The assassination of Franz Ferdinand
Today is the 110th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. I won’t go too much into detail about it, because what can one say that’s new about an event already so well-chronicled? What I still find so stunning about it is the way that history can turn on the most unexpected events. In summer 1914 the European beer gardens were full and people going about their business relatively quietly until the murder of this one figure that nobody cared all that much anyways sparked a cataclysm. That said, dig a little deeper into the history of the period and things were a little more complicated beneath the surface. The powder keg was there. The shooting of the Archduke and Duchess set off an extraordinary chain of events the consequences of which the world is still facing well over a century later.
(image / Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenburg, with their children prior to the Great War. The husband and wife were both killed on June 28, 1914. Imperial War Museums digital collections.)