Question

Assess the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and how it affected Europe.

Answer 1

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is shot to death along with his wife by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on this day in 1914. The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand and Sophie set off a rapid chain of events: Austria-Hungary, like many in countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Slav nationalism once and for all. As Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention–which would likely involve Russia’s ally, France, and possibly Britain as well. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers collapsed. Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

Answer 2

The archduke went to Sarajevo in June 1914 in his attempt to monitor the imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed by Austria-Hungary in August 1908.

A Bosnian Serb nationalist shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie murdering them during an visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo in 1914.

These two murders resulted in a series of events that led to the outbreak of World War I in August.

On June 28, 1919, five years to the day prior to Franz Ferdinand’s death, Germany as well as the Allied Powers signed the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I.