*** Today is the birthday of the luckiest assassin in history. Gavrilo Princip was born on July 25, 1894. The story of his assassination of Franz Ferdinand was partly responsible for my love of history and history anecdotes in particular. I first heard the story in 6th grade American History class taught by Sister Vivian. Not only is the story stranger than fiction and thus an example of how history can be just as fascinating as a novel, but it supports the theme that chance plays a role in history.
In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia. This created tensions with neighboring Serbia. Serbia felt the mostly Slavic Bosnia should be part of Serbia. A revolutionary society of students called the Young Bosnians was determined to make that happen. When they learned that the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was coming on a visit to Bosnia, they decided his assassination would rock the boat. Archduke Franz Ferdinand would be accompanied by his wife Sophie. Theirs was a tragic romance. Sophie was from a poor noble family and when they fell in love, Emperor Joseph was totally against the marriage. Franz insisted and was willing to agree to their children being ineligible for the throne. Sophie was ostracized by the royal family and she had to sit far from her husband at banquets. But the marriage was a happy one with several kids. On June 28, 1914, the couple was scheduled for a motorcade through the streets of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Seven members of the Young Bosnians stationed themselves along the parade route. Each was armed with a pistol, an explosive, and a cyanide capsule to commit suicide. When the convertible reached the first assassin, he threw the explosive. It bounced off the back of the car and exploded under the next vehicle. Two army officers and several bystanders were wounded, but Franz and Sophie were uninjured. The assassin leaped into a nearly dry riverbed and took the cyanide, but it just made him sick. He was arrested. The next assassin, the 17-year-old Gavrilo Princip was a couple of blocks away. He heard the explosion and rushed to the site. He saw his friend being arrested and the Archduke very much alive, but surrounded by security. Despondent over the missed opportunity, Princip returned to his stake-out position and wandered into a café to drown his sorrows. Meanwhile, the motorcade proceeded to City Hall, where some speeches were made. When the parade continued, the Archduke decided he wanted to go to the hospital to see the officers who had been wounded. By the time the change in plans were told to the driver, he had taken a turn on the parade route. The Archduke yelled at him to go to the hospital instead. The driver stopped in the middle of the road, right in front of the café. Princip looked up from his drink and saw his dream come true. He quickly walked out to the car and fired a shot into Ferdinand’s neck. Someone grabbed his arm and his second shot hit Sophie in the abdomen. Princip was arrested. The couple were rushed to the hospital with Franz begging Sophie to stay alive for their children. She died on the way and he died in the operating room. Princip was three weeks short of eligibility for the death penalty, so he got 20 years in prison. He contracted tuberculosis and died in 1918. He did not live to see the creation of Yugoslavia – a Slavic nation that included Bosnia and Serbia. It took a world war for this to happen. A world war started because a car stopped in the middle of the road in front of an off-duty assassin.
https://www.history.com/news/the-assassination-of-archduke-franz-ferdinand
Sophie, Franz, and their kids
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