took their place. The car drove past the first assassin, armed with a bomb, he failed to act.

Next, it passed Vaso Cubrilovic, he too was armed with a bomb and also a pistol, he failed to act. At 10:10 am the open-topped black automobile passed Nedelijko Cabrinovic near the Miljacka River.

He was armed with a bomb which had a ten-second delay; he pulled the pin and threw it at the unprepared officials. Frantically, he swallowed his cyanide and jumped into the river to ensure he died. Fortunately, the bomb did not kill the Archduke but instead bounced off of the car and injured over a dozen bystanders and the people in the car behind them. His suicide attempt failed as the river was only about 13 cm deep. He was arrested and got a sentence of 20 years because he was under 20 years old. The Archduke was unharmed but understandably furious, he ordered his driver to go the town hall to then speak to the mayor. The car sped past three of the assassins but were too shaken to do anything. At the town hall, Ferdinand expressed his outrage to the mayor before finally deciding to go to the hospital to greet the injured. Meanwhile, Danilo re-thought his plans through whilst Gavrilo Princip went to eat a sandwich at the local deli. Whilst he finished off the last scraps, Ferdinand’s car turned the corner to the road he was standing on. Gavrilo pulled out the gun from his coat and as the car reversed to turn back on the correct road, he stepped forward and pulled the trigger twice. One of the bullets fatally shot the Archduke and the other hit his pregnant wife Sophie killing her baby with her. Gavrilo was immediately arrested. He only was sentenced to 20 years in prison as he was still under the age of 20. Although his intentions were only to kill Franz Ferdinand he also killed Sophie -his pregnant wife. All of the killers were caught and arrested. Little did they know is that they are what started The First World War.